Chapter X:Tapalpa Weekend

Saturday morning we cleared off any remaining homework and packed our bags.  We were going to spend the weekend with our benefactors from our first few days in Guadalajara. Umberto and Laura and their two children and a Mexican couple, Juan and Margarita Montana, who had lived in California for several years and who were quite fluent in English, would be picking us up in their extra-large vehicle and we would be off to the mountains west of Tequila to spend two days at their retreat from the city. They were to pick us up at 11:00 a.m. which translated to noon, Mexican time. Juan, aka John, and Margarita would, along with young Umberto, serve as interpreter go-betweens for Umberto/Laura and Patti/Al Nathan/David.

We headed west for the lesser range, Sierra de Tapalpa, located in the Sierra Madre Occidental mountain range. Their cabin was located at about the 2500m level. We would find that even this difference of 700 m from Guadalajara would make the temperature quite a lot cooler than in Guadalajara. On the way to Tapalpa we learned more about our two new friends and about how life was going for Umberto and Laura’s family. The drive took about an hour and a half along winding roads, cooler temperatures, burros along the roadside, and the mountains in the distance creeping closer. 

We stopped in Tapalpa for an authentic Mexican meal – chili rellenos, pollo with arrozo and cream and salt on delicious corn tortillas, guacamole, and frijoles, and all of it washed down with either Coca (Coke) or Spreet(Sprite) or Skweert(Squirt). It was delicious.

The town was quite primitive-looking with cobblestone streets, a village square book-ended by an old church and a newer one, burros in the streets along with gauchos on horseback, markets, mariachi bands (it was the weekend!), vendors wherever you looked, and many weathered-looking Mexicans. Laura bought some cheese from a family she knew, and also some walnuts and some “milk candy” ((Goat's Milk Caramel or Dulce De Leche). All of these were very flavorful!

We then drove out of town and up to their cottage in the tall pines. At first sight it looked so enchanting and pastoral. There were sheep and burros fenced in with rustic fences in the wide open spaces of the meadows which were covered with luscious grass and beautiful flowers. There were many people out for leisurely walks. Their cottage was quaint and also rustic looking.

Next to the cottage was a hut where Pancho and Petra lived with their two daughters and six sons. Petra was responsible for the house when it was occupied – cleaning up, doing dishes, making beds, preparing meals, etc. Pancho looked after the outside chores – pumping water, getting wood, cutting grass and maintaining the cottage and its grounds as well as any other duties that might come up. For this they got the hut to live in, a small salary, a free run of the estate when the owning family was not there, plus any leftover food from visits. Laura had brought enough food for a week even though we were only going to be there for parts of two days. Petra and Pedro and their family would receive many food supplies that would be left over.

We visited, ate, visited some more, ate, and really relaxed. The kids meanwhile took turns riding the motorized mini-bike non-stop. At nine o’clock, a very respectable Mexican hour for supper, we had the evening meal of quesadillas even though we had been snacking for hours before. At about 10:30 the women and children called it a day and retired for the evening. I had to stay up and pass the Mexican manhood test with Juan and Umberto. This entailed sitting in a screened veranda at a table with  3 shot glasses, several ash trays, a few packages of Marlboro cigarettes,  various trays of finger food, and a bottle of Alquima Reserva de Don Adolfo Extra Anejo tequila which currently retails for about $160 U.S.

They were going to show me how Mexicans drink tequila. No salt, no limes, no tossing drinks down the hatch. Umberto poured each of us two ounces of the amber colored tequila into our beautiful Mexican hand-made shot glasses. Juan’s instructions were that you sipped the whiskey and rolled it around your tongue and mouth before letting it slide down your throat. It was very smooth! After each sip you had some finger food. If you were a smoker you inhaled some smoke from your American cigarette and carefully blew it up into the air above your head so as not to blow it into your neighbor’s face. 

You talked, you sipped, you ate, and then you simply kept repeating the process. When your glass was empty one of your friends would refill it for you. In the course of 3 hours we sipped and ate and talked our way through $300 of wonderful tequila. One hardly noticed that one was now very relaxed. It must have been the refreshing air!

