Dear Teachers, 

Over 30 years ago, Teacher's Discovery began because Skip McWilliams fell in love with Mexico and the beautiful handmade articles produced there. Today, the company he built creates and searches out cool stuff for world language teachers. My trip to Mexico to seek out Mexican folk art for you is getting back to our roots as a company.

I would like to share with you the story of my Spanish immersion experience (I am at present sadly monolingual), the beautiful sights I saw, the cool people I met, and the adversity that crops up in any well-rounded adventure. I hope that you enjoy my tale. Within the story you will find links to click on that will take you to the products I mention. Just hit the back button on your browser if you would like to return to the story.

Odds are that as a Spanish teacher, you also have stories to tell about Mexico. I would love to hear them! Send an email to mexicostories@teachersdiscovery.com. You could win a $10 gift certificate! Don't forget to include your name and contact information.

Best,

Day One

Getting there/The Ballad of Paco and Lurlene

There is a phrase I remember from a philosophy class; it came from a really wordy French guy, maybe Foucault. The phrase is "radical otherness." I don't remember the context or the actual definition of the concept, but for some reason it is forever tied in my mind to travel, to the idea of realizing that you are somewhere completely different. I have not been many places, but I have enjoyed a taste of "radical otherness" before, like trying to pay with unfamiliar currency or realizing that lizards replace squirrels as common fauna in some climates. It's when everything about where you are reminds you that you really are a very long way from home.

Up to now, I could say that I have been to Mexico, but that would be kind of a joke. An afternoon bus trip into Progreso from Corpus Christi hardly counts. The bus was full of elderly Texans going across the border to get dental work. I bought a mini sombrero and then a few hours later I went home. So it would be ludicrous to say that I have been to Mexico. This trip will be a big dose of Mexico, and a big dose of radical otherness, the likes of which I have never experienced before.

When you tell somebody you are going to Mexico, what they say falls into three categories: 1. Concern for your safety, ex. "Isn't it dangerous there?" 2. Concern for your health, ex. "Don't drink the water!" 3. The assumption that the entire country is desert. I wish I could say that I knew Mexico was not all desert, but I really didn't, and I am embarrassed for myself that I know so little about a country that is a neighbor to mine. The picture of desert is so ingrained in my brain that I am still a little shocked to look out of the plane and watch the scenery turn from beige sand to red clay to lush jungle as we fly into Puerto Vallarta, even though what to expect climate-wise has been explained to me.

They are out of customs forms in English on the plane. I get one in Spanish and have to borrow the lady's next to me so I can be sure that I am putting the right information in the right spots. The lady and her friend are from Texas and are on their way to an all-inclusive resort. They chat me up, which is nice, because I have never flown by myself before and I feel weird about it. They ask where I am going and I explain that I am on a business trip for a company that sells educational materials to U.S. Spanish teachers, to source traditional handmade items for our customers, so that they can have some authentic culture in their classrooms. The ladies sound surprised and immediately ask a series of questions related to my safety, then warn me about the water.

In spite of the fact that I made both of my connecting flights in perfect time I am still a little on edge. I am not up to anything, but there is an enormous jar of peanut butter in my luggage and I am not sure what customs will think about that, and I don't speak any Spanish to be able to explain myself. I'm sure the airport has plenty of English speakers, but it would be better just not to have to have that situation. However, the jar of peanut butter was very necessary.

At this point you may be wondering how someone who has never really been to Mexico and does not speak Spanish might be planning to accomplish any business there, and also why I have a giant jar of Skippy in my luggage. It's because I have a secret weapon. I can't tell you his name because I don't think he wants to be famous on the Internet, but I can tell you his story. We'll refer to him as Paco.

Paco is a member of my family, related to me by marriage. He was born in Mexico and swept into the U.S. and all over it as a very young person, largely through circumstances beyond his control. He settled and fell in love with a member of my family and her children and they were all set to live happily ever after when the law caught up to Paco. He was not a U.S. citizen. Through a series of events too complicated and personal to relay here, Paco became a member of the dear deported. I would define the "dear deported" as people with families who miss them terribly and productive lives and established connections in the U.S., but have found themselves for a variety of reasons on the wrong side of immigration law. What some may know, but I did not, is that people who are completely productive and peaceful citizens are routinely torn away from their families, held in jails and shackled like criminals, and unceremoniously dumped just across the border in dangerous places in the middle of the night with nothing but the clothes on their backs, but not until after our government provides them with a sandwich and a juice box. Often these people lack the proper papers to be considered Mexican citizens and have to learn how to live in Mexico because they left as children, as was the case with Paco. He was truly a man with no country. After months of struggle and relying on the kindness of friends of friends, he got a job and a place to live, but he still misses his old life, his U.S. family, and U.S. peanut butter.

