With Mexican friends at our pool

This afternoon, a Mexican family we know came over for a couple of hours around our pool. At first, the father got in with most of the kids, while I sat and chatted with his wife and her sister and mother and Kelly roamed with his camera:


Then we got in too. The pool can hold many people! This is the first time the shallow kiddie play area has gotten a lot of use.



And here's a teenager flying through the air!

Water Woes in a Small Mexican Town

Our town has been without water for almost a week.

We've heard various rumors:

• One pump is out... no, it's two pumps that are out, one on the west side of town and another one.
• It will be fixed tomorrow (which is a holiday). It won't be fixed soon.
• They took a pump to Guadalajara (less than an hour away and Mexico's second-largest city) but it didn't get fixed and had to be sent to Guanajuato (a small city several hours away). This seems odd to me, but then rumors often do.
• The parts of the town at higher elevations are without water because there's not enough pressure... or the whole town of 5000 people is out.

So what do people do in a case like this? The small city of Jocotepec, which is the equivalent of the county seat for our town of San Juan Cosala, has been sending over water trucks. My guess is that people here know how to make do with way less water when they have to, even if it means dirtier clothes, etc. Virtually everyone has a water tank on their roof.

Kelly and I are among the wealthy when it comes to water. Our new tinaco, or black water tank at the top of our quarter-acre, is an extra-large one, holding 2500 liters which is 660 gallons. At the bottom of our land we have an aljibe or inground water tank, which can hold a lot of water. We don't know how much, but we guess about 10 times the tinaco. Of course, we do have to have electricity to pump up to the tinaco, but that's been on all week. Well, except for two five-minute interludes.

As a further backup, we have the swimming pool, which we estimate holds about 11,000 gallons.

We normally do almost all the watering of our gardens and lawns directly from the town water system. We let it go till today, except for a little hand-watering, but many plants looked really thirsty so Kelly hooked up our hoses to each other and watered everything that needed it, not including the lawns. He was encouraged that he only used about 300 gallons.

Also, yesterday a Mexican friend told us about someone he knows in Jocotepec who has a water truck and sells water. We may get a load for the aljibe, which is currently about half full.

Water is about as basic as you can get!

A Travel Blog I'm Enjoying

I will never be a young, hard-drinking, athletic, adventuresome man.

But I'm enjoying a vicarious experience of being one, at Fifty Foot Foghorn, the blog of a fellow traveling around the world. He's been to Japan, New Zealand, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and is in Thailand now. He's a nephew of my friend Chinle, who sent me the link.

He's a good photographer too.

Sick in the Night

Night before last, I woke feeling awful. Soon I was throwing up, and mercifully I quickly fell back asleep. This cycle repeated itself three times before dawn.

Next, diarrhea.

I spent all day yesterday dozing on the bed or on the sofa for variety. I wasn't upright for more than a few minutes. I drank water and ate about half a baked potato.

Today, I'm much better but still a bit weak.

This is not an unusual Mexican scenario. While public health is way better than it used to be, there are still bugs lurking. Did I catch something from someone on the bus? Was it the lettuce in the restaurant meal I had the day before I got sick? While the time-honored advice is never to eat any raw fruits or vegetables, the reality in Mexico is that almost all of the time, you will be fine. There's no way of knowing if this was an exception or if something else happened. Kelly and I generally use our intuition about what to eat.

I'm very glad to be feeling better. It had been a long time since I'd thrown up and I had forgotten both how unpleasant it is and also how much better you feel afterwards.

Just another part of the Mexican experience. In fairness, though, I should add that after Kelly and I once spent several months in Mexico, he got sick after we got back to the US!

The Green Angels of Mexico

The Guadalajara Colony Reporter, a weekly English-language newspaper I've linked to before, had a nice article recently about the Green Angels. If you haven't heard of the Green Angels of Mexico, and if you know my ecological bent, you might think they were soemthing to do with the environment.

Not exactly. These guys (I bet they are all guys) are English-speaking mechanics carrying tools and small parts / first aid responders / tourist information resources who drive trucks that for years have been green but are now changing to white with green trim. This popular government program has been in force since 1990 or so. They cruise the highways, looking for people, especially tourists, in need of help. Their basic services are free, though tips are accepted and there might be charges for supplies.

If you will be traveling by vehicle in Mexico, you may want to do what I just did, program their toll-free number WITHIN MEXICO into your cellphone. It's 01-800-903-9200. I don't know if whoever answers the phone speaks English... probably, but you may need to speak slowly and clearly.

