Homeless

This is a shock, especially for gringos -- and even gringos who have been living in Mexico City for 8 months -- seeing people with missing limbs or serious injuries. You see them in tourist areas, on busy streets and especially in the metro. I've seen blind people board the train and sell pirated CDs, a homeless person with exposed wounds and bloody, un-bandaged stumps panhandling with a dirty styrofoam cup and a paralyzed man pulling himself along on a hodgepodge skateboard functioning as a bed on wheels in the crowded Zocalo.

Poverty and homelessness are heartbreaking, uncomfortable and ugly, but they exist everywhere. You seem to see more of it in Mexico City than in other places. According to Ahmed, for a long time, Mexico City was the only hope for the country's poorest and most desperate. The U.S. as well, but with the capital being the most viable, millions flooded into the Valle de Mexico. Wikipedia says Greater MxC grew intensely until the 1980s, and population growth stabilized. With all of those people coming in, many were left with nothing.

Below is a photo of a woman I saw last week at the Chabacano metro station -- on the blue line, the most comfortable line of the metro system, and also the one that passes through many tourist areas -- who was walking on the platform. I don't know what she was doing, but I took her photo from the other side