It has been two years since I have seen Paco. When I get off the plane, through customs, and through a gauntlet of timeshare salespeople, he will be waiting for me and I will not feel as much like a stranger in a strange land. Paco has landed on his feet in a situation that would break a lot of people, but just because a person can stand something and get through it does not mean that it is easy on them. He sees his woman, we'll call her Lurlene, once or twice a year, and because he could only get so much time off from his job, this trip and her visit have to overlap. He is nice enough to spend part of the time Lurlene is there working on this quest for handicrafts. Paco and I will leave Puerto Vallarta for Guadalajara and spend a week there searching for a "middle man" who warehouses handicrafts and small handmade items, and buy him out of the things that match what we are after. Then my husband, J, and Lurlene will fly into Guadalajara. After they arrive, we'll leave Guadalajara for Patzcuaro, Michoacan, to explore an area known across the country and even around the world for its high concentration of excellent craftspeople. Lurlene is a fluent Spanish speaker, which will also come in handy. The goal is to fill 14 linear feet of a semi trailer with beautiful handmade goods.

The four of us used to spend a lot of time together, taking turns making dinner in the evening (eating my bad cooking) and going shopping. Lurlene and Paco are great shoppers and my husband is not, but he would go if they were going and we would all have fun together, doing stupid things like testing the Ab Lounger in the middle of JC Penney. The four of us were good friends, about a thousand years before we were confronted with the fact that Paco could be taken away from us and deposited in a strange land to fend for himself and there would be nothing we could do about it.

In the Puerto Vallarta airport, I am struck by several things: the inside is bright orange, you can get off the plane and out of the airport without ever passing a gift shop, and the first thing you see when you walk off the plane is a soldier with a machine gun. I guess Puerto Vallarta is pretty laid back, though, because from what I hear, Mexico City has a whole platoon of guys with guns that stand right on the tarmac. When it's time to put my bag through the X-ray machine, I think, oh great, here we go. It's stopped and they want me to open it right away. I get the gist even in Spanish, and I open it up and find the peanut butter to show them. It was what they were after and they are satisfied. They don't look at all surprised or amused. Oh, the things they must see. I press the button; it turns green. The blond male-model-looking customs agent flanked by two female customs agents looks bored. I walk down a long hallway immersed in radical otherness and straight past the timeshare piranhas to meet my friend, and swear loudly because I am so glad to see him that I can't help myself.

We pick up the big white van we're renting and go have something to eat. I exchange some money, which makes me very nervous for some reason, maybe the fact that a relatively small amount of money is a rather large wad when it is converted to pesos. It's very expensive here because we are in the land of tourists, Paco tells me. He apologizes for taking me to this particular restaurant because it is expensive and not very good, but I think my steak fajitas are fine, and I have no idea at this point that you can eat a fine meal in Mexico for about .80 U.S. It is also oppressively hot and humid. I want very badly to drink the Sprite with ice that the waiter brings me but I remember being told to stay away from ice because it can make you sick just like the water, so I sadly watch it melt and drink from the bottle instead, which is not nearly as cold. I don't feel conspicuous at all, I am just a tourist in a sea of tourists.

We go to several hotels looking for a Huichol guy that Paco has met who sells Huichol art. He is "always" at the places we look for him, except that day, because we are looking for him. We give up on that, settle for finding out the guy's phone number, and stop in a few shops to check out the retail prices on Huichol art. It's the first of hundreds of conversations through the language barrier, where I ask Paco the question and he asks the person, then listens and translates the answer back to me. We have little success and now it's getting late and we need to get on the road for Guadalajara.

The map shows the distance between Puerto Vallarta and Guadalajara as being not that far, but what the map doesn't reveal is that the time it takes to travel that distance is dependent on the weather (we are in the midst of the rainy season), and whoever is in front of you, because opportunities to pass are limited. The road winds through the jungle and past tiny towns, every one a photo waiting to be taken. There are steep dropoffs without guard rails and long stretches of road that are up or downhill. I think to myself that the unpredictability of travel in the mountains probably contributes to Mexican superstition and the phenomenon known as "Mexican time." We talk a stream of nonsense just to stay awake. Paco tells me how he wants "food cooked with lumber," on an open fire is what he means. He talks about a friend's grandmother who fed him a homemade meal that nearly made him weep. Paco is a person who lives by his stomach.

On the outside of a sweeping curb at the bottom of a long steep climb, there is an enormous purple shrine flickering with candles in the dim light. It's so big that I think it's a building until Paco starts to talk about it. He says there are two stories about the shrine, one is that it was built by a grateful bus driver who lost his brakes coming down the mountain and prayed to God to stop the bus before it went over the side. The bus was caught on a tree at that spot and no one was hurt. The other story is that a woman was killed on that spot and her ghost hitchhikes on this stretch of road sometimes. Paco says he prefers the first story, and I agree. It's more original.

The landscape gets less junglelike, there are fewer trees now, and the road cuts right through mountains in some places. There are nets to catch the rocks that get washed down toward the road, but they don't always work. A roughly rectangular rock as tall as a person stands on end next to the road. It looks eerie as the headlights sweep across it. What is especially eerie to consider is what would happen if the rock landed on your Ford Fiesta. Which makes me wonder: The names of U.S. cars are different here -- do they call the Ford Fiesta something different, like the Ford Party?

By the time we reach our hotel, it's nearly 2 a.m. They have the reservation, there are no problems, and the hotel is a beautiful, clean, quiet "executive" place with a lot of marble that looks exactly like the photos. It costs $30 a night to stay there when you prebook online. (It's called Hotel Celta, highly recommended if you are ever in Guadalajara and looking for a place to stay.)