Slow Baja - Sandra Dibble Foreign Correspondent And Host Of The Border City Podcast

Episode Date: April 29, 2022

Sandra Dibble is a veteran reporter who worked as a Tijuana-based foreign correspondent for the San Diego Union-Tribune for 28 years. She earned a master's degree in Journalism from Columbia University and worked at The Miami Herald for nearly a decade. Dibble was part of a team awarded the Pulitzer Prize in national reporting for uncovering the Reagan administration's clandestine support of the Nicaraguan Contras. She wrote about Oaxaca, Mexico, for The National Geographic. She hosts the Border City Podcast for the Union-Tribune. "Border City: A podcast about beauty, violence and belonging in Tijuana from a journalist who spent more than 25 years reporting at the border. In this eight-part podcast, Dibble introduces listeners to Tijuana the way she was introduced to it — through the news stories she covered but also through her personal connections in the city's cultural community and her friendships with ordinary Tijuanenses." -The San Diego Union-Tribune Border City is available wherever you find podcasts. Follow Sandra Dibble on Twitter Follow Sandra Dibble on Instagram  Follow Sandra Dibble on Facebook

Hello, hello, Ola, Como Stas, Slow Baja Amigos? Today's heaping dose of gratitude goes out to my beautiful wife, Amy, who I'm going to let you peek behind the curtain here, folks. She's the one. She's the one that keeps the whole Emory family show on the road. She's the one that keeps kids in college roof over our head, dogs fed, gas and old vehicles. She's the one, and I want to publicly acknowledge it to my Slow Baja compadres. If you're enjoying the show, it's Amy's hard work that allows me to do this.

So I just want to say, thanks, babe. I am on my way today to Ensenada for the Nora Mexican 1000. I can't believe the year we've had since last year's event where I had to bail out at the last minute to this year's slow Baja safari class sold out 25 vehicles rolling down the peninsula with me, showing them the way. It's going to be a lot of fun. Follow along at nora.com. Turtle Wax is sending Sam Hurley down so you can follow along in stories at Turtle Wax on Instagram. Facebook. It'll be a terrific event and I cannot wait. Today's show is with Sandra Dibble. Sandra Dibble is a veteran reporter for the San Diego Union Tribune, now retired from 28 years where she was there. Tijuana correspondent. And unlike her colleagues, Sandra lived in Tijuana. And she has produced a beautiful new podcast called Border City. And you can find that wherever you find your podcasts. And I have devoured the first three episodes, listened to them all at least twice, if not three times.

And I've enjoyed it immensely. And on this trip to Baja, I reached out to Sandra. And she was kind enough to meet me yesterday. And we recorded a show where she gets beyond the violence. into the beauty and the belonging of Tijuana, and I hope you tune in, and I hope you enjoy it. And without further ado, Sandra Dibble. Hey, this is Michael Emery. Thanks for tuning into the slow Baja. This podcast is powered by Tequila Fortaleza, handmade and small batches, and hands down my favorite tequila. Hey, I want to tell you about your new must-have accessory for your next Baja trip. Benchmark Maps has released a beautiful, beautiful Baja.

California Road and Recreation Atlas. It's a 72-page large format book of detailed maps and recreation guides that makes the perfect planning tool for exploring Baja. Pick yours up at benchmark maps.com. Sandra Dibble, say hello. Hello, hello. Hello, hello. There you go.

All right, you've got your radio voice on. You do something, Voice of San Diego I was reading about you? Oh, I do this thing called the Border Report at Voice of San Diego. It comes every other week out every other week. It's a newsletter. It's not major reporting. It's a newsletter. Well, you've done major reporting.

I have done major reporting. Yeah. Are we recording yet? I just turned it on just to make sure that last night I was recording one and I forgot to turn it on. Oh, okay. Which is good as with a friend. Okay. So I could go, you know, false start and turn it on again.

So, Sandra, thanks for saying yes and making some time for slow Baja. And if you don't mind, let's just, I'll ask you some questions and you can tell me some answers and we're turning the tables on a journalist who's usually doing the question asking. That's true, but I'm looking forward to this. All right, terrific. Well, it's Slow Baja. I'm in San Diego on my way to the Nora Mexican 1000. And I've been listening to this fabulous new podcast called Border City by Sandra Dibble. And I just had to reach out to her to see if there's any chance that I could get together and talk.

to her about her life in Tijuana. You've spent, what, 28 years reporting on the border? 28 years. I came in 1994, and I'm still sort of reporting. I'm dabbling. I'm not full-time reporting anymore. And you were working for the San Diego Union Tribune. Yes, I sort of formally retired from the San Diego Union Tribune in September of 2020, but I've kept working on this podcast, which has just been released, what, this month. And I've listened to to all three episodes twice in the trailer three times. Thank you. No, it's really terrific.

I'm grateful for every listener. No, it is really terrific. And I'm often finding myself talking about Tijuana, and I'm not terribly knowledgeable on Tijuana. I have the, I have 80s college drinking, you know, blurred memories. Yeah. And then I didn't spend any time there for years. And now when I go, it just seems like there's so much happening.

Oh, yeah. I mean, there's a city and, yeah. the music scene, the arts scene, the culture. It just seems like it's a place that I want to spend a lot of time. The sports scene, the Cholo soccer team. The Cholo soccer team. And you've got baseball there, so I need to get down. Well, let's get the introductions introduced here. Sandra Dibble, you're a veteran reporter for the San Diego Union. You've got this great new podcast. I'm talking to you live in person downtown San Diego and your editors, we're in the billiards room of your editors high rise. We've got a fellow getting some miles in on a

bicycle there, which you might hear in the background, but Border City podcast, a podcast about beauty, violence, and belonging in Tijuana. Let's jump into that. That sums it up, right? Well, you said you started there in 1994. That was kind of a crazy year. It was, it was a very big year for Mexico and also the U.S.

