Growing up in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco.

Zane Vanderhorst-Sewell
Apr 3, 2018
6 min read

In this post I go in depth about growing up in Mexico, and all the different experiences and memorable events that I was involved in during my time there.

Prior to moving to Mexico my family and I attended Spanish lessons so we would be able to adapt to life in Mexico with more ease.

I moved to Mexico at the age of 9 and spent my first year there attending grade 3 at a private school called The British American School, which was a really eye opening experience while my parents began construction on the house we had decided to build.

The contrast between the two cultures was incredible to see and the drastic differences.

The private school I was attending separated English and Spanish courses due to the high volume of foreign students to accommodate the English-speaking students. I was attending grade three courses for all the English programs I was in but I had to work my way up from grade one to grade three in my Spanish program as my Spanish was not at the same level as the students who had been speaking the language their whole lives. I had quite a few friends at the British American School, as I found many of the children where in similar situations as myself, moving to a new country with your parents it was easy to relate.

I was on the school Soccer team where I was completely out of my element as everyone eats sleeps and breathes Soccer in México since being in diapers, my skill level was below everyone else but as I improved my skills in that sport I found a deeper love for the sport. I was on the basketball team at The British American School as well; I was much better at this sport and found my skill level was pretty equal with most of the kids.

In grade four we came back to Canada, I think we just needed a break from the heat, but after spending a year back in the city I was born in we decided that we had to get back to the house we had started construction on, which was still underway.

In grade 5 when we returned to continue to oversee construction on the new house, I started at a new school that was much closer to our residence that was underway and only a block a way from the beach. This new school was much different that attending private school, I was the only minority in the whole school and stuck out like a sore thumb being the only light skinned person. All my classes were only taught in Spanish and none of my teachers spoke a word of English, but I found that I had learned enough Spanish to be considered fluent so this wasn’t much of an issue. My time attending public school was not as enjoyable as being in private school as I found I was bullied more often than not and found it very had to find friends I could relate to. The only thing I really enjoyed about going to public school was the walk to and from school, on the way to school I would stop and get breakfast at this bakery on the way to school and it was a very scenic walk down from my house up in the mountains down to the school beside the ocean. On the way home from school sometimes my dad would meet me at the gate with my dog that was a surprise present when we returned to Mexico, and we would take a walk down to the beach and watch the sunset and grab some dinner at one of our favorite restaurants along the boardwalk.

The Boardwalk, which is also known as the Malecon was a very popular spot for tourists to visit, as it is comparable to Time Square in New York City with incredible amounts of people in tourist season it seems like everyone in the city is in one place. All the most popular chain stores and restaurants are located here, along with some incredible restaurants.

One of the vendors on the Malecon is a crepe stand in which I vividly remember due to it being the last meal I ate before getting deathly sick for a month and a half, and only being able to get out of bed to go to the bathroom to puke. I blamed my sickness utterly on the crepe stand even though the truth is it probably had nothing to do with it, although this caused me to get nauseous every time I would walk around the vendor, I did not eat a crepe for years after that experience.

One of my most memorable experiences in Mexico was every Wednesday there was an opening at all the galleries in the city, they called the “Art Walk”. This was a great experience for my family as my father would be featured in many of the galleries and I would see some of the most incredible artwork that changed my perspective on art and opened my eyes to new concepts and platforms for expressing creativity.

Most of my spare time in Mexico was spent reading and playing video games as I didn’t have to many local friends to hang out with on a regular basis. I had two main friends while living in Mexico but they were only living there seasonally as there families were constantly on the move as well. My best friend lived in Los Angeles for the most part so I got to see him a few months out of the year. I met him through his mom who was owner of one of the tour companies that was really taking off in the city. His mom supplied us with passes to countless tours such as zip line tours, ATV tours, and jungle tours that took you on incredible walks through the jungle. Her son and I would get into some really fun situations and go around from beach to beach drinking beer at a young age, which was pretty common in Mexico, and you would never get asked for ID anywhere. We would go pool hoping from hotel to hotel and getting in was no problem being white the staff would always just assume that we were guests at the hotel. My friend knew where all the best pools were all over town. My favorite was this one on a roof that overlooked the public school I had previously attended where some of friends had stayed while I was attending and could point me out in a second being the only white child, when we all gathered in the courtyard every morning to pledge allegiance to the flag and sing the national anthem while some kids would march around military style with a massive flag.

My other friend that I had down there was mainly living in New York City. He was always calling me out for my Canadian slang, so whenever I said “Eh” he would stop the conversation and question why I would say such a thing. His mom was the head of operations at one of the galleries my dad was featured in which is how we got to know each other.

When I came back to Mexico in grade 5 I was surprised with a dog that my father had gotten for me. My dog I named after “Chewbacca” from Star wars but my parents thought it was an awful name so they had started to call her “Rosa” when I wasn’t around and this made me a little upset but it was all in all a better name so it was hard to have a valid argument. Rosa was a lovely companion to have but she was unable to be house trained no matter how hard we tried. We took her on walks and loved her unconditionally but when it came to the time where we decided to move back to Winnipeg we were unable to bring Rosa with us due to her inability to house train, and we have a couple cats at home that would have eaten her alive if we brought her back. So unfortunately my dad had to find a new owner for her in the neighborhood. When we did return to Mexico about a year later I had not gotten over that we had to leave Rosa behind. When I was out on the roof one day I could swear I could see her a few blocks away on the roof of someone’s house. i figured I was just seeing what I wanted to see and thought nothing of it, but a few weeks later while out for a walk on the street near my house I saw Rosa and her new owner out on a walk so I called out to her and she was so very happy to see me. It was such an emotional encounter for me that it brought me to tears and her new owner denied that we had ever owned the dog previously, I guess because he thought that I would try to get her back, which wasn’t the case, I was just happy to know she was doing alright.

So living in Mexico was a great experience and I would definitely recommend that you take trip there one day.

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