A Mango for the Teacher: Running the Beach and Running a School in Cancun's Early Days

June, 1975 - With New York City deep in budget crisis, Deborah, a spirited young teacher of English as a Second Language, receives her third pink slip in two years. Her strongest ties to New York were cut when cancer claimed her mother, uncle and aunt. With no prospect of work, she takes off for the glorious Mexican beach she had stumbled upon three years earlier. At that time, the only trace of human intrusion near the beach was a wooden bridge with a hand-painted sign reading "CAN-CUN." During Deborah's second trip to Mexico, hilarious experiences follow harrowing ones. Driving south, she encounters natural and human beauty all along the way. Once she reaches Cancun, it seems that everyone wants her as an English teacher-how could she say "No"? Deborah's life expands to include a school of more than four hundred students, an international circle of teachers and friends, an island, a husband, a son, a sailboat, sharks, a tarantula and muchas aventuras.