Sunday morning found us at the breakfast table. Surprisingly I had managed to keep up with my compadres the night before and I was mildly surprised to find that I was not experiencing any effects of the serious discussions from the night before. Breakfast consisted of delicious a chocolate drink that was thickened with corn meal or maize, quesadillas, a fruit tray with a huge assortment of choices of fruit, plus a plate of chicharrón or deep-fried pork rinds which Patti did not like and which the boys absolutely loved. The kids also got ham and eggs if they wanted.

After breakfast we went for a long hike. David made friends with a huge sow which was tied up in a pen and who weighed about 4 times as much as he did. The sow was delighted when he rubbed her behind her ears. Remembering my boyhood experiences with our pigs on the farm, I suggested he try a “piggy-back” ride. He wisely declined when I recounted how all my rides had ended with face-plants in the dirt when the pig decided to make an abrupt 90 degree turn at full speed.

On our walk we saw many cacti and different plant growths that were native to the higher and drier altitudes of Mexico. The boys via young Umberto discovered the nopal cactus whose pads can be eaten cooked or raw and which have a high manganese and Vitamin C content. They broke off the pads, carefully avoided the spines, and feasted on the succulent flesh. The children again rode the mini-bike all afternoon while the adults visited, had a siesta, and generally enjoyed the freshness of the mountain air after the diesel-laden fumes in the air in Guadalajara.

Around four o’clock the barbecue was fired up and for our afternoon meal we had choices of three kinds of meat, bean soup, tortillas hand-made by Petra, rice, and salsa. For dessert we had baked Mexican apples – apples with the core cut out and stuffed with butter, sugar, cinnamon, and walnuts. These were baked over the red-hot coals and then finished off in an in-door oven. Saying they were delicious did not do them enough justice!

We left for home at about six and got into our house around eight. We were all tired but so exhilarated by this wonderful weekend. Our hosts were so gracious and generous. This was our first experience with the Mexican phrase, “Mi casa es tu casa!" or "my house is your house.”  They loved their children and they had a very special relationship with them. Their children were treated in an adult-like manner. As a result the children were not whiny or demanding and very mature. It seemed to me we could learn a lot from our Mexican families.

Chapter IX: Better or Worse?

Monday started off in a most inauspicious manner. Patti woke up at night with a mild case of what we later came to describe as “turista’ and basically spent the night in the bathroom – a reaction to microbes in some improperly handled food. The boys and I were more fortunate. She felt well enough to go to class in the morning but by end of classes she was really sapped out.

It was a routine day at school and that evening we had supper, plowed through the boys’ homework and attempted to phone home. Phoning home was a “crap-shoot” because MexTel was not the most reliable service back then. To cheer up the troops I made the 80 minute bus ride to Sanborn’s and picked up some English language American magazines and brought them home on an 80 minute ride back. We still had no television and our board games were starting to be not as exciting as they once were. Thus the magazines!

Tuesday we learned of our nephew’s serious car accident back home when our family was able to contact us at the school. It was a little bit unnerving to have the principal come into your class to take it over while you went to the office to take an important phone call from home. The car was a wreck but Joel was okay! 

Patti’s day was better and she was starting to get her “enthusiastic’ class down to a quieter and more manageable level. I was settling into a good routine with my students. So far the 4th period of the day was free for me and added on to my spare in period 3, I was getting a good chunk of time for lesson preparation and keeping up with a large amount of marking English papers. As it turned out I was called on to fill in as a supply teacher in period 4 only a handful of times through the whole school year. 

It was in these two periods that I started to have impromptu in-service sessions with individual and small groups of my fellow teachers who, while having degrees, had had no formal teacher training. I showed them how to organize and plan daily lessons and how to prepare whole units for presentation. Word of this got back to my administrators and I think it was for this reason that I had only to fill in as a supply teacher so rarely. They felt my time helping the other teachers before, during, and after school hours was of benefit to the school and to them. I also enjoyed helping the teachers as I got to know them better. Even some of the Mexican teachers who had formal teacher training started to sit in on some of these impromptu sessions.

David was getting used to his teacher, Dr. Bing, a teacher from California, who said he had come to Guadalajara with his family to, in his terms, “escape the racism that was so prevalent back home”. Nathan was still having trouble getting used to his “fire-breathing” teacher to the point where we thought about the possibility of having him transferred to another class.

