My New Free Ebook on Learning Spanish

It's been a few weeks now since I added the image of my new ebook on how to learn Spanish to the side of this blog. Quite a few of you have signed up for it and I thought everybody else might like to know more about it.

It's not another grammar book or lists of vocabulary, useful as those might be. Instead, it's a discussion of the process of how to learn to speak Spanish.

I called it Five Keys to Learning Spanish Rapidly:

• Key 1: Choose a Method of Learning Spanish that is Right for You
• Key 2: Find All Kinds of Time to Learn Spanish
• Key 3: Remember by Reviewing.. That's How Our Minds Work
• Key 4: Listen, Listen, Listen
• Key 5: Speak Spanish Now

I discuss each topic and include a resource guide.

Regular readers of this blog know that I am hardly an expert at the Spanish language. So what gives? I decided last summer that I wanted to improve my Spanish, and I began doing research into what the most effective methods are for learning another language. The website learnspanishrapidly.com grew out of what I learned. One thing that stands out is that being, ahem, of a certain age is no impediment.

When you sign up for the free ebook, you also receive an email from me on Tuesday mornings, which lists and shows the beginnings of the Learn Spanish Rapidly blog posts from the past week, an easy way to keep current. You can of course unsubscribe from it at any time, from the link included in the bottom of the email. And I don't do anything with your email address except send you the newsletter.

The email itself can serve as reminder to you to keep going on your own Spanish, even if you don't happen to click through to the blog. One of the things I'm noticing as my own Spanish improves is that creating simple, regular habits is a huge key. I talk about that a lot over on the new site. For example, I'm currently running a series of articles on the benefits of using computer flashcard programs to study Spanish.

That site has only been up a few months and I have huge plans for it. It turns out that there are all kinds of interesting online resources for learning Spanish, and I intend to make that site a place where you can read reviews of many of them. I write about ways to learn Spanish for free and about commercial programs like Rosetta Stone, Pimsleur, Tell Me More, and my new favorite, Fluenz.

So if you're at all interested in learning Spanish, do sign up for my ebook, from any page of this or that website, or just go take a look at

LearnSpanishRapidly.com 

and its blog at LearnSpanishRapidly.com/blog/

Hopes for a New Year

The title above is a translation of an article in El Charal, the weekly Lake Chapala newspaper.  In this article, a dozen people were asked about "las esperanzas de un año nuevo." I enjoyed reading their comments.

Several men were here in Mexico for the holidays and would be returning soon to their work in the US. One said he's lived in the US for 21 years, another said since 1972, while others didn't specify. All of them hoped that work in the US would improve in 2009.

Practically everyone had the same wish for Mexico, that the economic situation would improve. A local gardener wished that this new year would be "lleno de salud y trabajo, que es lo mas importante." – full of health and work, which are the most important things.

An engineer at the University of Guadalajara commented on both the recession and on "calentamiento global," or global warming. A middle school teacher spoke of his wishes for children who lack basic necessities.

I was telling my husband about the article when I realized I'd like to share it more fully, so here you are. And whatever happens in our world, I wish you, reader, a year full of health and meaningful activity, whether it's technically "work" or not!

Casas Grandes and Mata Ortiz, Chihuahua

Some six years ago, Kelly and I took a short vacation from our home in Colorado, a little ways into Mexico. Our destination was the rural small town of Mata Ortiz, Chihuahua, maybe three hours from El Paso. Texas.

Just another small Mexican town? No, it's famous worldwide for its exquisite pottery. I've already told the story of Mata Ortiz and Juan Quezada – the link takes you to what I wrote about it, five years ago, when we went there at the end of a trip around northern Mexico in our motorhome. (The Mata Ortiz part begins about halfway down the page, just before the picture of a bedroom.)

An American anthropologist, Spencer MacCallum, figures prominently in that story, and I've stayed on his email list ever since then. Just recently, I read his latest updates about Mata Ortiz and the nearby town of Casas Grandes, where he and his wife now live.

Here's a Google Map of Casas Grandes. It's on the edge of a rich agricultural area. The nearby city of Nuevo Casas Grandes must have at least 60,000 inhabitants, where I think Casas Grandes is about 6,000 and Mata Ortiz maybe 1,500.

View Larger Map

He talks about it being quite safe there (on the page about travel to the area) and he lists some houses for sale that people have asked him to mention. If you have ever dreamed of buying a traditional adobe and fixing it up, this is one place you can do it! My jaw dropped at some of the low prices, for houses old and new, adobe or not. Here's one example in Casas Grandes, from the classifieds page. There were some in need of repair for way less.

Old adobe home with traditional walled garden (fruit and shade trees, flowers) two blocks from the plaza on the historic Camino Real. 22” walls, vigas. The oldest section, once the town’s dance hall, dates to the nineteenth century. Newly roofed and re-wired. $65,000 USD.

What would be the pros and cons of living in that area? Admittedly the climate is dry, dusty, windy, and on the extreme side. It can be very cold and very hot… kind of like Deming, NM, where Kelly and I have spent a couple of winters. We've never stuck around for the hot summers.

But it's got great access to the US, maybe two or three hours to Deming or El Paso by car. Sometimes here by Lake Chapala, I feel rather cut off from the US, though admittedly it only took us four hours to fly to San Francisco, California, a couple of months ago.

I've had many ideas for books that I will never get around to writing. One of them would be a book about northern Mexico as a place for Americans to live. The conventional views of that region as being drug-ridden and highly dangerous are probably true of a few specific locales. My guess is that a lot of places within a few hours of the border are delightful. Alamos, south of Nogales, Arizona, is a well-known popular spot which Kelly and I liked when we were there in May of last year.

