Chapter IV: The Last Few Days Before Start of Term

On the first Friday in Guadalajara for us,we met two teachers from Ontario who were to become good friends –Lucy and Lori! We went with them to Gigante, the equivalent of Superstore, Mexican style. While there we met our Winnipeg friend, Brigitte, who had settled into a small flat near the school as well but a fair distance from us. Our semi-daily trips to Gigante for fresh produce would have us logging in a lot of kms through the year!

We discovered to our chagrin that groceries were not cheap here. As well we had to learn Mexican equivalents of common labels. Some American and Canadian items of food were available but at what seemed like astronomical prices to us. We learned quickly that to eat Mexican labeled items would be most beneficial to our purses.

In the evening we went over some Spanish lessons we had on tape with our friend, Brigitte, and her son Matthew. This took place during a torrential down pour. The rain had started around 500 p.m. and was of about 2 to 3 hours duration. The streets were awash with a flood of streaming water as all the moisture drained by surface drainage. We learned that because it was rainy season, we could expect these almost daily deluges for the next month at which time it would stop and we would probably experience little or no rain until around June which was the start of rainy season.

After the rain finally stopped and the level of water in the streets made them passable for pedestrian traffic, I walked Brigitte and Matthew home. It was midnight by the time I returned home and got to bed.

There were more gunshots that night and a terrific bang outside our house on the street on the Mar Egeo side. A returning patrol of policemen had driven their half-ton truck into a light standard at the entrance to the police station. It was obvious that the driver, the man in charge, was very drunk and his men were very careful in not offending him. Most of the policemen looked so young. They appeared to me to be around 16 to 17 years of age but they were all armed with revolvers and automatic rifles. They were unable to re-start the truck, so they pushed it into the compound with the “Sergeant” yelling and swearing at them. Life on Mar Caribe was going to prove to be most interesting!

We soon discovered that sleeping peacefully might be difficult to achieve. Cars passed by at all hours right under our windows, many of them the cheap VW’s being built in Mexico that all seemed to have lousy muffler systems. Garage doors beneath us and around us opening and closing. Street dogs barking! Gunshots sporadically through the night. Loud music!  You had to be really tired to sleep through the distractions.

Saturday morning found us on a bus heading for Tlaquepaque, soon to become a favorite destination. Our bus took us through some of the poorest areas we had yet seen, people merely trying to eke out an existence. In Tlaquepaque we were approached constantly by children and adults alike, both begging for some spare pesos. There were people singing and playing a variety of instruments in the hope of earning some pesos. There were flies everywhere! You could almost feel yourself breathing in strange bacteria. Cleanliness in 1989 did not seem to be a priority here.

But we also saw some of the most beautiful handicrafts. There was also the usual amount of what we would label junk, cheaply and quickly made. This area really catered to the tourists. We ate a wonderful meal at El Patio and listened to a roving mariachi band. We met Jean-Guy and Barb here. It is becoming obvious to us that of all the latest hires, teachers, were coming here on the strength of a degree, but very few of them had any teaching experience.

We learned also that because of the size of the city and its over-taxed transportation system, getting “around” in our new city was going to be challenging if not difficult. The buses were old diesel school bus types with front and side doors. Their mufflers were mere lip service and they belched enormous amounts of black diesel exhaust into the already polluted air. Fares were cheap – about seven cents Canadian - but being the cheapest form of transport around, the buses were always packed to the bursting seams, often with passengers hanging out the front and back doors.

On Sunday morning, we walked about 12 blocks to Gethsemane Baptist Church. There we met some very interesting people most of whom were elderly, about the age we are now. It looked and sounded like a very fundamentalist church. After the service we wandered over to a local market set up on one of the streets. It was very crowded, very noisy, very dirty, but yet very very interesting! There was every fruit and vegetable available for the buying. Patti had a close call when she was very nearly struck by a car making its way through the area in an unsafe manner. Apparently pedestrians seem to be fair game! We got thoroughly lost on our way home loaded down with fruits and vegetables and melons. Oh, to be in the future with an i-phone with a GPS app!

In the evening after supper,we played Monopoly while it rained outside. We were finally able to connect with our families back home in Winnipeg via landline. Long distance calling can be very sporadic in Mexico! It was good to hear everyone. 

Now if only more people are home in bed here, perhaps there won’t be as much traffic buzzing by our bedroom window. Oh, for a full night's sleep!

Chapter III: The Hunt for Accommodation

Our first full day in Mexico! After breakfast at the hotel, we were met by another person from the school. We then piled into vans driven by some of the school moms. Our driver was Laura, pronounced Louda. Our moms had researched for places for us to rent.  What a day that was! Looking, driving, waiting, waiting, checking the place, and continuing on to other places. We were looking for accommodations that were within reasonable distance of the ASFG.