We were starting to settle into a routine - work hard at the school for what seemed like volunteer wages, home for an early supper, wade through mounds of the boys’ homework with them, and drag ourselves off to bed. The boys were still struggling to keep up in the math because they were a year behind in some of the skills. But there was progress being made. Phone calls from home were starting to get easier to get through. It was good to connect with our families and get some news of home – families, Winnipeg, and Canada.

I had put in my name for after school tutoring in English outside of the school. The going rate at the time was about $7 U.S. per hour.  I said I was charging $15 U.S. The secretary laughed and said I probably wouldn’t get anyone! On Thursday I got my first bite. I got a tutoring assignment to work with a 14 year old boy from 3:30 to 5:00 every Tuesday and Thursday. His home was a short walk of 5 blocks from the school. I hoped it would work out because the extra money would come in handy. The secretary was surprised because after they went through the list and settled on me, it was because they thought I must be pretty good because I was charging double the going rate! Little did they know!

That evening Patti and I had a lot of homework, and for the first time, the boys not as much. Also a bonus – Nathan was actually starting to warm up to his fire-breathing teacher. Would wonders never cease?

Friday! Nearly completed 2 weeks of school and it felt like almost 50 for Patti and the boys. The elementary section was wanting test results soon as report cards were due to go out at the end of September. After school Nathan and David accompanied two of Nathan’s classmates to see a movie, Batman. The girls and Nathan lied about their ages and went to see a James Bond movie,” License to Kill”. David was not able to convince the ticket-seller that he was old enough so he actually ended up seeing the Batman movie. They all met at Giovanni’s not far from our place for pizza. Meanwhile I had to supervise a high school dance at the school. There were a lot of chaperones, both staff and parents.Mexican students seemed to mature quite early and what with all the sneaked necking and drinks happening on the grounds of the school, I could see why so many chaperones were needed. It was a fun evening, though!

Patti got the evening off from us and school and was able to head downtown with Brigitte, Matt, and Karen where she saw some of the celebrations for Mexican Independence day starting at the Plaza de Liberacion located near the fabulous Catedral de Guadalajara. She got to see some fabulous Mexican dancers doing their routines in beautiful ethnic costumes. This was followed by speeches, singing, and some mariachi bands. The evening was topped off by an awesome fireworks display – the Mexicans really really know how to DO fireworks. Karen Pace met them there. After the festivities they all went for a snack to an open-air restaurant. They and I quote, “did a lot of bitching about school” and then took a cab home. 

Later that evening around 11:15 there was a fireworks display just outside our window. More mariachi musicians appeared and a party started down the street from us. The music and festivities died down around 4:00 a.m. This city and its people really knew how to celebrate.  It gave us a very alive and wonderful feeling.

Chapter VIII: The First Week

A quote from Patti summed up the first week of our new teaching experience for her: "What a long month this week has been! Teaching for test results and straight from the text book is so boring for the students and for the teacher. I’ll have to instill some life into these kids – try projects, research, webbing, editing, etc. I am sure they are capable but they just haven’t been taught!”

Nathan got the dreaded Ms. Hempel in his 6^th grade class, whom after his first few days according to his descriptions, I surmised was a fire-breathing dragon. I was pleasantly surprised when I met her. She wasn’t fire-breathing but she was definitely a “tough-cookie”! He also complained about how the Mexican boys were ostracizing him and making fun of him. It turns out the Mexican students could be just as racist as some of our Canadian students back home were to new Canadian arrivals.

David pulled his chameleon act and simply blended into the class and he ignored any insults and attempts to goad him into a confrontation. The students soon learned he wasn’t going to play their game and they left them alone. As well, he made some friends of a few American students in his class. Both boys were in class only for half of a day. The other half they spent in a special class with a Mexican teacher, Senora Delgado, learning the basic mechanics of Spanish. It was after all a bilingual Spanish/English class!

My week went rather well. As I had previously mentioned, my students were such a pleasant change after my class of last year. They were polite, they were civil, and the non-Mexican students were eager to find out more about me as were a few of the Mexican students. . My “hard-core” cases were either taking it “cool” or they really weren’t that bad. The young lady that I thought was going to be one of my tough nuts turned out to be a young woman from Schenectady, New York, and her family was here because her dad had been transferred to Mexico. She came from a family that consisted of the American family and some adopted children, one of whom was Vietnamese and in Grade 12. He became one of Nathan’s idols. I discovered that Molly, the young woman, was an avid reader and writer and she and I shared many common interests.