Back to Casas Grandes. The number of foreigners is small, but when we were there, there was quite a spirit of helping the village of Mata Ortiz with its art. And to me, one of the most fascinating things about Mata Ortiz is the extraordinary flowering of creativity there and what that says about what we humans are capable of.

We are not planning to leave Lake Chapala, but next time we drive back to the US, maybe next summer, we may well go by the Mata Ortiz area again and see how it's doing. And if you've been wondering about living in Mexico, this is yet another of many interesting places in this vast and complex country!

A Beet and a Large Bra: Two Women's Stories of Mexico 40 Years Ago

This week two of my Mexican friends told me stories that date back to their girlhoods.

One of my friends grew up in Guadalajara. She always loved it when her grandmother came to stay with the family. The older lady was so sweet and gentle. One day, when her grandmother was out, my friend – then about 6 or 7 – went into her grandmother's guest room for some reason.

She saw a betabel (beet) sitting on a table. It had been cut into and a slice removed from it. Well, she knew that beets belonged in the kitchen so like a good girl, she took it there.

Later that day, the grandmother asked my friend and her sisters, "Darlings, do any of you know what happened to my beet?"

My friend said yes, she had taken it back to the kitchen. The grandmother explained, ever so kindly, that she used the beet as makeup, to put some color in her cheeks.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The other story happened right here in San Juan Cosalá, or at least it began here. This particular friend of mine has lived here, in this village, all her life. Before she or her sisters were married, they all lived at home. One sister worked as a maid in Ajijic.

The sister – let's call her Patricia, since that is not her name – took the bus to work very early every morning. Most of her fellow passengers were young fellows from Jocotepec, also on their way to work.

One morning Patricia overslept and the first thing she knew, the bus was stopped outside her house, honking for her. Mario, the driver, knew she belonged on that bus. She jumped up, tossed on some clothing, grabbed a rebozo (shawl) that was lying over a chair, and ran out to the bus.

Mario teased her a little but what do you expect? But then, once in Ajijic,as she began to get off the bus, Mario asked her about the adornment dangling from the back of her rebozo. She didn't know what he was talking about, so she took off the shawl to look.

There was a large sostén (bra) attached to the shawl, stuck on by its fasteners. It wasn't hers; she was quite slender. As my friend told the story, a ripple of amusement ran down the seats of the bus as Patricia got off.

Meanwhile, back home, my friend said that their cousin visiting from California was looking everywhere for her bra."Where did you leave it?" she asked. "Right here on this chair," her cousin said indignantly. And of course it wasn't till Patricia got home from work that evening that the item was returned to its owner.

"And did Mario tease Patricia about that afterwards?" I asked. "Por supuesto," said my friend, as she stopped giggling over her memories. The best translation of that phrase in this context would be: You better believe it.

3 Bedroom House for $27,000 US? There's a Hitch But Still…

Last Monday morning I had my usual twice-monthly massage in the nearby area of Riberas del Pilar, which is between Ajijic and Chapala. Kelly and I usually go together and do errands while we are out.

A friend of ours, Miguel Roman, works in real estate out of Ajijic -– that link takes you to his site. It happened that he had just listed a house in the town of Chapala for $35,000 US. Kelly had directions to it and decided that with nearly an hour and a half till he would be picking me up, he'd go find the house.

An adventure followed.

He found the right neighborhood and parked a couple of blocks away, before the road turned into a rugged path. He wandered around and found a house that had the right number. There was a Mexican woman in the yard, and she confirmed that the house was for sale.

She was most hospitable and asked him if he'd like to see it. So he went inside with her and took quite a few photos. In fact, he was late in picking me up.

Over a restaurant lunch, he showed me the photos. I was intrigued too. So back we went for me to see it as well. It was a pretty typical Mexican house, with three bedrooms and a bathroom. As you can see in the photo, there were steps from the bedrooms down to the main living area, which was indoor-outdoor, and with a view.The owner said she wanted 350,000 pesos for it. At today's exchange rates that is under $27,000 US but everyone tends to convert mentally at 10 pesos to the dollar, as the rate was just above that for a long time.

Well, to make a long story short, this house wasn't the one Miguel was selling, though the two were near each other. The street names were confusing and there were no street signs. I think he sold his listing, a 2 BR 2 bath unfinished place.. it was hardly on the market at all before he got an offer anyway.

We slept on it and decided to pass on this house ourselves. We are happy here and not eager to tackle a huge project like that. The real magic of that place was the view, and while it was very good from her living room (or would be if you trimmed the trees), you'd have to build onto the roof to get the full panorama. She said the house had been constructed with that in mind. This photo shows her roof, with Chapala below, and just a part of the view of the lake. So I phoned the woman's brother's house and asked them to pass the word on to her.

Back to the title of this post. The hitch on this house we saw is that you have to walk uphill to it and can't get your car less than a block from it. Those steep paths!

BUT STILL I think it's great evidence that deals can be found everywhere. I bet if you spoke some Spanish and wandered around asking people if they knew of houses for sale, you'd find interesting possibilities. You'd need to check them out carefully… Mexican real estate is a buyer beware matter. But still…

If You Have a Lemon Tree, Make Lemon Curd

Okay, I know that isn't exactly the way the old saying goes. But it's what happened around here this afternoon. It's the time of year when our lemon tree goes bananas. We have banana trees too but they are not going bananas in this cooler early winter season. It's getting into the 40s at night now, and the sunny 70s temperatures of midday aren't lasting so long into the late afternoons.

But back on topic. For the next two or three months, we'll have an abundance of lemons. Not those seedy sort of sweet things that a lot of our friends have but real tart lemons. Actually we haven't bought lemons in years, as the tree keeps producing at varying levels all the time. The wind knocked a bunch of lemons off the tree this week so even after we gave a lot away, we still had a bunch in the house.This picture shows mostly green ones, but some ripen to yellow before falling.

