Living
And Teaching In Colima, Mexico
A Place To Rest ~ By Jurgen
Klemann
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Retire
In Mexico - Live Better For Less -
While there are some people who come to Mexico for a week’s vacation and
end up living here for the next twenty years, most people adopt a more
prudent course and do some homework first. Dru Pearson is a person
who did her homework and she is someone who knows about retirement in Mexico.
While there may be a few expatriates scattered in a dozen villages throughout
Mexico, most Americans and Canadians settle in one of five locations:
San Miguel de Allende, Mazatlan, Oaxaca, Guadalajara, or Lake Chapala.
Dru Pearson visited all these areas before settling in Lake Chapala. Dru
gives sound and thoughtful advice on retirement in Mexico. Everything from
how to pick your location to Mexican paperwork is covered. If you've
ever considered retirement in Mexico please read this report first. It
has the information that would otherwise take you months of frustration
to acquire. Click
Here for details - |
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My
article on working all over the globe ended with me having landed a teaching
position at the campus Colima of the Monterrey Institute of Technology
(ITESM) in Mexico. Let us continue this tour d’horizon all over the world
by having a brief look at Colima, Mexico and teaching at the ITESM campus
there.
Colima
After being
born and growing up in Munster, Germany - a city with a population of more
or less two hundred and seventy thousand people - I lived and worked in
Miami, Johannesburg and Auckland. There is no doubt that all these three
cities deserve to be called buzzing and international. Even though Miami
is a bunch more buzzing and international than Auckland, the City of Sails
- which is Auckland’s nickname - is very international as well. Just a
look at the wide variety of restaurants available and the significant Asian
population there are sufficiant to confirm that assessment.
In this respect,
Colima can certainly not compete with Miami, Johannesburg and Auckland.
Colima is located in the southwest of Mexico. It is the capital of the
state with the same name, which is the smallest state in Mexico in terms
of geographical size. The city of Colima is virtually surrounded by the
Sierra Madre de Occidental, the Western Central Highlands of Mexico. It
is also very close to the Pacific Coast and thus the beach. All this means
that this part of the world may be your cup of tea if you are into things
like splashing in the ocean, surfing and hiking.
However, do
not expect anything in Colima like thriving nightlife. Although there are
three tertiary educational outfits there - the University of Colima, the
Technological Institute of Colima and ITESM - there is not much that fits
the bill, as far as nightlife is concerned. There are about one hundred
and fifty thousand people living in Colima. Compared to European and North
American university towns with a similar size, Colima is filled with peace
and quietness. My wildest nights so far are when I have every now and then
a few beers with students.
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The
streets of Colima City, Mexico.
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In a nutshell,
to use a phrase that Doug Casey
is occasionally inclined to use in his articles, Colima is virtually “in
the boondocks”. However, the city is also surrounded by two volcanoes and
is right in the middle of a region that is constantly threatened by earthquakes.
The latest quite serious earthquake hit and severely damaged parts parts
of the city at the beginning of this year. The earthquake took me by surprise
while teaching a class. I cannot claim to have been amused.
By the way,
I seem to have developed quite an impressive track record on attracting
disasters. First, hurricane Andrew in Miami in 1992; then the “battle of
Johannesburg” in 1994 with more than fifty people killed and more than
two hundred people injured; then the power crisis in Auckland in 1997,
which left the City of Sails without electricity for more than a week;
eventually - at least for the time being - the earthquake in Colima. Never
mind, you have got to have “some fun” in life.
Despite all
this, I am still inclined to call Colima my favourite place of all the
places in Mexico that I have seen so far. The living costs - even by Mexican
standards - are quite low. The weather is tropical. The city is very safe.
One can stagger around there twenty four hours a day without having to
watch one’s back. There are also some good restaurants in Colima. In contrast
to Manzanillo, Puerto Vallarto, Oaxaca, San Cristobal - among others -
Colima is not touristy at all. It is rather tropical, mellow and a little
sleepy.