NAFTA went into, I was launched in January, 1994. Bill Clinton was president. In Mexico, that was an election year. And right after I took the job, I hadn't arrived yet, the major presidential candidate was assassinated in Tijuana. So that was Luis Dinaldo Colossio. Exactly. He was the pre-PRI candidate, which made him basically a shoe-in for the job. So, yeah. And he was attending a rally in a sort of poor working class colonia called Lomas Taudinas, and he was shot there. I was not there.

My colleague Greg Gross was. But, yeah, and in a way that sort of put Tijuana on the map, the way Dallas has been on the map, with the assassination of John F. Kennedy. It was a magnissidio, they called it. I put the international spotlight on Tijuana in not a very pleasant way. Exactly, exactly. So, 94, you've got NAFTA in January, you've got... the tequila crisis at the end of the year with the devaluation of the peso you've got the top

politician political candidate for president getting gun down in what april or something march april police chief got and then the police chief so i got too what else are we forgetting the rise of the ariano felix cartel a few other things right the aryano felix cartel had kind of risen by this point and we're in we're extremely powerful um they they sort of began to rise in the 80s. And I think here in the 90s, mid-90s, they're at the peak of their power. And it's before they were being arrested or killed one by one.

So it was an intense time. I didn't come to cover all this. I didn't come with this idea. I just thought I would be coming and covering a cool city and right next to San Diego. And I did not come with the idea that I was going to be a law enforcement reporter or writing about big crimes.

My office mate Greg Gross was writing mostly about that, but there was no way of avoiding it because they were so big. We all were called into action when something big happened. So let's back up for just a little bit. You were born in Egypt. I was born in Egypt. My dad was a foreign service officer, so. So you've lived a few places?

I have. I was born in Egypt, and my mom was sort of a Swiss Greek from Egypt. and we did move around all my childhood. My early education was in Switzerland and in French. And then what, seventh grade was in Damascus, Syria. But all my high school has been in the U.S. and college. And were you fluent in Spanish before you took the post? No.

I mean, yes. Yes, I'm not native, but I'm pretty fluent. I went to high school in Washington, D.C., and I took a really, really excellent Spanish high school class taught by a Spanish Civil War refugee called Guillermo Supervilla. And I just learned to love Spanish in high school and have been speaking it ever since. My formal education ended in high school. Well, you're the only person who I've ever spoken to who actually learned Spanish in their high school Spanish.

It's true. It's true. Nobody is funny. I wish I had retained some of it. I learned it in the long bar in Tijuana, I think, is where I learned to speak Spanish and sip tequila. So you were somewhat prepared. You had some experience around the world, seeing how different societies organized themselves from Switzerland to Syria. No, I was a kid. No, more specifically, I went to Columbia Journalism School.

I had worked at UPI in Mexico City for a summer. Then I worked for 10 years in Miami. Then I worked for three years at National Geographic. And when I was at National Geographic, I covered the Wauaca story. I wrote the Wauaca story for them. And I had a fellowship, which this was key at USC in the late 80s. It was a year-long fellowship where we spent like nine months on campus at USC and then three months in Mexico. So it was just being immersed in the history and the politics of Mexico.

And you said, so when you say you wrote the Oaxaca story, you wrote the Oaxaca story for National Geographic. I did. So you've got some real chops. Yeah, if I can flatter you early on in the podcast. But then come the Zingers, right? Yeah, no, I'm not big on the Zingers. So again, getting to this posting, 1994, you were you working for the San Diego Union Trib in, was it the Union and the Tribune separate newspapers at that time? No, but by then they'd combined. They were the Union

Tribune. It was the evening and the morning paper. By the time, they'd already been combined for like five years or something. Yeah, they were separate when I was a college kid down here. So were you working for one of the union in D.C. or were you, did you get hired to become the Oh no, I left. I was at the National Geographic. I left my job to come and take this job here in Tijuana to cover the Tijuana Bureau, which was just a little dusty little office in Tijuana with two people. So. Well, about that time, Tijuana came out as the most violent city in the world. Back then already?

Was it then? No, no, no, no. Was that late 90s? Violence was kind of bubbling up. I don't remember all these classifications about Tijuana being the most violent city until. So this is what I'm getting to. So when you took this job, how did you explain it to your family? I'm going to Tijuana.

What was the impression? I mean, if you said you were going to San Diego, people have a, oh, Sunny, they've seen it on TV, they know it's lovely. You know, it's going to be great, Sandra. But you say you're going to Tijuana when you're talking to your family in D.C., I'm imagining they're saying, what are you thinking? Probably, probably. I mean, it was mostly my mother, probably, who was not thinking it was a great idea. It was a bit like, you know, jumping off the deep end. But I did it.

Well, we just recapped a little bit of the 1994 violence, and your podcast set up is a podcast about beauty, violence, and belonging. So let's get on to, I just want to say I'm intrigued by the beauty and the belonging part. Yeah. The other part of the story we've heard. We've heard it. Yes. But maybe you'll hear it a different way in this podcast, I hope.

Yeah, I hope so as well. But let's get on to the beauty and the belonging. Okay. I think you've shared a little bit about on the podcast. You've shared a little bit about the friends you've made there. I have. The people who've taken you and his family. Which has made all the difference.

