Eric Durán learned the import-export business from his father Joaquín, who introduced the people of Indiana to the beauty of Mexican handicrafts. The Durán family's first shipment of artesania was loaded into the family station wagon and driven back fifteen hundred miles to Indianapolis.  At age fourteen, Eric and his family moved to Brownsville, Texas where Eric worked every summer with his father, helping him deliver American-made goods, tractor parts, and clothing, to México. In 1976, Eric worked for a freight-forwarding company, which trained him to negotiate with customs agents on both sides of the border.  In 1993 he began to teach private classes in English in Xalapa and later joined a travel agency to organize mountain bike tours for visiting American students. He also taught at the Xalapa Montessori School for a year.  When he moved to Bellingham, Washington in 1996, he supported himself by cleaning windows while he worked as an English/Spanish interpreter for the Head Start Program and prepared Spanish speakers for their citizenship tests.  Eric continues to travel in México and is currently planning a more in-depth version of his book. v