A Tale of Two Islands Part One: Just Being a Kid on Isla Mujeres, Mexico

Same family another generation enjoying being a kid.

The experiences of just being a kid can be very different depending on where you live, or as it turns out, the experiences can be very similar. 

Our Isla Mujeres friend, Freddy Medina, has many good memories from growing up on Isla in the 1970s.  

Freddy's papa, Lucio Medina, built a strong concrete house on the west side of the island near the middle school where he was employed as a teacher.  The house is located just off Rueda Medina, across the street from the school. When Freddy was about five or six years old, he remembers attending a wedding in Centro at the Catholic church with his mom and dad. After the wedding, he became separated from his parents in the large, boisterous crowd of people gathered to congratulate the bride and groom.  Being the only boy in a family of several girls, Freddy fancied himself as a brave little man. He set off walking home. It was around nine-thirty at night, and the only existing road was lit with street lights that worked infrequently. He started out confidently, but by the time he was halfway there, he was feeling scared and lonely on the spooky, dark streets.
  

120 Kg Wasa caught by a relative. The child is not Freddy

Thankfully for Freddy, the passenger bus was making its last run of the night south towards the scant number of houses in the little colonia. He ran out into the street, waving his arms and yelling for the driver to stop. The driver, a good friend of Freddy's papa, told him to get on the bus, and then he drove him straight home, knocking on the door and delivering the wayward youngster to his frantic family. Papa arrived a few minutes later, having been out searching for his son. Freddy said that was the only time he remembers getting spanked with a belt. His papa was angry and afraid for his son's safety.  

Freddy's father unfortunately passed away at the very young age of thirty-five. The family then moved downtown, living in a house owned by his auntie, where the present-day Fayne's Bar is located. Eventually, they moved to a house on Matamoros, where his mom and stepdad still live. He has a very vivid memory of when his kindergarten teacher walked the class from their downtown school to Playa Norte (North Beach). He remembers it being a very long walk. And then he smiled and added, "It was about three or four blocks, but that was a long way for a little kid. I remember walking through the thick green bushes and past the tall palm trees to the beach. White sand. Turquoise water. Fluffy clouds. So beautiful."

Sharks caught by fishermen1980s 

In the early 1970s, island life was very simple.  Electronic games, cellphones, and personal computers did not exist. Cameras and televisions were scarce. The available television programs were shown in black and white. The boring programming consisted of cooking shows or politicians talking, so kids invented games to amuse themselves. Freddy enjoyed the company of his many cousins; a number of them were as adventurous and mischievous as he was. They had swimming contests, racing from the beach around a boat anchored thirty meters offshore, and back to the beach. Every week, the boys tested themselves to see if they were ready to swim the longer circuit around the second boat, anchored fifty meters away and back to the beach. In the evenings, a group of kids would sit on the anchored boats, fishing with hand lines, discussing really important kid-stuff late into the warm tropical nights.

Close in age, cousins Rafael, Tino, and Freddy found a number of ways to amuse themselves. One of their best inventions was to create boats from the thick foam packing discarded when a new outboard motor was uncrated. They jammed five or six kids into the foam ship and bounced around the bay until the foam broke into small pieces. The smaller pieces were then carefully collected, and the boys would spend the next two or three weeks creating toy sailboats complete with masts, sails, rigging, and keels. When they tested the seaworthiness of their creations, the boats would either be a failure requiring additional engineering modifications or an amazing success, sailing away on the ocean never to be seen again. 

Freddy with his beautiful mom and five sisters.

Nearby, Remigio, the owner of a tiny tienda, created lightweight kites from a combination of paper and coconut fronds.  Available in a variety of colours, the kites, or papalotes, cost one peso each.  Perpetually short of cash, Freddy and his cousins decided that instead of paying the one peso, they would create their own aerial toys. Eventually, as they gained experience, the papalotes grew in size, becoming more elaborate and larger. With the addition of a razor blade attached to the tail, the boys created a fighting kite that could battle for supremacy of the sky over their stretch of the beach. A half-buried wooden boat served as the launch site for the fighting kites, with the losers crashing ignominiously into the surf.

Cancun in 1970. Imagine how rustic Isla was.

With the success of these aerial fighting machines, Freddy's uncles decided to make larger papalotes. They were constructed from the heavy paper sacks discarded by the tortilla bakery.  When full, the sacks contained about forty-five kilos of corn flour. With strong wooden ribs and a rope to hold the kite, the men waited until the stiff winds arrived in the spring to launch their creations. Each kite required two or three men, or in the case of the younger crowd, up to ten little kids to hold the ropes. Even then, the winds would occasionally pull the kids squealing with laughter toward the ocean.

And to make money to pay for their supplies, Freddy and his cousins created a business of sorts.  The island streets at that time were paved with packed sand, but at the intersection of Matamoros and Medina, the sand was surprisingly soft. Suspiciously soft. A handful of the cousins would casually perch on either side of the street, waiting up to thirty minutes for the rare vehicle to appear.  When the vehicle stopped at the stop sign, be it the soft drink truck, the snack delivery van, or a tourist's vehicle, the soft sand would trap the front wheels. One of the older boys would run up to the driver cheerfully offering assistance, telling the driver to remain in the vehicle and to wait for his instructions.  

Yadira and Freddy - at a costume party

Once the frontman had negotiated the price, every kid would jump to their assigned task: removing sand from around the front wheels, or stuffing rocks or pieces of wood into the holes to help with traction. Next, all the kids would congregate at the back and push the vehicle out. As a precaution, a large rock or piece of wood was placed beforehand, directly in the path of the vehicle, to ensure that the driver would not leave without paying for the rescue service. 

There is a history of pirates such as Lafitte and Mundaca residing on Isla. It would seem that the boys paid particularly close attention to this part of the island's history!

To be continued next week .......with memories of Canadian friends who grew up in the 1970s on Bowen Island, BC, Canada.

Hasta luego
Lynda, Lawrie, Thomas the Cat, and Princess Chica

I'm sorry about the lack of photos ..... but, cameras were very scarce!  
All of the older photos are from various family members' collections. The last photo of Freddy and Yadira dancing at her "dress as a Mexican" birthday party is from our photos.

Murder. Mayhem. Revenge. Romance.

Isla Mujeres Mystery Series

Death in the Vineyards Mysteries

The Adventures of Thomas and Sparky