I mean, Tijuana is not just a story to me, right? It's a life. Yeah. So let's jump into a little bit of that. Your arrival. You're working in a dusty little office, as you said. are your colleagues from the paper residing in Tijuana? Are you the only one?

I'm the only one. Gregory Gross was there at the time, and he was covering the Ariano's and doing more law enforcement coverage, and he would drive down every day from San Diego. And then there was a photographer called John Gibbons, who had been covering the border for a long time. He was also based in San Diego. So really, we were the core, and then there was an editor. who was very passionate about the border called Ada Bustos in, you know, working out of San Diego.

And what made you decide to live there? Oh, wow, because I was making such a drastic move, so I thought I had to just do it all the way. I mean, I had already been a local reporter. And so if I came to T1, I could be a foreign correspondent, right? It's the same job, right? Yeah, you just flip it around. Yeah, yeah. I'm a foreign correspondent.

Hello? it. All right. And so back to the beauty and the belonging. You've, you've been taken in by your housekeeper. Yeah, yeah. She took care of me. She named a child after you. Her grandchild. Yeah. Probably named after you. I think so. I think so. You're blushing. Yeah, San Rita. Yeah, yeah. So tell me about the family. Oh, so when I came, I didn't know, I lived in this kind of nice, neighborhood and apartment overlooking the golf course. The one thing I did things like I really came to Tijuana site unseen. I mean I had been there once like five years ago for the day, but I really didn't know anybody. So I thought I can't move to Tijuana unless I find a place where

I feel safe. I'm not moving here. And so we found this building and it had automatic garage door openers and it looked safe enough. So it was a nice building. It was mostly houses and there was this like maybe six-unit apartment building. So I ended up renting there and then I thought, well, I need someone to help me clean. I guess I'm not the neatest person in the world. So she came and she showed up. She was the sister-in-law of a woman who was cleaning another apartment in the building and so she came and she was just a lovely woman and then I realized you know she was taking like you know two taxis maybe three taxis from her colonia and then she was walking up the hill which would be at least a mile and then she was cleaning my house and then she faced doing that in reverse right

so I would just you know I didn't have anything to do I didn't know anyone so I said well if you want to ride home and I was curious too it's like where do you live what what's it like and so then I ended up driving her home, and so we became friends that way. And you got some insights into the economics, the pressures of people who are coming from other parts of Mexico, who have family issues that they're fleeing or needing to go someplace else so they can support that family back home, and she was one of them. Yeah, she was the oldest, I think, of 11 kids, and her father was a weaver in Michoakan, and he had fallen ill. And so she just, she took off.

And it was a different period, but she took off, and I guess she had already a job in a house in Tijuana, cleaning a house. There's a Mexican movie called Roma that talks about that very, that fact, you know, people who leave their impoverished communities, and then they come and they work in wealthy people. houses. So she did that for a while and then she kind of decided she didn't want to live in the house and she, you know, met a man and they married and so then she stopped working for them

full time. Describe her house a little bit. Oh, it was in this place called Canyonda Science. And the funny thing about Tijuana is that it has all these little canyons. So it's a big city, but then you drive up a canyon and to get there, it was like a long unpaved road. And, and And it felt like a village. It felt more like this rural village than part of Tijuana. And you would hear roosters crow and dogs bark. And it was just pretty much a wooden shack. But, you know, she made it a home.

And I don't know if they had sewage yet. They didn't have a paved road. Now they do, I think, at that house, because I've returned since then. they, you know, they didn't have hot water, so you would heat the water, and that's how you would, you'd heat it outside on a wood fire, and that's how you would bathe. So it was a pretty rustic living, and then, you know, the country's between her house and my house, and it was just such a different life. Yeah, I'm assuming there wasn't indoor running water and plumbing if they're heating water.

They had tambos, right? So they would, I can't remember, because Tijuana was getting water. Barely extensively, I can't remember if when I first came, but they did have these big tambos in a lot of parts of Tijuana where the truck called the pipa would come and deliver the water. So it was, yeah, pretty undeveloped. That neighborhood was poor undeveloped, but it felt kind of peaceful when I was there. And how did her life change in the years that you were there? Well, she was a very determined woman, and so she had four kids. And she was determined that she would leave each of her children a property.

So she kept moving around Tijuana, poor neighborhoods. But she had that property. Then she moved to a second property and then a third property. So she had three properties for at least her three daughters. I can't remember. I don't know what the fourth was. So then she moved from the Canyon del Science to a place called Mariano Matamoros, which is in eastern Tijuana, and then an even newer area called El Pipila.

So she moved around. She was the wife of a guy who's called a calafiero. And calafieroes are the bus drivers. And so, right. So they're sort of tribal calafieros. It seems like all these families, all, you know, all the brothers-in-law are all calafiero. So he was a calafiero. So how did her life change?

Well, you know, her daughters grew up. And, you know, of course she had hopes for them. And they got pregnant young. And, you know, it was not easy. But she, well, you'll have to listen. They'll have to listen. I can't give it all away. You'll hear it all in the podcast.