"Lemon curd!" I thought. Don't know why – I had never made it before and am not sure I have ever even tasted it before. But I googled lemon curd and found a bunch of recipes along with warnings that it could curdle and and need to be strained to remove unappealing bits of cooked egg white that hadn't blended.

This was beginning to sound like too much work for my style of cooking when I can across an article about a foolproof way to make light, luscious lemon curd. That sounded good, so I printed out the article and the accompanying lemon curd recipe. It's just lemon juice and a bit of grated peel, butter, sugar, and eggs.

I didn't have a small pan with a thick bottom so I decided to double the recipe and use my big stew pot. It was a fair amount of mixing, and that was by hand, but the results were worth it. And it was foolproof.

Some lemon curd is in the freezer, and a jar is in the fridge. The article says it will keep a week in the refrigerator but I doubt ours will last that long.

It's quite tart – yeah, I did use a little more lemon juice that the recipe called for, didn't want to waste those lemons – sort of like the yellow part of lemon meringue pie on steroids.

I think it will become a regular part of our Mexican cuisine.

In the US or in Mexico, Family is Sweet

I'm finally getting back into my regular routines after our trip to California, still savoring all the great connecting and visiting that happened there. Kelly went to a week-long natural building building conference while I made the rounds of family and a few dear old friends. We both started and ended in San Francisco, where our daughter lives, and I was also in Berkeley and Sonoma County, both places where I lived long ago.

Let's see, in my family, I saw my daughter (step-daughter actually but I call her either one) and her partner, my niece and her three kids with a glimpse of her husband, my sister-in-law, two nephews who are brothers, (one with wife and two daughters, one a new baby), another nephew with a wife I'd never met, two former brothers-in-law, and the new wife of one of these fellows.

Sounds very Mexican, don't you think? I'm resisting the temptation to draw out a family tree for you, but when I planned out the itinerary, I was aware of how Mexico has affected me. Family is so important here that it has become more important to me too. I also saw five old friends who are like family to me.

We Americans tend to scatter geographically and our family life pays a price. There's also the matter that many (most? all?) families have dysfunctional aspects. Still, getting older, I find that my family means more to me than it did in the past. I am connected to these people in ways that have such deep roots.

One ex-brother-in-law was newly out of the hospital from a successful cancer surgery. I hadn't seen him in close to 20 years. Don't think I'll wait that long again to go back to my old stomping grounds. In fact, I briefly entertained fantasies of living again in Sebastopol, California. (I used to run the public library there and when I stopped in, both librarians there remembered me. Nice!) But I don't think I could afford California nowadays.

Back home in San Juan Cosala, I've chatted with various Mexican friends. They understand perfectly why I would make a trip that was all about family. (Well, a bit of shopping too, but even that was with family!)

Obamonos – Let’s Obama!

We’re just back last night from an action-packed 12-day  trip the the US, where Kelly went to a natural building conference and I saw a lot of family and dear old friends. Plus I brought back nutritional supplements, books, open pollination garden seeds, thrift store clothing, and a variety of other odds and ends that I haven’t found in the Lake Chapala area.

With luggage and laundry still piled everywhere, I wouldn't be blogging yet, except that a friend from Ajijic (thanks, Micki) sent me a link to a delightful video that you can practice your Spanish with… specially if you are a fan of Barack Obama.

It’s a musical video in Spanish with English subtitles and great fun. The title of this blog post picks up a word I noticed in chalk on a sidewalk in the video, and would translate, as I did in the title, “Let’s Obama!”

Here it is:

Uncertainty in the US, and a Doomsday Cabaret

I'm still visiting family and old friends in northern California for a few more days before heading back home. With all the questions about the economy, not to mention the election, there is lots to talk about.

When I was still in Mexico, I didn't really know how the people I know here were faring, or thinking, about the economic downturn. Now I have some clues:

• A dog-walking relative in San Francisco has lost two clients, including one of his favorite dogs, when their owners lost jobs.
• An astute old friend who owns about ten rentals has been steadily improving them, putting in really nice kitchen appliances and other attractive touches, foreseeing a time when there would be more people wanting  relatively modest but very nice homes, where they would stay a long time.
• A couple who are semi-retired with enough retirement money for the basics are wondering if they will be able to afford the extras, like a trip to New Zealand that the woman has long planned. "Everything is totally uncertain,"  she said, a sentiment I heard from just about everybody.

Last night I went to a Doomsday Cabaret, in Sebastopol, California, a town I used to live in. Earlier in the day, I had stopped in at the public library there, which I used to run. The two librarians there recognized me instantly and we had a great gab about various people we knew in common.

So it was fun to feel the strong sense of community at the evening cabaret, which I went to with my sister-in-law Alexandra. She knew many (most?) of the people attending. The flyer announcing the event read in part: "Dress for the apocalypse! (or any way you see the changing world conditions)... nihilists, cynics, idealists, fanatics, conspiracy theorist, zealots, and economists all welcomed."

A variety of acts developed the doomsday theme, often too close for comfort. And very strong were also the themes of love and community. At the end of the show, one of the organizers said that putting the show together had been their way of coping with the current issues. They plan to do more. Nobody doubts they will be needed.

My favorite line of the evening came from a brilliant woman named Lou Montgomery, and I'll leave you with it:

When I'm in freefall, I must admit I tend to default to a darker place in my imagination.

I Meet a Young Black American Man Who Loves Mexico

Yesterday I had an interesting conversation with a young black man who has traveled all over Mexico and loves the country and its people. He speaks some Spanish, I don't know how much.

This topic has come up now and then here, as I have received email queries from black Americans who wondered if they would encounter racism if traveling in Mexico.

So I was eager to ask this guy that question.

