9. Sabbatical Leave in Mexico, 1967
In 1964 the principal of the junior high school where I taught in Belmont Shore in Long Beach, California, asked me if I would like to continue my study of Spanish so that I could teach Spanish. They had a shortage of Spanish teachers then and he noticed that my undergraduate transcript included 15 semester hours of Spanish. The U.S. was in the “post-sputnik” era and it was clearly apparent that the U.S. was falling behind in math, science, and foreign languages. So the Congress passed the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) which was designed to train teachers in those three areas.
So I was given the opportunity to study with 60 other teachers “total immersion” Spanish at Pomona College in Claremont, California in the summer of 1964. All of the teaching except for two classes was conducted in Spanish and we were required to live in the dorm during the week but could go home on week-ends. Discussion at meal times and throughout the campus was to be only in Spanish. Our fluency improved a lot and we all learned a lot about linguistics and teaching methodology.
I drove from Lakewood to Claremont with the family on Sunday evenings and then Minnie drove back home with the children. And she came to get me on Friday evenings. I didn’t realize until many years later how difficult this was for her because she never complained. I’ve always driven so much that I never thought anything about it, but she hadn’t and she didn’t like driving and all the traffic made her uneasy. She told me many years later how hard it was for her to drive in the Los Angeles freeway traffic. But she did it anyway just because I needed her help. Of course when she and the children came to get me each Friday afternoon, she was relieved to turn the driving over to me and we all had a happy, animated conversation–and went somewhere special each Friday night. So I was oblivious as to how difficult those weeks were for Minnie.
I began teaching Spanish as well as English and the next summer (1965) we decided to spend three weeks in Saltillo, Mexico (in the mountains near Monterrey) at a language institute. That was an exciting experience for the whole family. We stayed in an apartment and ate our meals with a mother and daughter, both named Esperanza (which means “Hope” in Spanish). The daughter had a little boy Jon’s age named Juanito. The three boys played together and sometimes we went on picnics together.
Here the younger Esperanza had made a birthday cake for Minnie's 28th birthday.
We were assigned an “acompaňante” to help us as an interpreter and guide. Here the children are riding a burro on a “día del campo” (“a day in the country.”)
Jeannine and Billy are in front of the cathedral in Saltillo. Later our artist friend Chuck Wright painted this scene on a large canvas which we kept in our living room for several years.
The next summer (1966) I attended a second level (“overseas”) NDEA Institute in Puebla, Mexico. The 65 teachers in our group lived in the Hotel Colonial and took our meals there and used their facilities for classes. We were also assigned an “acompaňante” to accompany us as an interpreter as we each did a sociological study totally in Spanish. I chose to write on the evangelical churches in Puebla.
The experience was valuable for my teaching of Spanish and by this time the entire family had become very interested in Mexico so I was granted a sabbatical leave from my teaching duties in Long Beach in order to live in Mexico for the spring semester, 1967. Our children and also the junior high school students I taught got excited about the trip and decorated our Volkswagen bus.
That vehicle was not well-suited for the steep mountains of Mexico but it was very good for the children because I was able to turn the middle seat around and put a table beween the seats so that the children could all sit around the table and draw pictures or play games together. This picture is at a roadside park enroute to Texas on the way to Mexico. You'll notice that we're taking Tippy to Minnie's sister's home in El Dorado, Texas. We left her there and when we came home, she had puppies. You'll also notice the little Bible on the table. We had eaten breakfast in the VW bus while we were driving and when we stopped to rest and to give Tippy some water, Minnie read the daily Psalm to all of us. We always considered it an important part of our day to read the Psalms or some other scripture together. It was our spiritual food to go with our physical food.
It was a very long trip all the way to Puebla—80 miles east of Mexico City. Since I had spent the previous summer in Puebla, I was already acquainted with many places and some of the missionaries from Central American Mission and especially with Ed and Lois Oglesby, who had a mission called Ediciones Las Americas. They printed Sunday School materials and sent them all over Latin America. We became lifetime friends and stayed in contact—and we still are. Lois and Minnie corresponded often through the years. I even audited one of the Bible classes in the Central American Mission seminary there. And our children played with the Oglesby children. We often ate lunch at their house, too. And Ed and Lois helped us have a profitable visit in Puebla.
We rented an apartment in a middle class apartment house near some shops and a bakery and a little park. The children had brought their school work and needed to work on it regularly and they did. But the principal of their school thought that this experience of living in a foreign culture was more valuable than what they would have learned if they had stayed at home. And when they were tested when they returned, they all did very well.
I taught English part-time gratis at the University of Puebla. They let me interview many, many students and I selected the 22 students who knew enough English to hold a conversation with me. We met three times a week and, by common consent of the students, every Friday evening we had a little fiesta at different homes represented in the class—including our little apartment.
The children often attended school in the mornings just for the experience and they loved being there and making friends. They were not tested or graded but were just allowed to “be there.” It was a good cultural experience for them.
The children loved to go to the traditional market and we soon learned to buy fresh vegetables and fruits and lots of tortillas and bread. This market was in Puebla near our apartment.
This market was in San Luis Potosi in northern Mexico. Notice the
great variety of beans.
We also ate in inexpensive restaurants often. And everywhere there were many little parks called “plazas” or “zocalos.” The children learned quickly to drink only purified water.