I can't give it all away. Yeah, exactly. So they spent some time coming to your house. Yeah. Sometimes just standing at your kitchen sink, probably marveling at the luxuries that you. probably just took for granted. Well, the girls did. I mean, the mother had probably worked in a nice house, but the girls, yeah, the girls would come and she was a really loving mother. And, you know,

also they did things together, so they would come and work with her. And, yeah, keep her company. Well, again, you're, I keep coming back to this, I don't know, this balance of violence and beauty. so the news business is it bleeds, it leads. Yeah, if you're, yeah, right, well. And how did you, did you find, did you have an internal barometer that made you want to find smaller stories, beautiful stories, tell the other side of the story? You know, there's. Yeah. I don't think I was the kind of reporter that, um,

measured herself by how many page one stories she got. That wasn't my driving force. I mean, that wasn't what drove me to Tijuana, that I want to write all these big stories and be on the front page. What drove me more to Tijuana is like, I want to be way out of the way and have the freedom to decide what stories to write and to maybe find the stories no one else is writing. Well, that's the next question.

I have how did your stories come to you? Do you have an editor? We're in your, you'd mention Jim, who we met on the way in. Yeah. And you had an editor. How did assignments come your way? Well, some, you know, of course, no reporters ever just completely were in their own when they work for a newspaper. Some were assigned.

Some were obvious. Like when the police chief is killed, you're not going to say, oh, I'm sorry, I'm doing this feature, right? You jump. So some were the obvious news stories. stories and then stories that I just, I'd get assigned some. One of the big themes of the time was sort of by national relations. There was a group called San Diego Dialogue and it was made up of sort of business, civic leaders on both sides of the border and they were looking for ways to make the border more efficient.

They were like, I don't know how to say, the barons of both sides. But, you know, the border is always what keeps San Diego and Tijuana from being one community, right? And how fluid the border is is critical to the, basically, it's a lifeline for both sides. People need to get through their jobs, but people also want to go shopping. And if the border has too long a wait time, then people can't cross. Anyway, so I would cover a lot of those kinds of stories. There'd be themes. What's interesting is Tijuana and San Diego share a watershed.

I always thought the environmental stories were interesting. Tijuana, there's a border, and yet Tijuana and San Diego share a watershed. It's the Tijuana River watershed. And so if it rains, it flows on both sides. And if there's a sewage spill in Tijuana, it flows down by gravity. it flows into the estuary, in the Tijuana estuary, which is in San Diego. So I thought those things were just really interesting to cover and just culture and, oh, political change.

There was so much else to cover because when I came, Tijuana and Baja, California, was really a, at the, how can I say, Punto de Lanza is the word in Spanish, but the tip of the spear. The tip of the spear of political change. in Mexico. Mexico had been governed for decades by the institutional revolutionary party, but in Baja, California, the first opposition governor was elected in 1989. His name was Ernesto Rufo. So he was still governor. He had a six-year term. So by the time I came, he was in his last year. So the pun and the whole idea of an opposition and a two-party rule was really new, And it wasn't until 2000 when Vicente Fox wins the presidency that the pun, you know, that Mexico really became a two-party system.

Now we're completely, we're at a different time. Now it's Morena, neither the pre-nor the pun. So, yeah, and now I've lost track of your question. It's all right. It's good time to insert a little break here for Baja bound and tell people that if they're heading to Tijuana, if they're driving, if they're heading. South, they're going to want to get some insurance, and Baja Bound is the place to get it, so we're going to take a quick break. Here at Slow Baja, we can't wait to drive our old land cruiser south of the border.

When we go, we'll be going with Baja Bound Insurance. Their website's fast and easy to use, check them out at Bajabound.com. That's Bajaubound.com, serving Mexico travelers since 1994. You know what's really hard? It's like, so I told the story, and the most scary, maybe you even don't want this on tape, but the scariest part was like, well, what's your story about? And if anybody ever asked me that, I'd, like, go into a complete anxiety attack because, like, I don't know what my story's about.

And then I go to my editor, do you know what our story is about? It's like, I don't know what the story's about. And so I think you have to learn to tell the story of your story. And that's what I'm learning, you know. You got to tell your story of your story. I still, people always ask me what slow bah is about. I don't know. Right.

Yeah, it's a sharing the beauty of Baja, one podcast at a time. Yeah, you've got to tell your story. You've got to tell the story of your story. Well, we're back with Sandra Dibble telling the story of her story. And one of the things you said that stayed with me here is, you say that Tijuana is a Tijuana. You say Tijuana is a city both cursed and enriched by its proximity to the U.S. elaborate on that a little bit. Well, on the Enrich side, it's right, right?

It's right next to probably one of the wealthiest states in the nation in the U.S. There's job opportunities. There's educational opportunities. There's tons of kids who live in Tijuana but were born in the U.S., who are truly binational, who go to San Diego State, who go to Southwestern. who have the opportunity to live on both sides of the border. There's business opportunities. It's a place of great opportunity.

Trade. It's one of the busiest trade crossing points. But it's also cursed because it's right in a drug corridor. It's like the most lucrative drug corridor on the U.S.-Mexico border. So drug trafficking organizations are sort of constantly fighting over it. Like, who's going to control the flow of illicit drugs into the U.S.? And that has been really the cause of violence. And increasingly now, Tijuana and probably other border cities has a rising consumption problem, meth, I believe.

But now meth, not meth, just metham, what, fentanyl. Fentanyl is now a new one and really dangerous one. So that's a curse. That's a curse. Migration is also a big issue. For instance, deportations, a lot have happened through Tijuana, and then sort of the city is like, how do you, where do they go? You have all these people who are back in Mexico for the first time in 30 years,

and they don't even speak Spanish. So Tijuana has to absorb them or else, you know, help figure out how they can go home, or maybe they want to try to get back across the border. So there's just so much that being right there at this crossroads implies for the city. It's not like, you know, Des Moines, Iowa, which I'm sure is interesting, but has other issues. Shout out to Des Moines. I've never been there, but I'd like to. Well, I've driven through.