Kelly and I are in California right now, and yesterday we went to an art show in San Francisco, in a huge building where dozens of artists work. This fellow -- never did learn his name -- was sitting in the studio of a young woman my stepdaughter knows slightly. We all chatted a while, and Kelly mentioned that we live in Mexico.

This guy said he'd been in Guadalajara and some other places, and that his favorite place in all of Mexico was Oaxaca.

I told him that people had sometimes asked me on my blog about racism in Mexico.

"Racism? Of course I've run into here a lot, but I never did there."

He said something about his speaking Spanish helping. I also noticed that he had bright eyes and a buoyant spirit... hmm, kind of like a lot of Mexicans I know. But it gave me the feeling that he's someone people would naturally like.

So just a little tidbit more to add to the discussion of racism and Mexico.

By the way, we're hearing a lot of Spanish in San Francisco. We're staying near the Mission district and have walked down there for dinner and various things. It's interesting to me that I feel more at home in the Mission than I did last time I was here, four years ago. I imagine it's due to traveling around Mexico, and of course living there, in the intervening years.

Another errand yesterday took us into Mervyn's, which was a great experience in multi-cultural people-watching. The store was packed, as pre-bankruptcy sales are underway. I waited a long time in a line to buy some all-cotton underwear, something I haven't seen much in Mexico.

I heard the woman in front of me arguing with her kids about not buying the toys they were waving under her nose. The kids spoke English and Spanish to their mother. The woman spoke Spanish to them. So when she told them to go ask their father, and they took off, I said in Spanish, "And he'll say no too, right?"

She laughed and we agreed that kids were kids everywhere, though actually I see much less of this kind of behavior in Mexico. Turns out she is from Guanajuato and her husband is from the US. They take the kids to Mexico every year to see her parents.

We chatted for quite a while, great fun. I was almost sorry when we got to the front of the line.

At the Ajijic Tianguis

A few weeks ago, we strolled through the Ajijic tianguis (weekly street market) with a visiting friend. I had a new toy with me, the Flip video recorder which is about the size of a small camera. It does surprisingly well at capturing video, though.

Here's the page with the video I made from that stroll:

http://www.mexico-with-heart.com/videos/ajijic-tianguis-flash.html

I haven't put it up on youtube or anyplace like that because I am still figuring out the technical details of doing videos. (There are a few wobbles in this one when I watch it online that I don't see when I watch my original.)

But I think this captures the feeling of the Ajijic tianguis. It's really quite an institution! You can buy all manner of things there. And you'll hear English as well as Spanish in the background.

Near the end, Kelly and our visiting friend Dave are chatting with a Mexican woman we know. Blanca and her husband Carlos come to our tianguis in San Juan Cosala on Tuesday mornings, after getting up around 3 AM to drive into the huge abastos market in Guadalajara, where produce and other food products are sold wholesale. Then they sell in Ajijic the next day. You can't get produce any fresher than from Blanca and Carlos!

People sometimes complain that the gringos have taken over Ajijic. This video shows a more Mexican face, even with the bi-cultural aspects.

Learn Spanish Rapidly: My New Website

I recently put up a new website: LearnSpanishRapidly.com. The subtitle is "Tips, Proven Techniques, and Reviews."

So far, there are about a dozen pages up. Just like the subtitle says, they include tips on how to learn to speak Spanish, discussion of what techniques work best, and reviews of some of the top software programs for learning Spanish.

I'm currently working on a short e-course for that website. It is not specifically on learning Spanish: it's on how to learn to speak Spanish or for that matter, how we learn any language. Once it's done later this year, I'll blog again here. I am not qualified to teach anyone Spanish myself! But I am having a great time researching how adults learn languages.

One of the most interesting things I've discovered is a relatively new multi-media program for learning to speak Spanish: Fluenz Spanish -- that link takes you to my review of it. If I were a relative beginner, I would start with it.

I'm so enthusistic about Fluenz that I've been emailing with the company, and when I go to the US in a few days, I'll pick up a review DVD of both their first and their second levels. That should keep me busy writing once I get back in a couple of weeks. (Quick trip.)

Why A Website on Learning to Speak Spanish?

The internet certainly has a lot of them already. But I haven't found any that do quite what I had in mind: combining solid information on how we learn languages with recommendations for both free and not-free resources, from the vantage point of someone who speaks some Spanish but is far from perfect. I don't even aspire to speak PERFECT Spanish.

A couple of my reasons for the site:

• I am constantly amazed at how many foreigners here in Mexico can't speak Spanish. It's often because they aren't sure how to begin or they think they can't learn. I want to encourage them.
• It's kick-starting my own process of studying Spanish. I've been coasting for a while.

Do take a look at the new site. I have plans for many more articles. Visit the blog, too.... and please post a comment on it about how you learned Spanish.... however much you know!

Midlife Mavericks: Women Reinventing Their Lives in Mexico, by Karen Blue

Karen Blue had a good career going in California when at 52, she quit, sold her house, and moved to Ajijic, Mexico. Her family and her closest friends thought she was crazy.

Once down here and settled in, she began talking with other women who had come down by themselves from the US and Canada. the result is a fascinating book, Midlife Mavericks: Women Reinventing Their Lives in Mexico. It describes the lives of quite a variety of women, of varying ages.

The book reads very smoothly and pleasantly, but if you are in the US and thinking about possibly living in Mexico, by yourself or not, be warned:

This book could be life changing!

That's why I just bought a copy the other day from Blue (that's what she goes by). I'm going to give it to one of my sisters-in-law, on purpose.

Do I think the book is an accurate description of life around Ajijic and Lake Chapala? Yes. Prices have risen since the book came out in 2000, and rentals are probably harder to find. But overall, the flavor of life as she describes it seems accurate to me.

