I've been married for a while now but it was in Mexico that I suddenly realized how differently women travel than men. It was the time my husband and two children (aged five and eight) travelled to Puerto Angel on the Pacific Coast of the State of Oaxaca.

The man climbed into the back seat of the taxi beside me, slamming the door clumsily as the driver pulled back onto the highway. Hunched forward, balancing his bag on his lap, his teeth gleamed in the dark. "Gracias Senora. Buenas noches," He nodded at my clutched children, "Ninos. . . ninos. . . ."

I waited for him to demand all my valuables. My husband John, in the front seat, had all our traveller's cheques tucked away in his money belt. My classroom Spanish would not stand up to a robbery. We would be pitched off the side of the road, peso-less.

The taxi accelerated, fish-tailing around the next corner, leaving the night-time lights of Puerto Angel behind us. We've been set-up, I thought, the driver has an accomplice...

The taxi had come to pick us up at nine o'clock. "That'll get us to Pochutla in time for the midnight bus to Oaxaca," we had said.

After the driver finished urinating into the darkness we negotiated a price. John, at six-foot-four, squeezed himself into the front passenger seat, his knees up around his ears. I took the back seat with one child on my lap and one snuggled tight against me, my arm around her. I locked the door on my side. There were no seat-belts. The taxi sprayed rocks as it turned and left the parking lot of the hotel.

Barely out of town, the driver said, "Look, a campesino." He skidded to a halt. "He is a poor man needing a ride." The stranger got into the taxi with us.

We continued on our way. The taxi slowed around corners, swerving out to pass slower vehicles, headlights slashing the darkness. A dozen times in the half-hour drive to Pochutla I was certain we would be killed. Then it wouldn't matter much if we'd also been robbed. I clung to my children and prayed to Canadian gods.

The man beside me held his tattered nylon sports bag tightly against his chest. He said, "Gracias, senora," every time I gave him a sidelong glance. He patted the empty space between us. I tried not to list as the taxi careened around corners. My son fell asleep in my arms, sprawling hotly against me. My daughter whimpered, "You're squishing me." My back ached.

As we neared Pochutla the man sharing the back seat with us called out to the driver, "Aqui, aqui," and leapt out of the taxi, vanishing into the hot and humid night.

At the bus depot, the disgruntled taxi driver loudly demanded more money. At this time of night, he'd never get a fare back to Puerto Angel. We grudgingly acquiesced.

Under the bright fluorescent lights of the bus depot I collapsed, exhausted, into a blue plastic chair. "We're all still alive," I groaned. "Still alive?" my dear, sweet husband asked, "Was something the matter?"

Fear From Her Point of View

What makes us so afraid is the thing we half see, or half hear, as in a wood at dusk, when a tree stump becomes an animal and a sound becomes a siren. And most of that fear is the fear of not knowing, of not actually seeing correctly.
Edna O’Brien, Under Bow Bells, 1974

It’s like the smarter you are, the more things can scare you.
Katherine Paterson, Bridge to Terabithia, 1977

Fear has a smell, as love does.
Margaret Atwood, Surfacing, 1972

All quotations from the New Beacon Book of Quotations By Women - Editor, Rosalie Maggio

Love From Her Point of View

You need someone to love you while you’re looking for someone to love.
(Shelagh Delaney, A Taste of Honey, 1958)

Love needs to be proved by action.
St. Therese of Lisieux, Story of a Soul, 1958

Love never dies of starvation, but often of indigestion.
(Ninon de Lenclos, Lettres de Ninon de Lenclos, 1870)

I love you no matter what you do, but do you have to do so much of it?
(Jean Clarke, Self-Esteem, 1978)

All quotations from the New Beacon Book of Quotations By Women - Editor, Rosalie Maggio