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| The volcano
in Colima is considered the most active volcano in Mexico. |
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For
that reason, I sometimes feel like the lawyer Patrick Lannigan in John
Grisham’s novel “The Partner” in Ponta Pora, Brazil on the border to Paraguay.
However, that statement only refers to the lifestyle, not to the embezzlement
of funds.
ITESM, Campus
Colima
The Monterrey
Institute of Technology (ITESM) is a private university system with campuses
throughout Mexico. Assuming that I am still up to date, there are currently
thirty three campuses all over the country. The system was set up in the
second half of the 1940’s. It is said to be the largest and most prestigious
private university in Latin America. However, those statements are relative.
Within Mexico, ITESM enjoys a reputation as being the Mexican equivalent
to Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). To a certain
degree, each campus operates autonomously and independently. The largest
and most significant campus is likely to be the one in Monterrey, while
the campus in Colima is definitely among the smaller campuses.
What I am going
to mention about ITESM is solely based on my experience on the campus in
Colima. However, it is safe to assume that circumstances are very similar
on other campuses, even though certain details may deviate. There are three
different levels for students and courses - preparatory, diploma and professional.
At preparatory level, the class size ranges from fifteen to thirty and
the students are rather young. At preparatory and diploma level, the students
are a little older and classes are usually smaller, sometimes wonderfully
small. As a rule of thump, the size ranges there from two to ten.
Language of
instruction in a number of classes is not Spanish but English. Besides
English, foreign languages taught include French, Italian, German and Japanese.
There are usually a few exchange students on campus from North America,
who focus on improving their Spanish by taking Spanish language classes
and/or other classes taught in Spanish. |
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For all these
reasons, the portion of non - Mexicans on the faculty is quite significant.
Although I have never carried out my own census, look at it more or less
realistically, forty to fifty per cent of the faculty are non - Mexicans.
Most are from the United States and Canada, but faculty members are also
from France, Japan, Lithuania and Germany. After spending almost two years
at ITESM, campus Colima, I have got used to a certain flexibility, as far
as teaching courses is concerned. The courses that I have taught so far
range from Philosophy and Art History to English and German. Whether this
flexibility may be explained with the small size of the campus, who knows.
A part of my
unwritten job description is playing soccer with the students’ team. Needless
to mention that Mexicans like all Latin Americans and Germans are soccer
fanatics. When students realised shortly after my arrival in Colima that
I am German, they tried immediately to talk me into playing soccer with
them. Everything was made worse because I could not keep my mouth shut.
I was stupid enough to tell them that I used to play soccer in Germany
and South Africa.
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I was not to keen on playing in Colima - to put it mildly - because of
my age. When I arrived in Colima, I was on the brink of turning thirty
nine. However, my comeback was due at the campus’ soccer tournament. It
made me the oldest player in the tournament. During the entire tournament,
I always played in the defence and never crossed the middle line. That
comeback turned out to be a triumph. We won the tournament.
The prize that
every player of the winning team received was a football. But I had to
face the music for that football. After the tournament, I was limping like
a war hero for almost a week. It was worth the effort. Since then, I play
more or less regularly, although I have recently cut down a little. As
I reached the mature age of forty last year, it may be wise to take things
more easy.
Though I have
given golf a go already, I tend to the assumption that I am not old enough
yet to take it up regularly. A little out of the ordinary may be to emulate
Doug Casey by taking up polo. Let us wait and see. Time will tell.
Summary
In case you
are sick and tired of the rat race and feel like dropping out for a while,
there are a bunch of provincial towns in Mexico worth having a look at.
Colima is just one of them. My usual activities range from having extensive
breakfasts at my favourite restaurant, reading in my open air office -
which is located under some palm trees on campus - to teaching a few hours
and playing soccer every now and then. It is very easy to get used to this
sort of lifestyle and thorougly enjoy it. |
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| The author
(third from left) at a graduation dinner for his university students. |
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The main character
in John Grisham’s novel “The Testament” - a former big shot lawyer in Washington,
D.C. - had a comparable experience in Corumba, Brazil on the border to
Bolivia. I do have some sympathy for that guy. But that is a different
story altogether.
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