My own life is a bit different, but then each woman's life is unique. Mine is different in that I am less active in the gringo community. I'm much more likely to be found at home, in front of my computer. As I almost never feel comfortable driving in Mexico, I don't run around nearly as much as most expats here. But I'm kinda a homebody wherever I am... it's just a bit more marked here. And I’ve made a real effort to develop friendships with Mexicans.

I would never have had the guts to come down to Mexico on my own, but even if you think you never could, this book is well worth reading!

It's available through Blue's website and via Amazon.com:

ATM Ate My Card… But Kind Mexicans Got Our Car Going

We had our challenges yesterday. Some days are like that.

I used the HSBC ATM at Soriana in Chapala, which is a big box store kind of like a small Walmart. For some ornery reason of its own, the ATM gobbled up my debit card. No money, no card. Nada. I did get a printed receipt that told me the machine had kept the card.

I knew I would never see that card again, but just in case – since the laws of reality operate a bit differently south of the border – I asked the guard who was standing nearby, interrupting a tender moment he was having with a pretty young woman. She flounced off, and he got a card from the nearby customer service desk and tried inserting it. The machine took it and gave  it back. Good, at least my card was far enough into the guts of the machine that the next customer wasn’t going to receive it.

Next I called the Mexican 800 number that was on the ATM for such occasions. Speaking Spanish on my cell phone in the echoing space of the store, I talked to two different young men, both very nice but both speaking very rapidly. The gist of it was that I should call my bank in Colorado and void that card.

I did that once we got home, and this is another case of the “good bad luck” that Kelly and I seem to have. Next week we’re flying to San Francisco for a quick trip, Kelly to a professional conference on natural building, me to make a circuit of family members and old friends in the bay area. There will be time for my replacement card to catch up with me in the US. 

Anyway, back at Soriana, Kelly turned up from doing other errands and he got money out with his card from a different ATM machine there. We did our shopping, loaded up the car, and paid the guy who had washed it.

Kelly turned the key. Nothing happened. We had gas. Our young friend Peter was due at our house pretty soon, and I hoped he wouldn’t have to wait on the street for us. (Peter’s blog on roaming around Mexico and other places just keeps getting better. Check it out if you haven’t. His recent post "Slowly, Mexico becomes a horror movie with a touch of farce" will curl your hair, guaranteed.)

The car washing guy and his buddy came over to trouble shoot with Kelly. They offered to give us a push and Kelly decided it was worth a try. They pushed us out of our spot and then forward towards a sloping exit. Cough, cough, and the car started. We were on our way.

What a relief! We were not going to spend hours in the hot Soriana parking lot.

We stopped in at a gas station to ask about buying batteries, as Kelly was pretty sure that was the problem. The guy there waved at an auto parts store across the street. The man at the store had the right battery and he and Kelly got it installed in no time, with pleasant chatting at no extra charge.

It worked. We got home before Peter.

Just that morning, a Mexican friend had commented that Americans are more community-minded than Mexicans. I do think there is some truth to that, but something about an emergency – small or large – seems to bring out the best in Mexicans!

Mexico the Next China?

Two or three weeks ago, a friend sent me the link to a Christian Science Monitor article which asks if Mexico is the new China. Since the population of Mexico has at least quadrupled since I was here as a child, I answered "yes" rather cynically in my mind.

But the article is about manufacturing, not population. It begins,

with skyrocketing oil prices, escalating labor costs in China, and an appreciating currency there, companies targeting the US market are doing the math and giving Mexico another look. So-called "nearshoring" could generate a reverse globalization that brings manufacturing back to Mexico.

The article is at
 http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0911/p01s02-woam.html

The point is that with fuel prices rising, it will make sense to diminish distances. Well, it is nice to see people realizing this!

I am a huge fan of the "locavore" movement taking root in the US, where people do their best to eat as locally as possible. We do that here a lot, with bananas, papayas, lemons, and more exotic fruits in our own yard, and an organic vegetable garden.

Just the other day, some friends were planning an outing to a pottery factory that is between here and Guadalajara. I blogged about going there over a year ago, as we have numerous large and small planters from it. Sadly, my friends discovered that the pottery factory is closing down.

Why? Because their main business was exporting to the US and they can't compete with Chinese copies of Mexican style pottery.

China the next Mexico? Mexico the next China? What a world!

Globos in Ajijic

On a recent Saturday afternoon, Kelly and I sat on a rooftop in Ajijic, at the home of some friends who live right in the village. We enjoyed the company of a variety of other people, but there was another reason we spent most of the time on the roof rather than two floors below, where the delicious food was.

Globos!

The annual balloon competition takes place every September, around the Independence Day celebrations. Believe it or not, this lovely thing is made mainly of tissue paper. People work together on their globos, whether it's a family, a neighborhood or a business.

We were several blocks from the soccer field where the globos were being launched, and that was fine with me because while most of them got off to a good start, I'm not very Mexican in my ideas about what is safe.

They go aloft -- and some go very high indeed -- due to being little hot air balloons, and the heat is supplied by kerosene-soaked cotton or rags that are set on fire just before blast off.

I'm glad that all this takes place in the middle of the rainy season. Here is the pretty one above, crashing and burning.

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This is one of the more elaborate globos. To see a whole slide show of the many photos Kelly took that day, see http://www.flickr.com/photos/kellyhart/sets/72157607290460439/show/ and click on "slide show" at upper right.

September 11 Thoughts

I may have mentioned here that my father was a noted science fiction writer, Cordwainer Smith. That was his pen name; as a college professor and political scientist, he kept that identity secret and went by his real name, Paul M. A. Linebarger.

Well, recently I re-did a large website that I have about his science fiction and added a blog. This afternoon, I posted an uncharacteristically personal (for that website) entry, and as I was washing some dishes just now, it occurred to me that some of you readers might enjoy it:

http://cordwainer-smith.com/blog/september-11-thoughts-of-my-father.html

Introverts, Extroverts, Paranoids, Drama Queens...

