Mexico Road Trip: Business, Technology and Don Quixote
Think of it: technology, computers, business, science and on and on, he says, it doesn’t stop. If you want to get ahead in your career, you have to speak English. Maybe not as well as you do, he continues, but it’s important to speak and understand. The young folks here aren’t stupid…they know where the future lies. One certainly can disagree with it or fight it but it’s like our hero Don Quixote fighting a windmill…it’s an absurdity, no?
I suppose, I laugh, although there have to be worse things than fighting windmills. And at least the good Don Q stayed active and helped forestall old-timers… Licho laughed hard. As a hard nosed lawyer most of his world is black and white…but when something tickles his fancy he likes to let go with a good belly laugh…
As you know, he continued, there are strong regional differences throughout Mexico. In Cancun, they allow nude public bathing, but not here in Vera Cruz. In Monterrey they are great at business and commerce but have a very poor sense of humor. We here in Vera Cruz are more artists, poets and intellectuals…and probably smarter, he laughs, that’s why we are adopting English so easily, especially the young. Seems like some of our young people are learning English faster than many of the Chicano young people in California, he adds, what do you make of that, amigo?
Another one of those impossible questions, I answer shaking my head, this trip has been full of them. My head is so full of them I’m worried it will turn to mush…Licho laughs hard again.
Not you amigo, he says, you keep pushing yourself and asking those questions and the day you stop doing that you will die. When that happens we’ll just put you out under the cactus with all the other drunk, wasted and lazy he laughs…
It must be the lawyer in him, I think; sometimes I have no idea what he is talking about.
I’m too old and stubborn to learn English well, he says, but let me tell you how I did learn what English I know. We had a client in Dayton, Ohio and I had to go there to do some of the legal work in Spanish. I was sent with a junior partner that spoke English …so I figured we would be fine. This was maybe fifteen years or so ago…
I flew from Vera Cruz to Houston, where I was to meet the junior partner but he had a change in flights, he says, and it was there the nightmare started for me. I couldn’t figure out how to fill out my immigration paper and twice had to go back to the immigration check and was afraid I was going to miss my flight. I went to the ticket counter and showed them my ticket and was ready to leave on my 3:00 flight – I barely had enough time. But they said the flight was A.M., not P.M. and I was out of luck. I asked them what I should do and they said I had to buy another ticket…I was ready to go back to Mexico but they then changed their mind and said they would put me on a flight to Chicago that left in another hour. I agreed and I thought all was fine.
I thought I could tell when my flight was leaving but they announced it in English and I missed it…so much for my guessing in English, he laughed. They put me on another flight and this time I went straight to the gate and waited…there was even an attendant that spoke Spanish so I was sure to get it right this time.
I got to Chicago but my luggage got lost and I couldn’t figure out how to find it…I finally found an attendant that spoke some Spanish and she found a porter to help me and finally I had my bags and ticket and was ready to get to Dayton. It was now about 9:00 PM or so…
I got into Dayton at 11:00 and of course there was no one there to meet me…I was supposed to get in at 5:00 or something like that. The airport was closing down and a security guard said I had to leave the airport…what a mess for me! I could not remember the name of the hotel and the guard was nice and tried to help me. He looked up the hotels and said there was only two or three that fit the description of being close to my meeting in the morning…he then helped me get a taxi and made sure I knew the fare before going…and I paid the fare in advance to be sure…by this time I was worn out and was ready to go back home.
At the third hotel they found my name and I was set. It was almost 2:00 and I had a 9:30 meeting…and there in the lobby sat the junior partner…he asked me what had happened and I just didn’t want to go through the whole story…but that night I decided I would learn enough English to get by as a traveler…never again would I be stuck in an English speaking country with no English…that was my motivation for learning English…
I told Licho I could sympathize with him as the same thing happened to me many years back when I was traveling in Europe and Africa. I knew enough Spanish when I got to Mexico so could get by and have been learning and refining my Spanish ever since…
And now you are even Mexican, he laughed.
And feel Mexican too. I always try to help out the poor traveler that is stranded in a strange land with a strange language…because I’ve been there and done that. It feels lousy and is frustrating but on the upside provides plenty of motivation for learning that language. Once again, necessity is not only the mother of invention but also a primary motivator, or something like that. The seasoned traveler not only has a sense of how to get through customs and find their way in a strange land but also pick up the language and customs. And since my traveling days I’ve always been able to tell the seasoned traveler from the novice…
Let’s take a ride to see my grandmother, says Licho. We drive almost 45 minutes down some dirt roads to a large colonia.
All my people were paracaidistas or squatters, he laughs, like many poor Mexicans, they just moved to where there was land with no one on it and stayed. My poor, extended family takes up what you would call a city block. They keep marrying, having kids and building more cinderblock houses. Colonia Popular is a polite way of calling these types of communities. He introduces me to his cousins, aunts and grandmother. They are all nice people but very poor…the houses are simple, in need of repair and the streets dusty and unpaved. We don’t stay long and we get back in his car and drive back to his suburban house.
How did you get out? I asked.
I don’t know what made me leave, he says, I guess I just didn’t want to stay there for the rest of my life. Of course, now all I do is work but it beats sitting around and being poor, he laughs, not many make it out of there…I was lucky I guess…just like you amigo…we get all the luck…
We get back to his house and again stay up most of the night talking about our families, our futures, politics, law and his strange experiences in the U.S. Like the time the host company executive took him to a strip club... Several times I strongly suggest he get some sleep but he insists sleep is something he can do in the future but talking with me is a luxury he rarely gets and I agree…but I don’t have to get up at dawn and drive to work!
Once again I’m thankful for my Spanish and the friends and fun and adventure it has brought me. I’ll be sorry to have to leave Licho but maybe I’ll be back sooner than later…
Jack D. Deal
