Free Trade by Judy W. Eby

Seeking a new challenge, Sandra, a happy, successful wife and mom from San Diego, sets off across the border that separates one of the richest cities in the world from one of the poorest cities in the world. When a happily married San Diego woman decides to volunteer in Tijuana, she sets off a chain of events that will test the strength of her marriage and leave her life hanging in the balance. Exploring the relationships among people of different cultures and socio-economic groups in the US and Mexico, Free Trade challenges social norms in a profoundly moving story of cities separated physically by a thin fence and psychically by a wide chasm. For Sandra, a happy life of contentment in San Diego with Dan, her airline pilot husband, is no longer enough when her now-grown sons leave for college. Taking a leave of absence from her job as a school administrator, she seeks volunteer opportunities and becomes involved in a reading literacy program known as Rolling Readers. Enjoying it very much, she volunteers to join a doctor on a medical mission to Tijuana, a decision that will change her life forever. In conflict with her husband’s desires to sail and travel with him when he flies to interesting locations, Sandra remains committed to the Tijuana community center and the children she works with. As the fabric of her marriage begins to fray, a sudden and violent storm traps her in a broken-down shanty on a Tijuana hillside with a mother and young child. When the foundation gives way, they are propelled down a muddy chasm, trapped and fighting for their lives. For women in mid-life crises interested in new challenges, Eby delivers the impassioned message that it is never too late to make a difference in one’s community. She encourages the reader to widen her search and redefine her concept of community; crossing new borders in the process. Erik Erikson’s theory of positive vs. negative life choices in human development is at the foundation of this story. Eby illuminates how discovering a new sense of purpose at mid-life results in generativity vs. self-absorption, a reminder that there is no greater feeling than helping our fellow human beings. Free Trade is a compelling, heartfelt journey to the shared spaces of the human experience.