I’m trying not to get my hopes up, but I think I may’ve found Rosa! It finally, after all this time, hit me to try Mexican phone records so I checked online. The sites were in Spanish, so knowing the Spanish I know helped a great deal. Swearing she told me she lived in Guerreros, I put in a search for her husband’s name, assuming she’s still married. Amazingly, one of the results which displayed a phone number and an address had both their names! How I hope it’s her! If it isn’t, I don’t have a clue as to what I should try next. All I know is that I’m tired of wondering where she is and what her life is like. Is she happily married? Unhappily married? Divorced? I picture the poor girl living in a cheap, dumpy, roach-infested apartment with tons of people and noise. By now she must have a few kids as Mexicans breed like rabbits. I don’t know how they do it; perhaps the females ovulate more or the males have more sperm or more potent sperm, but where there’s 1 there are usually 50 more. I don’t know why they’d have such large families with so little money, but despite my lack of fondness for them in general, Rosa’s an exception. I don’t care what her lifestyle is because I love and miss her all the same.

Rosa was about 21 in 2000 and not very bright, but most people that age aren’t. I highly doubt she has a computer or could afford to call the States much. International calls are super expensive, so as Tom and I agreed would be best, I typed a letter in Spanish to her. If it is her, we may be able to get a phone contract deal at some point, but I don’t know about visiting. My Spanish isn’t good enough to give good enough directions for them to come to me (unless Rosa’s forbidden to enter the US) and I don’t know that they’d be smart enough to follow a map. It’s also very far away so we may not even be able to go to them. Guerreros is way down there by Acapulco.

If it’s her, I hope there’s a chair or a couch nearby when she reads my letter because she’ll faint with shock for sure. I assume, and I certainly hope, that she’ll be delighted to hear from me. Here’s a copy of my letter to her which basically says that I knew Rosa in Estrella jail in December of 2000, we were good friends, like sisters, and I miss her very much. I said I didn’t want to say much in the letter till I knew whether or not it was her, but that I hoped so! Then I explained that I found her number through a Mexican online directory, that Tom and I were well and I hoped she was, too. I said we lived in a rural town an hour south of Phoenix and that I’d love to hear from her. I enclosed 3 ways to contact me – email, the PO box, and my cell phone, though I think she’ll choose to write if it’s her.

Later…

Tom set my word processor up so I could set it to Mexican Spanish. That way I can have its spell checker insert the proper punctuation. I even wrote Mom a letter in Spanish using it.

I didn’t realize just how big Mexico was. I thought Rosa was a matter of hours away, not days! Yet she’s about as far away as Massachusetts is to me. Mexico’s huge. No wonder there are so many damn Mexicans!

Tomorrow my letter will go out to Rosa. I hope it won’t cost much to mail. I doubt it will. Not compared to a phone call anyway. I wonder how long it’ll take to reach her. I just hope it really is her! I’d love to hear from her and be pen pals with her. I just hope she doesn’t turn out to be one of those who can’t write without asking for something if it is her.