I was born and raised in Mexico City. A hyper-hectic and dangerous corner of the world. Nine years ago, I travelled for the first time outside of Mexico as part of a student exchange program. It’s easy to understand how culture-shocked I was when I arrived at my foster home in the coastal community of Botwood, Newfoundland: my hometown has a population of twenty million residents, and Botwood, buried between the wild boreal forest and the rough Atlantic Ocean, had a population about the same as my high school. It was, in almost every way, the complete opposite of my home.
Back then I didn’t speak much English, and after listening to the thick, almost incomprehensible accent of the Botwood locals, I thought, “Oh boy, it’s going to be a long summer.”
Although I didn’t know anybody in town, the news of the newly arrived Mexican student spread so fast that before I had the chance to finish unpacking I received my first invitation, from complete strangers, to join them for a cup of tea. The invitation came from Wally and his wife, Maria.
Wally and Maria were from Ecuador and spoke to me in Spanish when I really needed it. It was Wally and Maria who told me to go to the waterfront and hike the trail on the peninsula.
The next day I went down to the waterfront and hiked the peninsula and found a series of man-made caves. They were abandoned military refuges from the war. The caves were dark, hidden, private places, surrounded by thick, bomb-proof concrete walls. It was the absolute perfect place to practise my recently purchased flute.
A few weeks later, while in one of the caves, I got an unexpected visit from the local bike gang, about fifteen kids on bicycles ranging in age from nine to thirteen. They were all staring at me as if they’d never seen a Mexican flute player practising in a cave before.
They came in and asked me all kinds of questions, starting with, “Where are you from?” Followed by more challenging questions like, “Is it true that if I rob a bank I should go to Mexico because police will never find me there?” and “Can you play any Guns N’ Roses on that flute?”
After five or ten minutes of questions they got back on their bikes and took off. Five seconds later the smallest kid came back. “I have one last question!” he said. “How do you say ‘piss off’ in Spanish?”
I peered at him and asked, “How old are you?”
“Nine,” he replied. So I told the kid, “‘Piss off’ in Spanish is Te quiero mucho.”
“Te quiero mucho?” he repeated.
“Yes,” I said. “Perfect.”
Off he went on his bike, not having a clue that he’d just learned how to say “I love you so much” in Spanish.
I didn’t realize what I’d done until the next morning when Wally and Maria’s daughter phoned and told me that every single kid in Botwood between ages seven and fifteen was openly, verbally, and rather aggressively loving each other. In Spanish!
I went back to Mexico shortly after that. I haven’t been back to Botwood since. But my time in Newfoundland fundamentally changed the way I see things: it doesn’t matter how tough, how rough, or how cold it gets, Newfoundlanders always make it possible to view life in a positive, friendly, and warm manner. And I’m happy to tell you that tomorrow, at last, I’ll be submitting my application for permanent residency in Canada.
I will finally be an authentic Mexicanadian.
Mexico City, Mexico
(and now Halifax, Nova Scotia)