Guadalajara had a population of well over a million people and with the surrounding municipalities was closer to 3 million people. The population had almost doubled in a few years as a result of people leaving Mexico City after the horrendous earthquake in 1985 which had an 8.0 magnitude and which had taken 5000 lives. Places to live were at a premium. The majority of our single teachers were able to find what they considered decent living quarters. Most of our choices were restricted to finding rentals that weren’t too pricey. Patti and I would be earning salaries that when combined would be less than 40% of my salary back in Winnipeg. Plus we needed quarters to house 4 of us.

We had left the boys at the school where they were being tested for placement purposes while we looked for a place to stay. We were unsuccessful but thanks to the kindness and generosity of Louda and Umberto, we were to spend the night with them and their family in a gated community.

They took us out for a typical Mexican meal to an area of narrow streets and old buildings but filled with lots of friendly people and oozing with character. The food was new to us but our family all were not a bit reluctant to try new foods and so we had an extremely delicious and satisfying meal courtesy of our wonderful hosts.

Their casa reflected the fact that they were well-off – one was an ophthalmologist and the other was a professor at the University of Guadalajara. The house had many levels facing a large courtyard, and was enclosed with high surrounding walls. There were 5 vehicles parked in the compound and the whole area was under 24 hour security. There were CB’s everywhere and the whole complex and all the rooms in the house were connected together with an intercom system. That evening Patti played the piano and the two children, Berto and Larita, were very impressed.

On the following day, we succumbed to the pressure of being the last teachers without a rented place and we found our “dream” home. Part of a larger complex, our part was a three level place, very roomy and completely furnished. There were bedrooms for all of us and three bathrooms. As well the roof-top was graveled and served as a place for sunbathing or simply looking out on the neighborhood. The house was shaped slightly like a battleship and it was situated in one of the nicest parts of Guadalajara, called Country Club. The houses on the street were all hidden behind  high walls and there was no visible life on the street.

Our house was the first house at the narrowest part of land between Mar Caribe and Mar Egeo. In the block before our house was a green space where some street dogs made their home. The bottom section of the house was walled in and the only entrance to our “Castle” was up a flight of 20 concrete steps leading to a massive oaken door. The whole house was painted a battleship gray which was why I called it The HMS Canada. Across the street on the Mar Egeo side was located a small district police station.

Louda took us shopping for some food staples and water and then transported us to our castle with all our bags. We spent the evening unpacking and getting settled into our new home. We were a bit worried that perhaps we had taken on too big a rent. It was 1,425,000 pesos or in Canadian money, $680 a month which was a huge slice of our salary. In addition we had to pay one month's rent in advance plus one month rent as a precautionary measure on the landlord’s part.

But the house was only ten long blocks from the ASFG. It was in an exclusive and quiet neighborhood. There was safety in the fact we were right next to a district police station. Right! That night we were kept awake for a while by the sounds of gunshots not far from us. Welcome to the country which I would so soon learn to love, warts and all!

Chapter II: D-Day or Departure Day!

From Patti’s journal written at 1:03 a.m. on the Monday morning of departure:” This long pregnancy has finally come to full term and is about to give birth. In ten hours we leave for Guadalajara. Will the labor pains be very severe? All that is so familiar and comfortable to us will disappear in a few short hours. Will we be ‘up’ for the challenge of a new land and its people?  Our dreams, our hopes, our expectations are all on the line here. An adventure awaits us and we anticipate it eagerly!”

On the day of departure we were up at 6:30 a.m. Our 4 hockey bags had been packed in the days before with what we deemed would be necessary for a year or more in Guadalajara. Our friend, Barbara in her station wagon, and our sisters-in-law, Millie and Sandy with their car, would ferry the four of us and all our luggage to the airport. We left at 8:00. The adventure was launched.

At the airport my brother Ray, and his wife, Angie were there to see us off. We had so many farewells in the past weeks. Some of them were very hard on us and it would be good to finally depart. One of the most difficult farewells for me was to say good-bye to my constant shadow and companion when I was home. I am to this day haunted by the sight of our little black dog, Boots, with her head pressed against the gate to the backyard, her black snout peeping through, watching us depart and whining! She had always accompanied us on all of our trips in the past. Why not this time?

We met another teacher who would be also traveling to Guadalajara to teach at the American School of Guadalajara, which shall be henceforth referred to as ASFG. Brigitte was accompanied by her son, Matthew. And then finally after one more round of good-byes, all of us were on the plane and heading south!