Oh. So, yes, all of that. And getting on to the drugs and violence part again, which always dominates the story, if we didn't have the desire for the products, they wouldn't be shooting each other to supply us with the products. And if we didn't, if the weapons didn't come south, they wouldn't have the weapons to shoot each other. They're not making them there. They're buying them in the states and bringing them there. Yes. So Tijuana is dangerous. Is Tijuana dangerous? I think that is a, you know, dangerous so relative. That is a good question. And then it's sort of a question I've really

wrestled with kind of the entire time I've been there. You know, is Tijuana dangerous? Then, you know, why has it not, at different points, felt that dangerous to me, right? I think danger is relative to who you are. If you were, hey, are you crossing to buy drugs? Well, maybe it's dangerous. Are you crossing to sell drugs or with weapons? Are you going into neighborhoods that you don't know? Are you getting lost? You know, are you somehow putting yourself in harm's way? Then I think it can be dangerous. I think you have to go, you know, if you are a foreigner and you don't know the city,

you have to just think about where you're going and what you're doing. But, you know, there's no reason you can't go to Avenida Revolution or the Rio Zone and get a great meal. You know, there is no reason that should be dangerous. So I think what you're saying is it's mainly dangerous to those in the trade. That, you know, it's danger on, it's violence on violence. It's targeted. It's targeted, but also it's dangerous to journalists. It is dangerous to journalists.

It's dangerous to law enforcement officials. So it is dangerous. But I also think it can, I've written enough stories about, you know, things that happen. to Americans who, you know, I don't know, are in the wrong place. Wrong place, the wrong time. That can happen, wrong place, wrong time. Or, you know, what are you doing in this neighborhood? What are you looking for?

You know, just be really aware of, be aware of where you're going. I would think you'd do that in any country that you didn't know. I mean, I was in Cairo, Egypt. And, I mean, that could be scary. You know, when you're lost, I think getting lost, that is scary. Because I do think there are people who pray on people in any country. People know how to spot who's vulnerable. Yeah, it could happen here in San Diego or Los Angeles or parts of San Francisco.

It could. You just have to be aware. You know, then, you know, in Mexico there's a language problem. But so many people speak English, so it's not that much of a problem. So I do think Tijuana has a lot to offer visitors, and they should just sort of consider how they go and where they go and, yeah, have a great time. Do you want to get into some of that, where to go, how to go, and having a great time in Tijuana? Yeah.

Well, I think, I mean, there's certain, you know, landmarks, the Sikkut, which is about you could actually walk there from the border. It'd be a little walk, but you can, there's all these taxis at the border that'll take you to the Tijuana Cultural Center. It shouldn't be more than $5 to get there. And that's just a really good starting place. It's like Balboa Park for Tijuana. It's like where you have theater, you have concerts, you have a museum, you have art exhibits, you have a little cafe, and you're right next to a big shopping mall, and you're in the Rio zone. That puts you in the Rio zone, which is where there's a lot of good restaurants.

You're also a stones throw away, really from the Mercado Idaalgo, which is this old, you know, old style Mexican market. Duona's not like going to the center of Mexico, but there's little pieces of it that will remind you of like, yeah, I'm in the, I'm in Mexico, like the I'm in Mexico, like the Idaago market with all the, you know, pignatas and the Mexican food and the smells and all the chilies and, you know, big stalls. I think it's an interesting place. I think Avenida Revolution has become increasingly interesting. Like all the cafes, it's gotten more hipster. You know, when I first came, it was just more the traditional Southern California families, tourists coming, or the whatever, the Navy guys coming to get drunk, right? And that really, that ended.

And so I think Avenida Revolution, is actually kind of a lot more interesting now than it used to be. You know, that's my take exactly. I mean, I'm not the kid that I was going to the long bar or to, you know, the various Avenue Revolution bars for the nightlife. You know, and again, we were always kind of seeking out places that the other college kids weren't in or the Navy guys weren't in or whatever. Oh, well, that makes it more interesting.

Yeah, where you could be accepted a little bit by these locals who are also, you know, We were part and parcel of their earning a living. Well, they're also curious about you. Right. They wanted to learn English. To sit down and to sip tequila with the local at the bar. Dandy Delsour in a few other places. Oh, Dandy Delsur.

That's an amazing place. You should light up when we talk about it. So I'm talking about there in the later 80s, middle 80s, later 80s. But then not to have gone for a very long time and to have started going back here and there over the last two years after I started this podcast. I really think that Tijuana for Tijuana, Tijuana, Tijuana, Tijuana is much, much more interesting than all the silly souvenir stalls and all the cheap drinks and other places that were catered only to people coming in from north of the border.

That's true. And, you know, when there was a lot of violence in Tijuana and there was recession in back the 2008, 9, 10 period, what really changed the narrative because there was only one narrative, at least, about the city that most journalists on both sides of the border were writing about, which was the violence, the drug violence. But then suddenly these bloggers started coming in, and they were led by a guy from L.A. called Bill Esparsa.

And he started doing food tours. He's a food guy. And suddenly, like the story became food because what happened when... When tourists stopped coming, like there were chefs like Javier Placentius started doing things like, hey, what can we do here in our city for Tijuanaansis? And I think this food scene was transformative for Tijuana, for Baja California, for the identity of the region. You know, it's tremendously creative. The cities and the crosswinds of so many cultural influences.

