Shrine

This shrine is located in a small room in one of the short-term hotels in Zona Norte where the girls take clients.

Glam Shot in Tijuana #1

Tina in a quick pose on Revolucion. She is a transsexual from Costa Rica, but has also lived in the US in North Carolina.

Tina getting pretty

We ducked into a bar in Plaza Santa Cecelia and Tina fixed her makeup.

Tina near Hong Kong

On the streets of Zona Norte in front of Hong Kong Club that was celebrating their anniversary that day.

The Floor Show

When I mentioned I wanted to take a picture of her under the Floor Show sign, she immediately ran over to the doorway and fell out on the sidewalk as a "floor show".

Untitled: Tina

Overall, Tina had a great sense of humor and we spent a lot of time laughing. This is her room for the day. It's in a hotel in Zona Norte and she pays about 6.50 USD for it daily. The graffiti on the walls was there already.

Tina's Chichis

Tina has implants and the men she's with often want to suck on them. She showed me this pacifier that she pulls out when they try and do that and she rubs it on the bottom of her shoe and tells them to suck this instead. I mentioned that she could probably charge more for doing that and she said she does...

The Eyes Have It

She was dancing and tossing pesos as a part of a joke from earlier in our day together.

Dancer Interrupted

Tina: Bare

The Chiclet Vendor and The Dancer

From Zona Norte - he sells Chiclets gum on the street.

Alex

Alex speaks excellent English. He is coy about what he does and where he's from but he's lived here at the Kumbala for many years. After we got to know each other a bit more, he told me he's a writer and is working on writing a mystery novel. He explained the storyline to me and frankly, I think it is brilliant. It's not finished yet.

Tuesday: Untitled 82

My fixer had asked me to not show his face in the photos I was taking but he also had a small throwaway camera and said I could shoot his face with that one. However, I was using my wide angle and as you see, there are several shots with his face. We discussed it today on the phone and he said it was fine to use whatever shots I took. He just didn't want his stateside wife/girlfriend to see the photographs.

Tuesday: Untitled 118

The Payoff

Plaza Santa Cecelia #1

Lots of vendors and musicians populate this plaza on the weekends. On a Tuesday, it was fairly quiet.

Jessica shares her work

She likes to create collages and was excited to show us her work.

Worse, much worse, is coming

Jessica's self-portrait collage.

Jessica and J-Lo

We went to Jessica's "apartment". She pays 160pesos/night to live there - about $10 USD. Unlike Gabby's apartment, Jessica's has a bathroom in the room, though the toilet doesn't work right now. A J-Lo shoebox was on her bed. She opened it up and showed us all her used needles. She keeps them to swap out at the clinic. They will allow the addicts to trade in three used needles a day for new ones.

The Touch

Prep work

Go.

The Strands

Jessica began to tell us that she had fallen a few days prior and she had cut her foot on some glass and these "very very tiny little almost invisible strands" that were wound all over her hands and in her eyebrows and on her feet. She told us she had trouble getting them all off of her and that people thought she was crazy when she would talk about these tiny strands and try to show them to people on her hands. She claimed that she could still feel them all over her appendages and eyebrows. As such, she has pulled out most of her eyebrows attempting to "remove the strands". This is a manifestation of Morgellons Disease, which is believed to be psychosomatic in nature.