OH, MEXICO! LOVE AND ADVENTURE IN MEXICO CITY by Lucy Neville
Us antipodeans are renowned for our OE - overseas experience, which generally takes us back to the land of our forebears - Britain and the rest of Europe - before returning to Australia or New Zealand to begin the rest of our lives. Not so Lucy Neville! Latin America had spun its magic on young Lucy since childhood, so armed with a degree in politics, international relations, and of course Spanish she takes the big plunge, decides to go to Mexico to teach English and to come back speaking/reading/writing the language like a native. Fantastic to do this sort of stuff when you are young - full of energy, optimistic, fatalistic, adventurous - because going to a place like Mexico City, population 9 million, gringo kidnappings, street theft, drug cartel murders, air pollution, traffic congestion, extremes of rich and poor etc, may well not be for the faint-hearted. But our Lucy fearlessly goes where she hasn't been before, has the time of her life and also does a fair amount of growing up. Which she has very graciously and brilliantly shared with the reader.
As with any move to a new, strange and foreign place it does take some time, after the initial excitement has worn off, to settle in and feel like this place could be home. To her surprise and distress, Lucy has way more problems with the language than she expected, which results in her going to language classes herself. She manages to find work teaching English although the language school she hitches herself to seems to have some trouble walking the line between in the red or in the black, resulting in Lucy taking on the private students. Along the way she meets a most interesting and diverse range of locals including the First Wives' Breakfast Club, the wealthy, very cosmopolitan Ofelia, fellow teacher Edgar who wants to improve his English, her delicious sounding flat mate Octavio, and his love rival Ricardo.
During her time in Mexico City Lucy does all she can to immerse herself in the life of the city, going out of her way to limit her contact with native English speakers. Its political life, the issues facing the working person, its organised corruption, its TV soap operas, its food, its festivals - Catholic and pagan: all of these get under her skin and draw her into the soul of the city and its inhabitants. By the end of her two years there she has attained her goal of thinking in and speaking Spanish, to such an extent that it was only when an American spoke English to her and she had to consciously process what he said that she realised how far she had come.
This is a great read, compulsory I would suggest for anyone contemplating a visit to South or Central America and just a little worried about all the bad stuff. Lucy is an excellent story teller, self deprecating, funny, humble, a traveller with eyes and heart wide open. The perfect travel companion.
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