You have, you know, Bahamed, which is, I guess, Baja, you know, fresh local ingredients, but also kind of a Mediterranean. And then you have the Valle Guadalupe, you know, and that was also a part of the food, seeing the wine and the food. So, I mean, yeah, it's an amazing place. And the food still, to this day, is, I mean, it's an amazing place to go out to eat right now. Yeah, so walk me through a turdish. a typical day in Sandra Dibble's life as a reporter for the San Diego Union living in Tijuana.

I've heard through your podcast, you spent time taking tennis lessons and then going to the office and either a food vendor would come in with the beautiful fruit plates, you know, sprinkled with lime and chili, or you'd go out to a taco stand. Tell me a little bit about where you went, what you ate, what a day was like, what the cultural parts were. you know, law enforcement officials or drug kingpins weren't getting shot outside your front door. They weren't getting shot outside the front door. But we were just like three blocks from the state attorney general's office so that you all had the press conferences. We were right there.

We could just walk to press conferences. Did you have a driver or would you drive yourself? No. Did you hail a taxi cab? No, I had my car. You had a car. I had a car. I had a car.

At first it was my own car. and then had a company car, I think. So I can't remember. But no, I drove. I lived about three miles from the office. So it was easy. You'd just drive down the hill, and then I would park at the office. And usually we'd try to pick up, this is before much internet, right?

So we'd try to pick up the papers. There was a time, kids. Yeah. There was a time where we just read newspapers. Yeah, yeah. So we'd buy maybe three or four newspapers, and then, you know, we'd kind of sort of see what was going on. And if there was any breaking news that we had to cover, then that tended to be more the law enforcement stuff.

And then, you know, Mexican colleagues would tell us. So, and gosh, I did a lot of enterprise stuff. The more memorable stuff was just enterprise and just looking for stories that weren't being told. And tell me about your story. Your story playing tennis in the morning. Oh, no, I would go. Well, actually, I noticed the, okay, well, I did find, you know, you kind of look for the familiar, even though I moved from Washington, D.C. I grew up playing tennis. So Tijuana is not a big tennis town,

but there are some courts, and there was a public, it's called the Ciudad Deportiva. It's off the Via Rapida, and there was a guy, an old guy called El Profe, and he must have been like over 80 or whatever, but he was really, he was quite in shape. And so I took. tennis lessons from him. And, you know, it was a way, you know, I had to fill my day with stuff because I didn't know anybody, right? So then I actually used to go take aerobics at the Casa de la culture, and that was a different part of town. And then I took this really great class in the ecology of Baja, California. And then we would do weekend field trips. That was my favorite part. And we would just go outside Ensenada into La Romeroza, and we'd get, you know,

lessons in the ecology of the region, you know, the different flora and fauna and what was native to the region. And that was, it was fascinating. And plus, the really fun thing was just meeting everybody else who was in the class. And I ended up going hiking with them after that. That was just a really wonderful, wonderful group of people, you know, because we'd have picnics. It was like, you know, Girl Scouts, but adults. It was a community.

Yeah, it was a community. So, yeah, so that was one of my first communities. These guys I would go, you know, on, it would be in my class. And then I, oh, I, so some of my earliest friends were journalists. And one friend, Doralena Cortez, so she, and then she introduces me to her sister. And then they, you know, bit by bit by bit, you make friends, and you build a circle. And did your journalist colleagues, take you in immediately, treat you as a sister in the business, or did you have to break in,

so to speak? No. Were they surprised to see a gringa? Well, because I was new. They were surprised. They already knew Greg Rose. No, there's been a long tradition of San Diego Union Tribune reporters working in Baja California. I was just the latest.

I was just kind of a newbie. But, wow, there'd been like this guy called Fernando Romero, and he was Mexican, and he was. He had grown up in Tijuana, so he was a legend. There was Nancy Cleland. There was John Gibbons. There were photographers. I mean, there's been a whole tradition at the Union Tribune of journalists who really love Mexico and love the border and love covering it. And I am one more.

So did I, but what was different was that they went home at the end of the day and I didn't. I was still around. So I was more available and that's kind of when I became more. involved. KBS had Carrie Kahn, so she and I and we'd party with the Mexican journalists and it was fun. Yeah. And find

culture and find opera and symphony and orchestra and all these things that people don't traditionally say, you know, that's there. Right, right, because I come from D.C. and I'd kind of grown up in a house that play, my mother played, I'm not a musician.

You know, I don't have musical training, but I grew up listening to a lot of classical music. So it's funny, you leave, and then you look for what's familiar, like tennis. And then I looked for, oh, there's classical music recitals. So there were like, the Baja California Orchestra was founded in the early 90s after the breakup of the Soviet Union. And a lot of the musicians came from the Ukraine and Russia. So there was this great culture. How are they getting along now? I beg a pardon?

How are they getting along now? there's an interesting story. Well, you know, it's changed. Now the conductor is, well, conductor's always been Mexican. There's been a Cuban guy. But a lot of the musicians have moved on to San Diego. But there's still Ukrainian and Russian musicians in the orchestra. Interesting.

Yeah, it's really interesting. Anyway, it's, you know, I think you can kind of find whatever your interest is. Had I been like, oh, a soccer fan or a baseball fan, I would have discovered a different Tijuana. Right? But you kind of got to go with where your interests lead you. And your interests have, excuse me, you said you have to go where your interests lead you. And I'm prying for the beauty and the belonging still. We've heard about the violence. And I'm trying to get to that period that you saw late 90s, early 2000s as food explosion

happens. Anthony Bourdain goes to... That was more, I think that was more 2010-12. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Early 2000s, I don't think Tijuana had been discovered for food. I think that happened during that 2008, very violent 2008-9 period when people in global recession and, you know, people weren't visiting anymore. And that was where Tijuana turned inward, as opposed to like, hey, let's cater to the

tourist. okay, they're not coming. What can we do for ourselves? Do you have any favorites? Any places that you remember from that period fondly? Oh, well, back then. Being just surprised by that level of... Yeah, and it's...

