¿Til Death do us Part

DO YOU LIKE PIÑA COLADAS?

I was sitting at a table in a brightly-lit cafeteria on the outskirts of the city of Guaymas, in the southwest part of the state of Sonora in northwestern Mexico, 242 miles from the U.S./Mexican border.  I was drinking a cold Modelos beer and reading the latest crime novel that I had found in a Mexico city tourist hostel.   I had been in the country for about two months;  sent by  a U.S. based international women’s village banking organization that provides low-amount but incrementally-increased solidarity loans to women so they can invest in small home-based businesses.  Originally hired by the organization to work in their corporate offices outside of Washington D.C., I had been turned into a roving “fireman”.  The day after I packed my bags and flew to 2,000 or so miles from Nicaragua – my residence for the last three years - I walked into their corporate headquarters in the early hours of a Monday, ready to take up my new post and begin the process of settling back into life in the U.S.  I was greeted by the Executive Director, who enthusiastically shook my hand and said “Great!  You made it!  When are you leaving?” “WHAT???”   My astonished exclamation and look prompted him to clarify: “You mean they haven’t told you?  We need you to go to Ecuador.  There’s a bit of a crisis there and we need you to go and run the country office while you oversee the prosecution and jailing of the ex-head of the national office who embezzled funds.  We also need you to interview and hire a new Director while you’re at it.” 

“Uhhhhh. Okay, I guess.” 

Three months later and with the winding down of my successful mission in Ecuador, I was ready to once begin my life in the U.S.   Then, a few weeks before I was supposed to board the plane for my triumphant return to the states, I received a phone call from my immediate supervisor.  “Did they tell you?  We need you to go to MEXICO.  The Mexico Country office expanded its operations too quickly and too geographically diverse and we need you to go there, analyze the situation and recover the loan portfolio in the north while shutting down the regional office.”  Damn! 

“Uhhhh. OK, I guess.”

So there I was, in the industrial and shrimp fishing port town of Guaymas, surrounded by mesquite and cactus covered mountains and desert plains, right next to the tourist area of San Carlos located on the southernmost tip of the Sea of Cortez, that body of water separating Baja, California from Mexico.  It was probably one of the most stressful jobs in my career:  shutting down operations an entire regional office without directly telling anyone (clients or staff) in order to ensure the recovery of the current outstanding loan portfolio.  (Say what?  You’re not going to provide me any more low-interest loans and you’re leaving?  You think I am going to pay back what I have now?  Hah!) The saving grace of the job was that I lived in an apartment about 50 yards from the Sea of Cortez with its crystal-clear, bathtub temperature water filled with multi-colored tropical fish, porpoises and whales.

But it’s not the job or the location I really wanted to write about.  It’s about Jerry.

I don’t remember his last name, but I do remember a good about him.  He walked up to me in the cafeteria that day and said “Hey, you’re American, aren't you?  I heard you speaking Spanish with that waitress there and think that’s pretty neat.  Mind if I join you?”  I usually try to avoid this kind of encounter, but it was a hot Saturday afternoon, I had nowhere else I had to be, so I invited him to sit.  Jerry was small and wiry, about 5’4” inches, around 40 year’s old with blond hair, tattooed arms and a somewhat disturbing “wandering” left eye.  “Yeah, I really admire the fact that you can speak the lingo.  I been here about four months now and it’s kind of a good thing most of these natives speak a little English.  I mostly get by with a lot of hand motions.”  I learned later that he was also the type who believed that if he spoke louder or just kept repeating himself in English, eventually they should understand him.  “I came down ‘cause it’s cheaper to live here on my disability check from the Navy.  I’m thinking about stayin’ and maybe buy me a fishing boat and start up a business taking tourist out.”  I thought it unlikely that he would be successful at that with his language and cultural ignorance, although about a month or so later he did buy an incredibly big beat up yacht with a broken-down engine and various cracks and a trailer with flat tires.  I never did find out if he actually made it seaworthy.

At that moment we came to the REAL reason for his coming over to my table:   “Hey, seein’ as how you speak pretty good Spanish, I wonder if you could help me out with something?  I want to get married to one of these local girls, and I’m thinking about putting an ad in the paper.  Could you help me write it and then maybe help look at the responses and help me translate during the interviews with the prospective wives?”  I have to admit, as absurd as this meeting with Jerry was becoming, I was intrigued.  How often do you get a chance to watch something like this first hand and up close?  Maybe I could even write about the experience some day (ahem…).  Being the compassionate soul I am, I DID try to point out the pitfalls of his classified ad approach to matrimony.  Nope, he was convinced that his plan would work.  (“These Mexican women LOVE us American guys and….man, they sure are cute!)  So with all my reservations,   I decided to follow this through.  The ad that he finally worked out and which I translated into Spanish for the local classifieds ran something like “Well-established North American guy looking for a pretty girl for love and matrimony - Serious responses only. Send picture.”   You can well imagine that the responses were not slow or few in coming.  He would show up at my apartment (yes, I did make that mistake) with a bundle of letters and photographs for my help in reading them.  He right away rejected those letters without photos and/or “the ugly ones”.  A good many of the responses were instantly recognizable as “Oh my God, gringo, Yes!  You say you got money?  And you got a passport that can take me away from here?  Oh yes, mister, I will love and marry you!”  I tried to point out to him what was happening and make him start to see what he was going to end up with, but he plowed ahead, choosing those that he wanted to interview with my translation help.  I had come this far, so why not?  Like I said, how many chances to you get to see something like this play out?  I remember one interview in particular.  The young woman, probably about 21 or 22 years old, was tall, good looking in a sharp, unrelenting kind of way, with dyed-blond hair, bright red lipstick and a mini-skirt with very high heels.  To me it seemed obvious that she was looking for a meal and plane ticket, but Jerry was taken, mostly by her looks.   During the interview he asked questions like “What do you look for in love?”  I want a wife that will take care of me and who will want to have kids and raise a family.”  I detected no sincerity in her responses.  I couldn't help myself, and during breaks when Jerry would leave the room to get a soft drink or a snack I would take the opportunity ask her seriously if she realized exactly what he was looking for and what she might be getting herself into.   She was unfazed.  I could detect an unwavering commitment to getting what she could out of this opportunity.  When she left, I tried to council Jerry about my perceptions on this particular candidate – on the whole process.  There was no getting through to him.

I shortly tired of this process – mainly from a feeling that I was participating – albeit as a kind of spectator – in something crazy, most likely harmful to him and the women who were responding.  Nothing I said had any impact on him, and so I more and more refused to answer his phone calls and to be away when he came to the apartment.  I was also beginning to worry that Jerry, apart from being incredibly limited in his outlook on life, was indeed a bit unhinged.  I kind of gathered that his “disability” discharge from the military was related to “not fit for active duty” classification.  He eventually moved down the coast, taking his un-serviceable fishing boat and his portfolio of potential Mexican wives with him, so I don’t know how the story turned out.  I can imagine though.

I spent a total of 8 months in Mexico completing my second “firefighting” mission for my employers, before FINALLY heading north for my long postponed return to and settling into….....

Nope!  It seems that in my travels in foreign lands for the organization, the U.S. –based job that I had originally been hired for had been phased out due to budget cuts.  But not to worry!  They had an EXCELLENT opportunity for me in…KYRGYZSTAN, a Muslim country of the ex-Soviet Union located at the far western tip of China….

But that’s another story altogether.