BY JUAN PABLO AGUILAR AND GUILLERMO RIVERO
TRANSLATED BY MEGAN MCDOWELL
PHOTOS BY RAMIRO CHAVES


LOURDES
A resident since December 2007, Lourdes is still turning tricks. She had been living in the street and a friend invited her to come and stay in the home. At first she doesn’t want to talk about her life, but with a little gentle prodding she agrees, especially when it comes to talking about the previous director of Xochiquetzal: “The old director didn’t let us go out to work, she said she didn’t care if we needed money. Every 15 days we had to give 100 pesos for gas and another 100 for the stove, and if we didn’t pay she didn’t let us take baths. She intimidated us. Once, I threatened her. I told her I was going to the authorities to charge her with holding me prisoner.

“With Rosalba, the new director, it’s different. We all work together. We’re happy, even though when the old director left we lost some supplies. Before, we would get supplies from outside, but not anymore. Sometimes there’s no onion or tomato, but Rosalba gets by without asking us for anything. I don’t know how she does it.”

For Lourdes, it’s better to work in the mornings. Although she dresses like anyone else, in Tepito people identify her: “The men know who tricks and who doesn’t. Sometimes I go out to the store on an errand, and suddenly someone surprises me from behind, asking me to go to a hotel. I refuse and they beg, even if it’s just a little while in the park. I say no, because when I go out to the shop I’m not working.” According to Lourdes, it’s not about the time, but about duty: “Clients usually don’t take long, five or ten minutes. They’re ‘in and out,’” but duty (such as shopping for the house) comes first.

A childless widow, Lourdes saw selling her body as the only means of survival. She complains that people think prostitution is the easy way out, but that they don’t understand its problems—especially those that come with age: “You have to just take everything, like disrespectful clients who ask for things rudely. I’m old, but come on, it’s not such a big deal.”

When she started out in the trade, ten years ago, Lourdes got three or four clients in a working day. Now, when she’s lucky, she gets one: “I don’t think I’ll keep doing this much longer. I’ll do something else, even if it’s just washing dishes. I also don’t think I’ll stay in the nursing home much longer. I feel a need to be alone.”


TO BE CONTINUED
HOUSE OF THE SETTING SUN | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |

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