Casey Middle School, under the leadership of teacher Lester Lurie, sent its third student exchange group in as many years to Ciudad Mante, Mexico from June 2 to 9.  Accompanying the group, I immediately felt at home because of Boulder’s sister-city relationship and because of the welcome of my large, extended host family.  It also helped that Mante is a small city and that I speak some Spanish.

 

On our first day we visited the Boulder medical mission sites.  At the Nursing School, where my Mante “sister” studies, we met David Rodriguez, the man with the original idea of the Boulder medical mission.  His son Andrés, who is the Mante head of the Boulder-Mante sister-city association, runs an English school on the Nursing School grounds and was our main liaison with Mante.  The local paper took a picture of our group at the Nursing School which appeared on the front page the next day with an article about our visit.

 

The Nursing School is closed for the week in February when Boulder doctors descend on Mante.  The classrooms are turned into treatment rooms.  Similarly, at the new hospital opened in October of 2007, the private-room wing is turned over to Boulder doctors treating patients.   At the Red Cross facility, a third medical mission site, the focus is on eye operations.  Surgeons typically conduct two or more simultaneous operations in the operating room in order to handle the large demand.  After 18 consecutive years of medical missions, it is no wonder that we visitors from Boulder felt so welcome.

 

The medical missions led to the declaration of our official sister-city relationship in 2000.  We frequently drove by a large flagstone with a metal plaque prominently displaying a February 2007 rededication to our relationship.  At the Casa de la Cultura, a mural also commemorates the relationship and includes the names of the first Casey exchange students who helped to paint the mural. 

 

On the topic of painting, we met Florián López, the muralist who in 2001 painted the Boulder Dairy Center sister-city mural.  Under the Mexican flag and the golden eagle, one sees the Flatirons.  Under the American flag and the bald eagle, one can see a place we visited -- El Nacimiento, a Mante watering hole and the origin of the Mante River fed by a spring more than 200 meters underground in an enticing cave.  Florián spoke fondly of his 6 months in Boulder and showed us some of his paintings as well as a book of his murals.

 

We also visited some schools including Escuela Secondaria Manuel Ávila Camacho, a public middle school where I was pleased to reconnect with teacher Arturo Cárdenas.  I had visited his science class in 2007 when he taught at Lafayette’s Angevine Middle School.  Knowing someone in Mante before I even arrived is just another example of how I felt welcome and comfortable in Mante.

 

A Casey student and I shared a room in a home with a widow and two of her three children.  We were immediately enveloped in the larger family, meeting the younger married daughter, her 1½-year-old son, her husband and even many of his family.  We met the ex-boyfriend of the older daughter, the future wife of the son and the widow’s sister and her family.  My teenage “cousin” played trombone in a concert for our group.  A Boulder Rotary club had donated many of the instruments and was thanked publicly for its generosity after the performance.

 

The first few days we were in Mante the temperature was in the high 90’s.  We had a swimming party the first day, less than a block from where my Mante “brother” is building a house.  It was fun to be able to introduce the party host to my Mante host family and facilitate yet more people-to-people connections.

 

From the pool party, we drove to the outskirts of town to get a view of Cerro del Bernal, a mountain which is completely isolated and therefore a rare geographic phenomenon.  We did not visit it, but it is on the state seal of Tamaulipas, the state in which Mante is situated.   

 

We did spend one night in El Cielo, declared an international biosphere reserve by the United Nations in 1987.  Within about 550 square miles it contains 4 distinct ecosystems: tropical jungles, temperate pine and oak forests, cloud forests, and arid plains.   About 300 people live in the part of El Cielo we visited.   One of the women we ran into there was a grateful surgery patient of a recent Boulder medical mission. 

 

Jean Louis Lacaille was our El Cielo guide.  He is a Mante engineer who I suspect spends more time in El Cielo than any other non-resident.  Although El Cielo is not in the municipality of Mante, Jean Louis has worked with Boulder folks to get an occasional mobile medical unit up to El Cielo.  Traveling there from Mante is not simple, requiring 2 or more hours uphill on a very rocky road.  As you may imagine, a mobile unit is especially appreciated by the isolated El Cielo residents. 

 

After days of 90 degree weather, the second half of our trip was filled with downpours beginning not long after we arrived in El Cielo.  We were scheduled to meet the mayor of Mante on our last day, but he had to cancel because he was handling flood emergencies in the municipality.  Sugar cane is the main product of Mante, and the mayor’s office presented us with farewell presents of woven shoulder bags made in Mante as well as tiny bags of sugar.   

 

After coming back from Mante, I did a little research and put some family history puzzle pieces together.  It turns out that back around 1930 my grandfather John Landry, a manager of a sugar mill in Louisiana, was hired to be the superintendent of a mill in Mexico.  When my father was just an infant, his family moved to Mante for a year to join my grandfather who worked in the local mill, El Ingenio.  The mill had just been built and is still a major landmark in the town.  The small park at its entrance is popular with young couples these days. 

 

In the mid-1970’s I traveled with my parents and siblings by car to Monterrey, Mexico and through parts of Tamaulipas including a day in Mante.  Although I don’t remember visiting Mante, my father went to the mill and saw his father’s name on the paperwork for the mill’s first production run.  With my daughter traveling to Mante with me this June, that makes four generations of my family that have stayed in Mante.       

 

During this second trip to Mante I often heard and saw the adjective Huasteca.  The Huasteca region includes Mante and comprises parts of the contiguous states of Tamaulipas, San Luis Potosí, Veracruz and Hidalgo where the indigenous Huasteca language was spoken and in some places still is. 

 

I encourage all Boulder residents to visit Mante and the surrounding region and to meet the manténses (Mante residents).  I expect you too will feel very welcome. 

 

Boulder Valley residents also have the opportunity to meet manténses locally.  For example, the third reciprocal student exchange from Mante will take place later this summer.  For more information on any of the Mante sister-city activities, visit http://boulder-mante.org/, e-mail Norris Hermsmeyer at NORRISBOCO@aol.com or call 303 442 6611.