I don't want to say culinary perfection, but that level of execution with those amazing ingredients that are coming from right there. Yeah, okay. I'm not like a big food connoisseur, and, you know, I'm really happy if you take me to some good tacos. And Tijuana is a great town for street food. But, yeah, I mean, the one that blew my mind was Mission 109. That was Javier Placencia's place.

Mission 19. Yeah, Mission 19. It was, you know, it was an amazing place, and it surprised me. It really did because there are a lot of really great, like his family has all these sort of Italian-style restaurants. and there are Mexican restaurants. There was one called Sien Anios of more kind of traditional Mexican cuisine. But this was like something like I never, never tried before in amazing combinations of food. Beautiful and a little glamorous.

And glamorous. And then you had the wines from the Valle de Guadalupe. And, you know, that was one. But then there were others. There's La Differencia, which is more traditional. There's la Cerencia. And there's many more. I'm not really up to date on the latest, latest cuisine.

But it's happening, I know. It's happening. All right. Well, we're going to get into a little bit of a lightning round here, Sandra, as we head towards the finish line. What's your advice? If somebody wants to go to Tijuana for a day trip or maybe an overnight in a hotel, stay at Caesars. I mean, do you have any thoughts on how would you describe Tijuana for? a tourist?

I think in some ways Taiwan is a hard city to access. It's not like it's so back then there used to be more tourists coming from San Diego. I think how would I describe? I think it's an

amazing city and there's so much to discover I think I would first read up I would say okay what is my interest do I want to go to a soccer game Do I want to see an art gallery? Do I want to just go for a good meal? Do I want to go to a concert of the Baja California Orchestra? What is my interest?

And then kind of work from there. If you, I think ideally, the best of all possible worlds is, do you have a Mexican friend? Could they, you know, maybe introduce you. If you don't, there are tours. I've found actually there's a guy, he does this Calafia Cultural, and once a month, he sort of fills a bus, but a bus of about 20 people, and he takes you, and it's almost everybody's theirs from Tijuana, and it's about 400 pesos, which is about $20, and you get to see places that you didn't even know existed in Tijuana,

you know, driving around with this guy. So I love tours. I love tours because they make you see things that you never saw before. There used to be Tourista Libre and Derek Chin. I don't know if he's still doing it. I think we're like on the cusp of more things like that happening, more opportunities again for cross-border travel and tours, you know, post-COVID. I think people want to rediscover Tijuana.

There's so much going on. Say you like jazz. There's a jazz scene. And wow, I mean, you know, now with the Internet, you can really check things out. Well, I was going to say Instagram is chocked full of people who seem to be touting where to eat and what to do in Tijuana. Tell me about how the podcast came about. How did Border City come to fruition? Okay.

Well, I was kind of nearing, you know, what happened is first I broke my foot and that sort of had me. sideline for a couple months and it was like well how much longer am I like hey we were just wrapping up and I was asking about the the nuts and bolts of the podcast and you said you worked on it for three years more or less three years from start to finish because we we went we did a couple things like hey we could do a story about an opera singer let's and then we started looking you know and talk to the opera singer and and so we we brought back a proposal it wasn't at first going to be about me it was going to be using my knowledge and then oh we could do one about deportees and then I went and researched deportees and

then they thought now we want how about if it was about you so that's that's sort of how it came about didn't come from me it came it came from the editors so yeah so so yeah three years from start to like okay, now you're full time on this. So my last one and a half years of working at the Union Tribune were working on this. Then I just kept working on it, I mean, on my own pretty much. So recovered from your broken foot. I'm not sure if that made the last cut of the previous.

Yeah, I broke my foot. You broke your foot. You realized you couldn't chase the migrant tsunami that came from Central America. It was the Central American caravan that brought thousands of people to Tijuana. and yeah, and just, yeah, chasing, you know, chasing after them, kind of traipsing through the migrant camp. I would do it, but with much trepidation, I was always thinking about my foot that I didn't want to twist it again.

So, yeah, and you know what? I mean, it's true. I mean, a journalist is sort of a young person's profession. I kept doing it, you know, it's kind of like being a patrol officer. It's that same like feeling of you're on the street and you're where it's all happening. But, you know, most patrol officers then become sergeants and then sergeants become captains. And I never did. I stayed, you know, but some people just stay patrol officers all their careers.

And I did too. You stayed Private Dibble your whole career. Yes, I did. I did. Officer Dibble, right? Well, Sandra, it's been delightful getting to know you a little bit through listening to your podcast. How has the response been and how has your life changed? People have been reading you for years, National Geographic stories.

That's no easy feat. That's a major milestone. I'm assuming you worked on that Wauaca story for months and months and months and months. No, the Waxaca was actually, it was two months in Wauaca, two months writing it, and then probably two months editing it. So probably months and months. Yeah, that's six months. Yeah, six months.

Six months. Six months on one story. We had a... This took longer, though. When I was a young photographer, we had a photographer who had just done a National Geographic story when you were still shooting film in those days. And he talked about, you know, the months that he spent on the story and the amount of film that he spent on the story. And basically, the ratio of published photographs in the magazine was one photograph every, about every hundred roles of film.