We're all here. I'm sure we have our Mexican counterparts but right now I'm thinking about us foreigners. The drama gets pretty intense at times.

Okay, I'll fess up that Kelly and I are the introverts and the extroverts -- both of us. We do enjoy going out now and then, we like talking with people and meeting new people. But when it comes down to it, both of us tend to be happiest working on our many projects: writing, gardening, learning new things.

For example, when Kelly's sister was here, she got us started with Wild Goose Chi Gong. I really took to it and am learning more, bit by bit, via DVD. This form of Chi Gong is known as a "medical" type, and I must say that seeing the health problems of other foreigners here has me on a fitness kick, losing weight, getting more exercise, and almost completely eliminating wheat and all sweeteners from my food.

That leaves the paranoids and drama queens. I'm sure I could qualify for one or another title now and again, but I was actually thinking of various other people and events over recent months. (Add drama kings, it's certainly not just women.) I will spare you the details of these sagas.

I was chatting about this over lunch with friends today, a couple who have been here several years longer than our nearly three years. The woman commented that one of the main things that she loves here is the sense of  community among the foreigners.

People tend to know each other, help each other out, make allowances for each other's foibles (however massive), and be warm and friendly to a degree she doesn't see in the US. Her husband pointed out that we all came here from someplace else.

I'm a bit nuts, some of them are a bit nuts. And maybe you'd fit right in too!

American living abroad? You can vote.

I didn't realize till we looked into it that any American living out of the country, whether civilian or military, is entitled to vote in national elections in the state where they last lived in the US.

Get all the details, and fill out a form to apply, at

http://votefromabroad.org/

They give various tips, including the comment that may reassure some of you: Voting only in federal elections only cannot be used to affect the determination of federal or state tax liability.

Please spread the word on this. It looks like the election in November may need our votes.

Kelly's Photos Around Our Lake Chapala Area

I'm busy on a new website (about learning Spanish... will write about it when I get it up, within a few weeks, I hope) and so I have been neglecting a lot of my ordinary activities... like writing here.

So when my husband Kelly mentioned that he was posting a bunch of his newest photos to flickr, I thought, "Aha,instant blog entry."

Take a loook: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kellyhart/

And I'll be back here again pretty soon!

Mexican Oil, Mexican Corn: Two Reports

My husband sent me two links today. One is to an NPR article about the politics and problems besetting Mexican oil, and the other is to an article about many aspects of food here. I think they are both blog-worthy.

The Mexican oil article is rather disquieting. Looming Energy Crisis In Mexico Stirs Debate is the title, and things don't get any cheerier after that. I think of Mexico as a country that HAS oil, but while that is true now, Pemex has been enough of a cash cow for the government, according to the article, that reserves could run short as soon as seven years from now. Funding that could have gone into improving long-term oil production has been diverted in a variety of ways. Of course "could run short" is not the same thing as "will run short." We'll see.

Here's another bit: "Despite being a major oil exporter, Mexico imports 40 percent of its gasoline because Pemex does not have the capacity to refine its own crude." I knew that importation was occurring, but I didn't realize it was that high a percentage of the gasoline. Oddly, while gas prices at the pump up north have done their big climbs, our prices have only gone up a little. That's because the federal government here in Mexico subsidizes gas prices at the pump.

Turning to corn, Corn Patches and Dispatches:Notes on a recent trip to Mexico is an article that ranges from milpas (cornfields or small farm fields) to Wal-Mart. Some (but not all) of the comments were interesting too.

Mexican Cat Misty

There are plenty of Mexican cats, since spaying and neutering are pretty rare here. One of them lives with us:  Misty, shown here exploring a bouquet. She came into our lives through an unlikely series of events. In 2005, we were living in the charming small town of Bernal, about an hour from the city of Queretaro. We rented a house, fixed it up, and thought we were going to live there indefinitely.

One day, a small kitten turned up in the inside patio of a an American friend of ours, chased there by a huge tomcat. His houseguest fed the little waif, but it couldn't stay long as our friend was quite allergic to cats.

I enjoyed holding the pale orange kitten, who was quick to purr in my arms. When the kitten was offered to me, I could think of many reasons to say no, but my heart yearned for her. Kelly was inclined to be rational -- who needs a cat when they are planning to go back to the US for a few months? But our landlord (who lived next door to our rental) was willing to feed the kitten while we were gone and nobody else had turned up willing to take her. Tossing her back onto the street was not an appealing option.

So Kelly and I agreed that Misty would become ours. She was a dear little thing, and very entertaining as kittens are, chasing balls around our house and back patio. Other cats could easily get into the patio via rooftops, and twice we came home to find she had literally been scared sh*tless by one of the large cat bosses of our neighborhood. It was quite a mess to clean up, and Kelly created a little covered cat area in the patio where she could be outside, with her own door inside, and sheltered from the bullies.

Spaying Not Easy

We thought Misty was younger than she must have been, for very soon she went into heat. Once that was past, we looked into having her spayed. A vet in a larger town could do it for 1500 pesos, about $150 US. A retired vet in Bernal was going to do it for a more reasonable price, but after some time he confessed that it had been some years since he had spayed a cat, and he was concerned that his skills might not be up to it. By then, we needed to go back to Colorado, where we would sell our house, pack things up, and return to Mexico. We found a local horse-and-cattle vet in Bernal, who gave Misty a "birth control" shot not available in the US, but he had never spayed a cat. He said he would come by and give her the shot while we were gone, but he never did. Luckily, the housing Kelly had created for her kept the boys away.

Departure and Reunion

I was in tears when we left her there, but I had to agree with Kelly that it was the best thing to do. Once back in Colorado, we did succeed in selling our house, but everything took longer than we expected. It was half a year later that we came back to Mexico in our little RV, with LarryDog. This is when fate intervened by bringing us to Lake Chapala, where things unfolded and we ended up buying our house here.

