A month before Conagua yielded part of its lands over for the construction of the New Mexico City International Airport, we went to pay a last visit to the animals, trees, and plants still found in that lot. We grew familiar with some of the species which had slowly adapted to the place. We observed the salty, grassy plateaus which were populated by conifers, rosemary, hares, and packs of wild dogs that fled the humans. By the tip of this triangle adjacent to Ecatepec, we saw some ponds formed by the August rain, covered with different bird species: at the edges, under the stones, black widows and snails peeped out. Flies swarmed inches away from the water. In the old water still, built next to the ponds, the water currents from neighborhood markets deposited seeds on the ground, spawning tomatoes, chards, chili, melon, and innumerable herb species. We turned around and found the rubble of the booths built by the National Water Commission to guard the proper behavior of this self-balancing, autonomous ecosystem. Other constructions erected by the State stood every few kilometers, already crumbling and confused with the dust wafted by the ground. Behind the rubble of these old (though recent) constructions, the road rollers and bulldozers returned the soil to its arid state, sweeping and stomping the land. [...]
Thing
in ENCYCLOPEDIA