Yeah. I know, I mean, phenomenal. You know, the magazine is more about the photography than the text. All right. So you just slid in with six months of hard work. Yeah. So getting back to you've got eight episodes of the podcast,

and it was a good long stretch of time a couple years to get this put together, figuring out what the story was, how to tell the story. And getting interviews. Getting the interviews. And we're at about the one-third mark now. You've got three stories out. How's your life change? You've got Gustavo Ariano promoting you on the L.A. Times podcast.

You've got Slow Baja calling you up, begging you to get together on a moment's notice. What's happening in your life? Is it feeling kind of exciting? Yeah, it's a little wild. It's a little mind-blowing. I'm not someone who has, has, whose ambition has been to be in the public eye because I, yeah, I'm like everybody else. I want my own private life, right? You're telling the story. You're telling other people's stories and now, well, I'm telling my story, which I probably wouldn't do if I was 40 years old, you know, because I, reporters shouldn't be telling their stories. I mean, unless that's what they do, unless they're that kind of reporter. But if you're a traditional print reporter, it's not about you. It's about other people. So this is the end of my career.

And so this is why I allow myself to do it. And I do it with a purpose. I don't do it like, oh, you know, listen to my story. I do it so that like look at this amazing city we're next to. You know, why don't you discover something about it? Or maybe you'll feel something different about it if you see it through my eyes. Well, that's certainly the way that I feel. about the three shows that I've listened to three times now.

So where can people find the show? What's the best way? I'm going to let you promote it for a second. Bang the drum. Yeah, it's on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Spotify, Apple. You can leave a five-star review. Yes.

And the LA Times Daily podcast is doing a nice job in promoting it. And the San Diego Union Tribune. Yes, there's the home page is actually on the, San Diego Union Tribune, but I don't know if you need to be a subscriber.com, I think, is where it's San Diego Uniontribune.com slash border city. But I'm not sure if you have access to it, if you're not a subscriber. But maybe behind a paywall folks. It may be, but maybe not. Okay. So check it out. And how do you interact with the greater world these days as you're easing into retirement and you're not, you know, you're doing your one stint of telling Sandra's story

as Sandra tells Tijuana's story. So I'm being a little facetious here. I really feel like you're telling the story of your experience in Tijuana, which I think is a beautiful story. It's not, I don't feel like it's you're telling your story of, hey, look at me, I was here. But if people are interested in learning more about you, interacting with you, if you are having any of that,

where are you found? Twitter, social media. Oh, yeah, I do have a Twitter. It's at Sandra Dibble. I think maybe at Sandra Dibble. Yeah, that's me on Twitter. No, because Instagram, I think I'm at Sandra Dibble One. I'm also, I have an email, Sandra Dibble News at gmail.com.

Okay. Yeah. So I'll have those in the show notes, folks, if you want to. I like responses. I like to hear from people, especially people I haven't heard from and just like, wow, I've just touched somebody, somebody new. I'm not just writing this for my friends, you know. That's right.

You touch Lobahan, here we are. Yeah. What a thrill. All right. Well, Sandra, I really appreciate you making some time and telling the story of Tijuana. And I really would love to close it up with get behind the, you know, it's, how do I say it? Get behind the headlines. There's a whole incredible city there full of amazing people and magnificent food and things to see and do and go to. and I think you've been a great ambassador of that. So I'm imploring folks to get behind the headlines

and go see Sandra Dibbles, Tijuana. And meet people and make your own Tijuana, right? Find your own Tijuana. Find your own Tijuana. We're going to leave it right there. All right. Thank you. I hope you enjoyed that show with Sandra Dibble.

She is really, really a pro-veteran reporter. Border City, download it, rate it, review it. Sandra Dibble can't say strongly enough how much I've enjoyed her podcast. Four episodes in, so we're about halfway into the eight episode run that took her about three years to put together. If you like what I'm doing here, well, I'm going to say, rate it, review it, hit it on iTunes, hit that five star, say something nice. Spotify, you folks over there on Spotify, have your chance to leave your mind. Mark, hit your five-star review, say something nice about me, and I really appreciate it.

Also, important is to just send the show to a friend, copy a link to a show you like, and just send it to one of your Baja buddies and say, hey, are you checking out Slow Baja? It really does help, and I really do appreciate it. So please, thank you for sharing the show and rating the show. Slowbaha.com. We've got shirts and all sizes. We've got hats in all styles. Stickers in all shapes and sizes. It's not going to last for long, folks.

I'm in Mexico right now for the Nora Mexican 1000. Orders are coming in. I'll be taking care of those when I get back in the middle of May. But if you want something, if you want a rep Slow Baja and dang it, I really love that you do. Get that order in because those shirts are going to be gone and I'm going to be broke. And I'm not going to be able to print them for another six months. months, so get them in now, get those orders in while that merchandise is in stock. I appreciate you. Thanks for listening. I'll be back next week to the new fun show.

So until then, to paraphrase my good friend Steve McQueen, the lover of Baja, Baja's life, anything that happens before or after is just waiting. Have I told you about my friend True Miller? You've probably heard the podcast. but let me tell you her vineyard adobe Guadalupe winery is spectacular from the breakfast at her communal table bookended to an intimate dinner at night their house bred as teca horses solomon the horseman will get you on a ride that'll just change your life the food the setting the pool it's all spectacular adobe guadalupe dot com for appearing on slow baha today our guests will receive the beautiful benchmark map 72 page baha road and record

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