When we finally went back to Bernal to get Misty, it was no surprise that she hid under the bed and wouldn't come out. We slept there that night, and I woke in the night feeling her climbing over me and purring gently. We were friends again, and she was a good little traveler back to Lake Chapala. Getting her spayed her was simple and inexpensive.

So now Misty lives with Moonlight, our part-Siamese cat we brought back from Colorado the next year, and our two dogs. Misty keeps them all in line. Just yesterday there was a startled yelp from our Rottweiler Lola as Misty whacked her for some infraction. Misty has had enough large animals bothering her; now, she's the boss.

Dogs at Lake Chapala

It's a dog's life, all right, as our sleeping Lola demonstrates here. She's the Rottweiler we got a year ago, at the age of about 6 months. We got her from a woman who had gotten her from one of the three animal rescue organizations (all foreign-run) in the Lake Chapala area, and then realized that three dogs was really enough for her!  We heard that Lola had been turned in to the Animal Shelter by the foreigners who had bred her, so she has never known life on the street. She is a total love, but her presence and deep bark do have a good deterrent effect on would-be ne'er-do-wells.

Many foreigners who live in this area adopt Mexican dogs, and it generally works out well. The main caveat would be to use your common sense about what size dog to get, relative to your ability to handle it and to give it enough exercise. Many of the dogs who have known hunger and the street life are immensely grateful to humans who adopt them. (It's hard to know sometimes if a dog is homeless or just belongs to a family that lets it run, but my impression is that while there are a lot of street dogs in this area, the shelters  and their spay/neuter programs have made inroads into the problem.) Many Mexicans are real dog-lovers too.

These dogs may come with some emotional baggage, so patience may be required. See another of my websites, training-dogs.com, for lots of information on training dogs with pain-free, positive methods.

Another bit of advice would be to take your dog to a good veterinarian for an exam. If you have other animals at home, you might do that even before taking your new friend home. In this area, we are fortunate to have quite a few very good vets who speak English.

If you are driving down, you can bring your dogs with you. We did this with LarryDog, our now-11 mixed breed from Colorado. Here, he's demonstrating a trick where he waits to eat the bits of dog food on his paws till he gets told "Okay!" He needed to be in good health and to have a vet's certificate saying so, plus he needed a very current rabies shot and paperwork to prove it, to get into Mexico. In typical Mexican-style bureaucratic fashion, you don't know if such paperwork is really going to be needed and in Larry's case, it wasn't. At the border, he was barking his head off, guarding our little motorhome from the uniformed Mexican official, and the man asked if the dog bit. Assured that he didn't normally, the man just asked if we had any drugs or guns, and when I said no, that was it for LarryDog's border formalities.

I've heard that going into the US is much the same. The requirements are pretty much the same, and as a middle-class Mexican friend of mine said, "It's easier for dogs and cats to get into the US than it is for people!" Quite a few foreigners have adopted dogs here and taken them north with little or no problems.

There are a variety of pet-sitting options here, from Doglandia, a boarding facility run by a very caring foreign woman, to in-house pet-sitters, to having a trusted maid or gardener either come by or stay in your home. The most popular sitters are often booked way in advance.

Flying with dogs internationally can be done, but I don't know anything about how easy it is. Neither of my darlings shown above would qualify for being squeezed under my seat in the cabin of a plane, and I would be very reluctant to subject them to a journey in a crate in the luggage bay.

You can get a decent array of dog foods and toys here, though I do miss the more holistic foods available up north, and I make part of our dog food. Interestingly, LarryDog suffered from a terrible itching problem in Colorado, no matter what we fed him, and that has gone away completely here!

Another time, I'll talk about cats.

Two Mexican Adventures

Bits of my past are reflected in the two websites I've visited lately.

I'm a Stanford graduate and the alumni newsletter often has interesting articles. But I must admit I was surprised to come across one about a group riding bicycles across the state of Jalisco, where I live. By the time I read the article, they were long gone, but still I found this an encouraging point of view on what some young people are doing: an ecologically-minded rock and roll band bicycling through Mexico!

As a long-time Quaker, I'm on the email list of the American Friends Service Committee, which for almost seventy years has done a summer work camp in Mexico. This year, it's in the Sierra Norte de Puebla. This link was written before the project began but gives you an idea of what they do:

http://www.afsc.org/latinamerica/int/mexicosummer.htm 

And there are photos here of what's been going on this year.

http://picasaweb.google.com/MexicoSummer/MexicoSummerProject2008

I know that most of my readers are not of an age to be candidates for this project, but maybe you have family members or young adult friends who might be.

In any case, I do like reading about young people taking on such worthwhile projects!

Mexican Fireworks

Fireworks are a way of life here in Mexico. Most of them are the really noisy kind, but sometimes there are displays that are quite beautiful.

In June, our town of San Juan Cosala and all other towns with San Juan in their names celebrated the saint's day for Saint John the Baptist. This was preceded by nearly two weeks of loud fireworks, often late at night or very early in the morning. We foreigners tend to grumble to each other about all the racket, and I even know Mexicans who don't like the noise. For myself, I found it easier to accept the noise when I learned that the traditional purpose is said to be getting God's attention. Hey, I work on that myself, though way more quietly!

Kelly went down to the plaza on the night of the pretty fireworks and got some photos. I combined some of them here:

This design is on t-shirts, sweatshirts, etc., at my Cafepress store. This is a nifty website, where you can sign up for an account at no charge (or a modest charge if you use, as I do, the premium account) and upload your photos or artwork. They can be put on several dozen different items such a various t-shirts (including an organic cotton one), sweatshirts, note cards, etc., which you or others can then buy. They are quickly manufactured when someone orders them. Very cool... I have been using this for other websites of mine, but plan to add a bunch of Mexican t-shirts over time!

