Trip to Mexico

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In 1972 when I was 18, we went to Mexico. There was Mary Bird, Bob Interbartolo – we called him “Inky”! He was a seminarian. Inky and Jack Panozzo were pals. And there were four young people. Some Mexicans from a Christian base community had come to Canada with a Development and Peace tour and we had met them. I think we met them at the Catholic Worker House or something like that (Bob Carty probably had had something to do with it) – they invited us Canadians to come down. We were all finished Grade 13. So it was myself, my twin sister Mary K., and two other young people. And then Bob, this “Inky” and Mary Bird who was a nun at the time.

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So the deal was, Bob was going to lead the delegation and he was going to be helped by this nun who was living in Aguascalientes, whose name was Frances Arbour. And, so we’d go to Scarboro Missions and have these meetings, and we’d do all this training and orienting of these young people. We’d do walks around Cabbagetown and have analysis sessions. This was before the News Synthesis, but kind of grew into it when we got home. So we met the Scarboro guys, and we got to know that gang. We’d go for 6 weeks. So myself, and Bob McCabe, and Bob Carty drove Bob’s car down. The last night in Scarboro, we had a last meeting with Frances before she went down to prepare all the meetings that we were going to have. Frances had come back to Canada to meet us. That evening she announced that she was leaving the nuns.

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The Montezuma’s Revenge Song

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So we met with this group in Martin Carrera (a working class barrio in the north end of Mexico City) that worked out of the parish. We studied Liberation Theology. We studied Marx. We went to Valle del Mezquital and saw how very poor indigenous people were trying to scratch a living out of the desert. One night we went off, travelling around somewhere, eight of us in this little Toyota, and got someplace where there was a fiesta in town. So we had this great big … well, we had two bottles of brandy or rum or something. And you know, they have those little plastic things in the nozzle. Carty’s holding this up, and these 18 year olds are guzzling this shit down. And then we go into the dinner!!! Yeah. And so we come out of the dinner and I get this shot of Montezuma’s revenge. So I run into this milpa, this cornfield, and unfortunately the fireworks for the celebration were exploded right over where I was crouched down. And afterwards Bob put this into a song! So yes, it was quite a trip.

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The NGO Central America Refugee project (1982)

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The deal was, we just can’t keep sending all these people down to the (Central America) region every two weeks. It’s too expensive. It’s too crazy. Yes, good people come back and tell stories about what’s happening with the refugees but it’s not sustainable. We’re going to put some cooperants down in Central America and do this refugee project right. There’s some money from the churches and some money from CUSO. There were seven organizations and we were to be CUSO cooperants, and would report to the seven groups. I can remember being totally frustrated. Going into Nicaragua, from Mexico, translating for Meyer Brownstone and Warren Allmand, and Ian Waddell and doing this trip for them, doing all this work and at the end of it, one of the organizations saying, “You know, we don’t think this project’s really working!” Well, I had just spent two weeks going through Honduras and Nicaragua with their group …. “What do you mean!???” It was tough, because there were too many chiefs.

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LAWG wasn’t part of the seven agencies per se. But I remember we had to go to Ottawa for our CUSO  orientation, and after that we were to go down to Costa Rica to do Spanish training, but, we were told before that, we had to go to Toronto to spend a day with LAWG! I remember being told it was REALLY REALLY important to meet this group, and that anybody that was going to be chosen for this job would have to go to Toronto and spent time with LAWG! (Which was neat for me, as I knew so many LAWG folks already!) I remember meeting Suzanne Dudziak there. I don’t remember meeting Bob but of course I knew Frances and he and the work of ICCHRLA and TCCR, and people from the Vuskovic tour. And so, whenever I’d come back home I’d always go to meet with people in LAWG.

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Then at some point, there was this debate about how too many resources were going into the Central American refugee stuff. There was the trade union work. There was human rights work and you know, Romero and whatever, the popular church, or there was the ‘this’, there was ‘that’ – the refugee thing had its moment; so this project, after two years, we shut it down.

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The Story of Being Hired by the Jesuit Centre

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By 1989, I’d been away for 7 years. Suzanne and I were coming up by land and staying at Louise’s, or Barbarita and Chucho’s apartment in Mexico. And the phone rings and its Laurel from the Jesuit Centre. We’d already decided that Suzanne’s going to study popular education at OISE so I’ve got to find work somewhere. I’ve been gone 7 years and so what am I going to do? Wash cars? So when she asked if I’d be interested in the job, I said, “Sure!” So the next day, the phone rings again. Same person. Laurel says, “Tim Draimin has decided to go to CCIC, so how would you like to apply for Tim’s job?” I said, “Sure.” She says, “OK which one do you want?” I said, “Both!” Like, “Put me in for one or the other.”

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So I get home and go to the interview. The next day, Czerny’s in Ottawa for something, and phones to offer me the job and the next day the Jesuit Centre calls me up at my parents’ place and says, “Come into work. We need you to start work immediately.” I said, “You’re crazy! Suzanne’s still in the States somewhere. We don’t have a place to live. I’m at my mom and dad’s and haven’t even moved back yet.” “Come immediately or we’re going to have to get somebody else. These Jesuits have just been killed in the Central American University  in San Salvador …and we’re going to send down a delegation. If you don’t come to work we’re going to have to get someone.”

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So I dashed down – and I hadn’t even started working there! – and two days later we’ve got this delegation together. I think we had Anglican Primate Michael Peers and others, and I think Bishop O’Brien. And Tim did a press conference, so bang! – the Canadians had a delegation of church people for the funeral of the Jesuits! And then of course, Mike Czerny was there at the Jesuit Centre. So, it was kind of weird. And poor Suzanne. She was going to spend two or three years working on her MA, and I was just thrown into this … and then worst of all, February ’90, the Sandinistas lost the election! We never expected that to happen either.

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We were trying to get established. I mean, all this stuff was … imagine, Suzanne hadn’t even moved to Canada  yet and these Jesuits were killed and then at Christmas, I was back to Central America because the Jesuits had their meeting between Christmas and New Year’s. Suzanne was alone in Toronto – which was the stupidest thing … but the Jesuits didn’t care about that …  everything was going to rat shit! There was this big thing of support for Nicaragua, and Tools for Peace, then the Sandinistas lost. The peace process … Salvador and Guatemala … started a little bit after that … and I remember Janice Acton saying at one of these meetings, “You know, the really important stuff in all of this is to work with church people because they’re in the for the long haul.” You see, it had all kind of fallen away when the excitement about Central America and everything looked dark, but there were still these pockets of people that would stay involved. So anyway, I joined LAWG – the collective – around 1990.