And we went sight-seeing a lot. Sometimes we would take day trips. Other times we would stay overnight in a hotel. We all remember the trip to Oaxaca and all the colorful Indian dress we saw there. Near Oaxaca is the famous ancient pyramid Monte Alban which you see here. We also went to Teotihuacan, the Aztec ruins in Mexico City.
On one of our trips we went to the Isthmus of Tehuantapec, the narrowest part of Mexico and the children played on La Ventosa Beach. When we left, we hung their swimsuits out the van window and they dried in a very few miles.
There were no laundromats in Puebla in those days so Lois invited Minnie to do the weekly family washing at her house. Here is how she described Minnie 44 years later:“Energy personified--that was my description of Minnie. During her "wash day", she would also cook dinner for all 12 of us, bake yeast bread or make donuts, and sometimes tackle mending. With minimal help from us, "little Minnie" (otherwise known as Jeannine) managed the 7 younger children. Occasionally, I would comment to Minnie on her efficiency and she would minimize her abilities and claim she was faster only because she was tall and could reach everything without effort. She was taller than me but still…she was just a high-energy and efficient worker.” [E-mail letter from Lois Oglesby to William Burnside, February 25, 2011)
She was indeed. She knew she had a lot of ability and energy but it didn't make her proud because she knew where they came from! and gave glory and appreciation to God--and then used them so well! One of our favorite verses was 1 Corinthians. 4:7 “For who makes you to differ from another? and what do you have that you have not received? now if you have received it, why do you glory, as if you had not received it?”
The children made friends with a lot of the children in the neighborhood and the shop keepers. I remember a barbecue our whole family was invited to in a neighbor's house and another time Jeannine was invited to a birthday party. Here's a picture taken on that day. There was an older student who came downstairs a bit drunk one night with his guitar to teach me how to play the guitar. I was a totally inept pupil and he didn't succeed in even teaching the first part of lesson one. But he brought a white rabbit and the kids loved that. One of the games of the children in the apartment complex was to go up to the roof above the 5th floor and run and jump from apartment house to apartment house with a straight drop five stories down onto the pavement. And some of our kids would do the same. When Mom discovered what was happening, she immediately put an end to playing on the roof. One helpful part of her personality was that when she said, “No!” with a certain emphatic final tone, none of the children would ever challenge her. (And, yes, I did “back “ her on those rare times when she wanted or needed it.) Looking back on it, our children were exceptionally well-behaved on that whole trip which made a life-long impression on all of them.
One of the sweet friendships Minnie made was with a young beautician named Eloina. We went sight-seeing together and Eloina often was able to show us things we would not have seen without her help. She loved our children and was always very kind to Minnie. One day she came to our apartment to give Minnie a shampoo and cut her hair. But she did not speak English. When Eloina asked Minnie for some soap, “jabon,” Minnie went to the refrigerator to get the deli ham and make her a sandwich because she thought she was asking for “jamon” instead of “jabon.” We all had a good laugh over that one. Eloina decided to open her own beauty shop and she named it El Salon de Belleza Minie because she loved Minnie and thought she was very beautiful. After we returned home, Eloina corresponded with us in Spanish for awhile until she got married and then she wrote that her husband didn't want her to correspond any longer with Americans so we lost contact with her after that. Here is a picture of the bouffant hair style that Eloina did for Minnie.
The silver-mining mountain town of Taxco was one of the favorites for the children. They loved the things made out of silver and especially the pretty concha shells. They made friends quickly even for a brief visit on the way to Acapulco where we spent an entire week mostly on the beach. It was a quiet, peaceful time. The weather was perfect and we all enjoyed it immensely.
We had told Ed and Lois where we going and that I was taking only $100 U.S. Dollars with us and we would come back when that was used up. Ed laughed, “Well, we'll see you tomorrow then!” And when we were gone for an entire week, they began to get worried, but we were gone exactly one week and we spent exactly $100 U.S. Dollars.
We bought bread and rolls and cheese at the panaderia (bakery) and fruits at the traditional market and we found a clean simple place to stay on a hillside overlooking beautiful Acapulco harbor. It only cost $8. a night but after one night I realized the money wouldn't last at that rate so I asked the manager if he had anything “un poco mas barato”--a little cheaper. He took us down a flight of stone stairs and said there was no view from down there but it was clean and we could have it for $3. a night. So we took it as a place to sleep and bathe and we spent our days on the lovely beaches, as you can see from these pictures. Jon made friends with a European nun and two brothers and they covered him with sand and talked to him a lot. And here is a picture of Minnie building sandcastles with the children on the lovely beach at Acapulco.
On our last night in Acapulco I told the children that we were going out for dinner and they could buy anything they wanted from the menu. They had a great time making the choice and we all laughed over Billy's selection: turtle steak! I told him it would be tough, but he didn't care and he ate it with great relish, laughing all along. I sampled it and it took several minutes just to chew the one bite, but he remembers that evening to this day. It's a wonderful thing to do: buy the memories and forget them not.
We avoided going into Mexico City because it is so massive and sprawling in all directions and it took so long to get around. But we did go there and it was rewarding. We went to the Museo de Antropologia (Anthropology) which was worth the trip into the city and we also went to the great Aztec pyramid of Teotihuacan and climbed to the highest point they allowed. Here is a beautiful picture of Minnie at the University of Mexico in the suit she made to have on this trip.
