Dead bodies in the streets, looking for basketball courts

The world forgot about Juárez. I never will.

I stood on the bridge in the background of this picture. I could see her limp body. Some local Mexicans walked by as if they had seen it before. They had seen it before.

Cartel members killed Leslie Enriquez and her husband in their car and in front of their infant daughter. Leslie was pregnant; her fetus was also killed. She worked at the US Consulate.

This was Juárez at the height of the drug war.

The US Government carted me around that day in a bulletproof Suburban, as I looked for outdoor courts in need of TLC. I went back again and again because I met people who wanted to build something special. But eventually the USG’s budget didn’t meet my demand to keep visiting. I think they figured I was it in for the short-term.

I started renting Chevy Impalas in El Paso, TX. They looked like undercover cop cars. I figured it would thwart potential attacks. Who knows if it worked. Driving through Juárez alone horrified me.

It took five years to start a league there for kids who lived among 15-murders-per-day violence. Then I hit a fundraising wall.

I started having to spend my own money, and not Full Court Peace’s, because I couldn’t raise money for the cause back in Connecticut. I had just finished a project in Ireland, perhaps the easiest country to fundraise for, but the everyday Mexican’s needs didn’t catch.

During my last visit, my main Juárez contact - a priest-slash-coach in the Lupita section of town - lost his brother to the violence.

“Hay que seguir adelante,” he said. We have to keep moving forward.

I never went back after that, and it remains unfinished business for me.

Juárez left the news, and cartels may forever rule the land.