I kept my classes simple. Every day we started off with a 15 minute reading period. The only stipulation was that the book had to be in English and that they would have to read it as I would expect a written report on the book and there would be a mark assigned. We did a lot of in-class discussion and I entertained and encouraged all points-of-view. The assignments were short writing assignment which I would gather and edit for them and assign a grade mark on interest and presentation with a small amount of marks taken off for usage and spelling errors. This encouraged the students to actually present me with interesting material to read. It also meant I would have mounds of marking to do daily.

Nathan was bringing home horrendous amounts of homework and a lot of anger over his treatment in class by the other students. Patti was experiencing a lot of paperwork and busywork and lots of bureaucratic frustrations - the use of the lone copy machine, writing out daily lesson plans a week in advance, and being restricted by teaching to the tests! She was beginning to question what were we doing here?

Friday morning at 3:00 a.m. we experienced our first mariachi band. The band started playing just outside our bedroom window and slowly moved down the street to a house where they played for about an hour. There were trumpets, violins, and a vihuela, a high-pitched, round-backed guitar that provides rhythm, and a bass guitar called a guitarrón, which also provides rhythm.

The day in school was interesting because of a shortened night. One of my more astute students asked if I was tired, which I obviously was, and when I described the visit of the mariachi band, all the students nodded their head knowingly! Finally the day ended and the first tough week was over.

 That evening one of the teacher friends of Patti, Marta Calderon, escorted us in her car to the American Consulate’s home in Guadalajara. His wife was a teacher at our school which opened the door for a lot of staff to attend. Our boys stayed at Marta's place with her high-school age daughter and fried their brains on English movies, ate a lot of junk food, and had an awesome time. We were among a number of guests which included teachers, administrators, parents, and some “upper-crust” guests. The hors-d’oeuvres were delicious but soon ran out. The level of relief of the school crowd was high. They were so glad that the first week of school was over. 

When we got back to Marta’s, we visited with her for a few hours. She enlightened us to a lot of the politics of the school, what we could expect living as visitors to Mexico, and a general blue-print of survival. One of our discussion points was a cheaper place to live as most of our combined salary was going for rent. Marta thought she might know of a few places and she would help us check them out. Marta, we surmised, had led a very interesting life. She walked us to a taxi stand nearby and we got home near midnight. 

Saturday morning brought us face to face with the school’s unflappable bureaucracy. Rules, rules, rules! That seemed to be what the ASFG was about. We had cleaned our house, and shopped for groceries and then had gone to school for a swim. But Boss-lady Lupita had said no one was allowed to swim in the pool without lifeguards being present. It didn’t matter that we would be supervising our boys. The man who had hired us had said that using the facilities of the school was one of the perks. Apparently with his departure things had changed! The boys were disappointed and were reluctant helpers for us as we did some prep work for next week.

We tried to save what was left of the day by going to the Charlie Chaplin Teatro on Avenida Adolfo López Mateos Norte. We saw Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. It was in English with Spanish sub-titles and there was a lot of action to go along with the buttered popcorn and the Mexican sodas. The theatre had a very homey feel to it. There was an intermission in the middle of the movie. The patrons were friendly to us. We met a man who had been to Canada – to “Bancouver”!  We took a bus home and went to bed quite late.

The next morning we attended services at our adopted church. There was no fellowship after the service as everyone was going to attend a picnic in the afternoon. We all met at the Guadalajara Trailer Park and enjoyed good food and a good swim in a clean pool and we had good conversation with a lot of people. There are a lot of retired Americans and Canadians in the church and this trailer park seemed to be a way of life for a lot of them.

A couple we met there, the Bryant’s, took us to see an apartment that was in our price range and was available. Unfortunately it was on an extremely busy street and the traffic noise was almost over-powering. It had a nice park across the street but it had no furniture, but we would have an option to buy the furniture of the person moving out. We decided we would stay put for a while longer on Mar Caribe.

In the evening one of the Canadian teachers, Lucy Pieragostini, stopped by, as did two M.B. missionaries who were serving in our city. We had a nice visit but our minds were already focusing on school tomorrow. There was a fervent hope that this week would bring us a better time!