Our flight went by way of Minneapolis and then on to Dallas where we had a 3 hour layover. Then it was on to Guadalajara on United’s supper flight. They still served full course meals back then. Our view out the window showed very few visible lights on the ground. In 1989 rural Mexico had little electrification. Occasionally we passed over a larger center with its subdued yellow lighting. A lot of the land we flew over was mountainous and desert in turn and sparsely populated.

Upon landing, we disembarked and were taken by a shuttle bus to the terminal. Customs was a breeze. We only had one bag checked very perfunctorily by a shy young customs' woman. We soon realized that our flight was carrying about 15 to 20 teachers destined for the ASFG. There were some people from the school to greet us. We were delayed in leaving for an hour or so because one of the arriving teacher’s luggage had been lost.

Finally we were shepherded to a small fleet of vans which took us to the Lafayette Hotel where we would have a late supper and spend the night. The trip there was very eye opening to us as everything was so different and strange to our foreigners’ eyes. Very quickly we realized that the exhaust pollution was incredible, the city was very beautiful, and everyone was so friendly!

We took a short walk around the hotel and familiarized ourselves with some new teaching partners. Guadalajara! It was all new, all strange, and yet very stimulating and exciting! A spectacular thunderstorm started as we finally bedded down for the night, exhausted by our long journey and all the new stimuli!

Chapter I: In the Beginning

In the winter of 1988 Patti and I decided that we wanted to experience another culture as a family. Our family consisted of Patti, our two sons Nathan and David, and me, a recent administrator who had returned to the classroom after realizing that administration was consuming too much time away from my family.

I was at the time teaching the most difficult class I had ever encountered. They were a class of teacher-eaters. Only one teacher had survived a full term with them and when his term ended he had quit teaching. They were the neediest children I had ever encountered and there were 34 of them, 7 girls and 27 boys! The girls, while few in number, made up for lack of numbers by matching all the boys in daily altercations and problems. The students all liked me and almost all had perfect attendance records because my classroom was a haven of refuge from what they had to deal with on a daily basis outside of the school. They were so demanding of attention and had so few social skills and they were draining me of energy. If I survived these children I knew that I would need to do something in the next year that would energize me and revitalize my creative teaching juices! We decided that we would try what we had for years talked about - teaching in another culture! 

Initially we decided we would accept teaching positions to teach in a rural school in Zimbabwe. Patti and I would teach the English half of the school day to students aged 6 to 16 at a small agricultural school. When we realized our sons would not be able to attend the school but would have to attend a boarding school in Harare, we shifted focus to another country.

I had always loved the sound of the name Guadalajara. When we learned that a teacher friend of ours had spent a few years teaching at the American School of Guadalajara and when he raved about the experience, we decided to write the school and send them our resumes. This was in March. We received a reply that the school had been to a teachers’ job fair in Kingston, Ontario and had hired their complement of Canadian teachers for the coming year. The director of the school did say that he would keep us in mind because there was always movement in an International School.

We decided we would try again next year but that it might be more difficult with our older son, Nathan, preparing to enter junior high. However at the end of May the director phoned me from Guadalajara and offered me a job teaching English (grammar, composition, and literature) at the high school level. I tentatively accepted with the proviso that unless Patti also was hired, I could not take the contract. He assured me that he would definitely find a position for her. Near the end of June he phoned offering her a teaching position at the elementary level. We were in!

After successfully seeing most of my class entered for next school year in the bilingual program at the neighboring junior high school where the class sizes would be smaller and there would be teaching assistants to help with the class, Patti and I proceeded to put our moving plans into action. We secured tenants for our home for the next two years. It was a pastoral couple from California with two young children. They were on their way to Germany but they felt that they needed to enroll their children in a German/English bilingual program here in Winnipeg so that they would be adequately prepared for a transition into the German culture and language. Our agreed on rent was the amount of the mortgage and their accepting looking after our beloved dog, Boots, while we were gone. They would pay the utilities and any upkeep. In return we would allow them full use of all we had in the house – furniture, dishes, TV’s, etc.

The hardest part of getting ready was convincing our elder son that a move to Mexico would be a life-changing positive experience. He was having none of this. Our younger son, while probably thinking the same as the elder son, acquiesced quietly to our wishes. Right up until the day of departure Nathan balked at going and I know that he was going to leave all that was familiar and dear to him behind for up to two years and that was proving very difficult for him. At times I had my doubts whether I was ready for the transition.

We all got our medical shots, our visas from the government, and made sure our passports were in order. We laid in money in the form of travelers’ checks in enough denominations to help in any emergency. We secured addresses, said fond farewells to family and friends in the last few weeks, secured our flights, and watched departure day appear much too soon!