A Blog I Like, From San Miguel de Allende

There's sometimes a bit of rivalry between the Lake Chapala area and San Miguel de Allende, in terms of which is better as a place for foreigners to live, but I think it depends on many intangible factors. We have more rain and lower real estate prices. They have one city where we are a series of towns along the north shore of the lake. I guess they have more art.

But all of us foreigners in these two places have ample opportunities to get to know Mexico and Mexicans -- yes, even in Gringolandia!

Here's a blog that I enjoy: http://mexicowoods.com/

There are a lot of other good blogs from San Miguel, too.

Chatting with a Long-Time Expat

The other day I had the chance to visit briefly with an American man who has lived in Mexico for over ten years. I asked him if he had any tips for adjusting to this very different culture.

He had a rather Buddhist attitude, I thought. He commented that Mexico gives us plenty of opportunities to practice patience!

Along that line, he pointed out that some things  can take one person a very short time and another person a very long time. Or you can have both experiences at different times. Anyone who has waited for something to be delivered, as we did for the past couple of days, will resonate with this.

Then this guy told me a joke:

A Mexican dog and an American dog were chatting at the border fence. The Mexican dog said, "Gee, you have it great! You never go hungry, your people take care of you, you have a nice soft bed... could you get me into the US too?

"I suppose I could," said the American dog. "I bet we could find an easy place to dig under the fence. But if we do, I'm coming in to Mexico to stay."

"Why?" asked the Mexican dog, astonished.

"Because you can bark."

This joke is not just about dogs.

Moving SOUTH for Better Economic Conditions?

I was surprised to get a comment on one of my older blog posts which included, in part, this comment:

My husband, a Mexico native, and I soon plan to move to Mexico...Our decision was based largely on the steady decline of the US economy as well as the family ties.

Well, I thought that was pretty interesting. I can easily understand a Mexican bringing his American wife and in this case two young children to Mexico because of family. After living here for a while, I've found myself treasuring my own far-flung family a lot more and staying in closer touch with quite a few of them. Family is so central to life and survival here, that it seems natural to me that a Mexican would want to be with family, all the more so if the economy doesn't look good.

What I found interesting was that they considered the US economy to be declining to the degree that they felt their work life would be better south of the border. Mexicans, whether with or without papers, work at a wide variety of jobs up north. I have no idea what the immigration status of this particular Mexican is, but certainly people with papers have a wider range of options in the US.

It's not that I have had my head in the sand for the past while. Yep, I've been following the news. I know what's happening in real estate and with gas prices. With food prices. With jobs.

I've been noticing that every time we use an ATM we get fewer pesos for our dollars... the peso, at about 10.2 pesos to the dollar, is at a five-year high relative to the dollar. A lot of the time we have been here, it's been about 10.7 pesos to the dollar. That's quite a change.

I guess we get so used to one idea that when things change, our mental images may take a while to catch up. (Or in some cases, they never do. But I like to think I'm flexible!) So with a mental map that includes gazillions of Mexicans going north to search for a better life, this one little fact of one little family going south for the same reason stands out. And makes me think.

Would You Retire to the Mexican Coast or Inland and Higher?

We had such a good time in Sayulita recently that we can really see how people love to go there. Sayulita is up the coast a ways from Puerto Vallarta, and right on the beach.

But would we want to live there permanently? No, thanks, and here is why:

• We are much happier at over five thousand feet elevation here at Lake Chapala, as the climate is more comfortable. It was quite muggy when we were at the coast, though admittedly July through September is said to be the worst time of year for heat there. Our worst heat is March to May, and it is dry heat, much easier to take.
• We like being tucked in between mountains that take a lot of the bite out of Pacific hurricanes. Sure, we can get a lot of wind and rain -- this month, we have already had all of the nine inches that are the average July total. But hurricanes on the coast can do a lot of damage, and if the ocean level does rise even a little, it wouldn't take much to devastate a lot of beachfront.
• Our Lake Chapala area is more economical, at least in real estate. While Kelly's sister Alexandra was here, we were trying to get her interested in living here. I don't know if she ever will, but she did get a sense that she could find a nice rental in Ajijic that would suit her (and she has very good taste) for $400 to $600 a month. In Sayulita, it seemed that very few were available and that the prices might be as much as double what they are here.

This area and Sayulita are probably pretty comparable in terms of ease of access when flying in or out. The Guadalajara airport is about an hour's drive from our house, on this side of the city. I don't know exactly how far the Puerto Vallarta airport is from Sayulita, but it's not too far either.

I would give both the two areas top marks in terms of shopping, culture, access to really good medical care in the nearby cities, etc. With an edge to Guadalajara there.

Readers, if you have opinions on coast-vs-highlands, or related topics, please chime in!

Overlooking the Ocean at Sayulita

When we were in Sayulita recently, we stayed at Casa Carricitos overlooking the ocean... that link takes you to the page with rental information and pictures of the attractive interior of the house. We were so entranced with the out-of-doors that we never got around to taking pictures inside!

You can barely make out the house on the hillside, its flat roof showing. My sister-in-law Alexandra is enjoying the little-used beach just a short walk from the house.

The 180-degree ocean view from the terrace was the focal point of our time there. Here, Alexandra is flanked by friends Leslie and Nancy.

Guess it's pretty obvious that my husband Kelly and Alexandra are brother and sister!

Kelly kept his camera handy. Here, one of the countless land crabs is eating a flower. We loved the faces on the land crabs -- you can see the two eyes -- and since they would come into the house, we also appreciated that they tended to scurry away from us! 

But his biggest coup in the nature photography vein was getting the second of these pictures, as the lizard only showed that colorful bit for a quick moment: