I met Deborah Frisch at CABE (California Association for Bilingual Education) in 2005 when my picture book Playing Lotería/ El juego de la lotería was released. Deborah was promoting ¡Binglés! La Lotería Para Aprender Inglés.
La Lotería joined us and we decided to present my book and ¡Binglés! at teacher's conferences in California. She dressed as La Dama and I dressed as El Catrín. We had a lof of fun singing,
♪ ♫ ♪ Do you Have the lady?
¿Tiene usted La dama?
No, I don't have the lady
pero tengo la rana. ♪ ♫ ♪
Our last conference was in Puerto Vallarta, México at the 39th International MEXTESOL Convention. At Puerto Vallarta, I saw Debby in action speaking perfect Spanish and dancing and singing with a Mariachi band. Debby lived in Cancún for many years. She was the founder of Escuela Xilango, a English Language School. To find out all her adventures in Cancun, you can read her memoir A Mango for the Teacher, a 2013 International Book Award, 2nd Place winner in Best Biography-English.
I created this video to promote ¡Binglés! and Playing Lotería/ El juego de la lotería. You can see Debby in action playing the game.
Debby talking about ¡Binglés!
A Mango for the Teacher
Deborah, a spirited young teacher of English as a Second Language, flees NYC's ’70 fiscal crisis, heading for Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula. Her destination? A small hamlet/construction camp adjoining a spectacular undeveloped beach: Cancún.
Hilarious experiences follow harrowing ones as a class for four becomes a school for four hundred. Then come love, adventure and misadventure too.
FACEBOOK:
Celebrating the Life of Deborah Frisch
This is a post from Ranjana Mani, Deb's daughter-in-law.
Debby Frisch, David Kittams’s lively wife of 23 years, lost her brief battle with pancreatic cancer early Sunday morning, September 22, at our home in Berkeley CA.
Debby was born in Brooklyn NY to Irving Frisch and Leonora Weiss. She moved at age eight with her parents and big brother Geoff to Plainview, Long Island NY; attended Syracuse University, City College of New York, and New York University (M. Ed, ESL.) She stayed in Cancun, Mexico, for 13 years, and then…So read all about it in her memoir, A Mango for the Teacher: Running the Beach and Running a School in Cancun’s early days.
Debby worked in schools and everywhere else teaching English as a Second Language. She enjoyed travel, photography, birds, designing language-learning games, singing, and hiking with her fellow Newtniks. She and David had spent this June visiting friends in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Israel, where her diagnosis was confirmed. Debby stayed twice at Summit Hospital, Oakland; then Sutter Hospice took over her care at home. Thanks to Hospice, Debby was comfortable enough to celebrate--with food--her birthday, and David’s 35th (for the second time), and their anniversary (and son Lee’s 22nd birthday—same day!)
Debby’s original family now includes Gloria Frisch, her sister-in-law,and nephew Benjamin Frisch (Atlanta GA); niece Julie Frisch and her husband,Michael Glassman (Jerusalem, Israel); her aunt, Shirley Curson Weiss (Tucson AZ); and cousin Judy Weiss, her husband, Jim Judge, and their daughter, Julia (Woodstock NY.)
Debby was born in Brooklyn NY to Irving Frisch and Leonora Weiss. She moved at age eight with her parents and big brother Geoff to Plainview, Long Island NY; attended Syracuse University, City College of New York, and New York University (M. Ed, ESL.) She stayed in Cancun, Mexico, for 13 years, and then…So read all about it in her memoir, A Mango for the Teacher: Running the Beach and Running a School in Cancun’s early days.
Debby worked in schools and everywhere else teaching English as a Second Language. She enjoyed travel, photography, birds, designing language-learning games, singing, and hiking with her fellow Newtniks. She and David had spent this June visiting friends in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Israel, where her diagnosis was confirmed. Debby stayed twice at Summit Hospital, Oakland; then Sutter Hospice took over her care at home. Thanks to Hospice, Debby was comfortable enough to celebrate--with food--her birthday, and David’s 35th (for the second time), and their anniversary (and son Lee’s 22nd birthday—same day!)
Debby’s original family now includes Gloria Frisch, her sister-in-law,and nephew Benjamin Frisch (Atlanta GA); niece Julie Frisch and her husband,Michael Glassman (Jerusalem, Israel); her aunt, Shirley Curson Weiss (Tucson AZ); and cousin Judy Weiss, her husband, Jim Judge, and their daughter, Julia (Woodstock NY.)
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