For a website showing their regular routes, go to
http://www.sectur.gob.mx/wb2/sectur/sect_9454_rutas_carreteras

We take down a dead tree

About a week ago, Kelly bought a good long ladder and immediately trimmed some of the branches of our trees to improve our view of Lake Chapala. Then he got to thinking that if he took down a dead tree trunk that's not too far from the house, the view would be even better. It's a huge old tree, though, and he didn't want to think about how much work it would be without a chain saw.

Not long after that, he heard a chain saw being used about a block away. He wandered down and found a Mexican man handling it very deftly. Kelly asked the guy if he'd be interested in taking down our tree. The guy came by after work that evening and took a look. He and Kelly made a deal: he'd be here Saturday afternoon around 3 PM, and he'd do the job for 300 pesos, about $27. The guy could have the wood.

So he turned up yesterday afternoon, with another man, a younger man, and two school-aged boys. They all got to work, and Kelly got out his camera. Here, work is underway on the sawing.



A closeup of two men with the guide rope:



And here's the best picture... Kelly caught the tree in midair! (His camera did, I mean.)



Our view IS nicer. Photos of that another time.

Disruptions and Infrastructure in Mexico

Last night we walked over to the home of some other foreigners who live about a ten-minute walk from our place, just for a quick visit. We were inviting them and another couple who live in a small town east of Chapala to join us for something next weekend. It turned out that the other couple has been unreachable by phone or internet for almost a week because some disgruntled ex-phone company employees had cut some lines and Telmex hasn't fixed it yet.

While we were there, the sky got darker and Kelly and I thought we'd better get on back because it looked like rain. But our friends said they'd run us home if it did rain, so we stayed.

Good thing we did, because almost immediately the winds picked up and a major downpour began. Not just rain... hail too! Thunder and lightning were in the mountains just above. It was spectacular. With the strong wind, dozens of lemons fell from our friends' tree just outside the window. Things quieted down after a while, but it rained for about an hour. The electricity flickered off and on but didn't stay out long.

When they drove us home, it was a different story. Our street once again was without power, for about the fifth time since we moved here. As we walked up through our front yard with a flashlight, there weren't a lot of large branches down but there were leaves everywhere. Kelly noticed about half an inch of hail still on the lawn; we later heard that it hasn't hailed here in over 40 years.

Our dog Larry was exceedingly glad to see us, as he splashed through the water on the kitchen floor.

What was water doing on the kitchen floor?

We quickly lit our three votive candles, recently purchased after another night when the lights were out, and discovered that the kitchen floor resembled a lake in parts. It had come in the back door. From some plastic bins left outside, we guess it had rained between two and four inches, and a lot of that seemed to have come horizontally.

I've never mopped by candlelight before, but I did that while Kelly cleaned out the water that had flooded his toolbox in our little side porch.

We've got the phone number of the CFE (Comision Federal de Electricidad) permanently on our bulletin board, but nobody answered. Well, it was Easter.

In the morning, there was no power. We surveyed the damage and spent the morning cleaning up. Luckliy, our large water storage tank at the top of the land had over 600 gallons in it. No more would be added till the power was back on, but 600 gallons is a lot.

Here, Larry regards the yard from the porch:



Our pool was the worst of it, filled with debris. We cleaned out a lot but couldn't run the filter because it requires electricity.



I called the CFE and they said there were many areas without power. It would be a while. So we moved the food from our refrigerator to the one in our RV, after setting it up on propane.

As the day wore on, I noticed how my mind kept assuming we had power, with little thoughts like:

• Guess I'll do a load of laundry with all these rags and towels.
• Kelly's not on the porch so he's probably at his computer.
• I'll put this avacado from a neighbor's tree in the fridge, as it seems perfect.
• I'd better email my sister that my email is down.

I've been without power many times in my life, but somehow I found this time more disquieting. Maybe it's because this disruption echoed the hurricanes of last year. We had watched on TV how people in several countries coped with flooding and power outages. The Mexican infrastructure is challenged at the best of times. How long would our power be out? How long would we be offline?

Kelly took a bus to Ajijic for some errands, and when he returned, he was annoyed that the power line on the other side of the highway had been fixed but ours hadn't. We thought maybe the CFE might think there were no problems remaining in our area, so I called again. I got a recording which I couldn't understand. An hour later, I got a real person and she was very good about asking exactly where the problem was. Encouraging.

After dark, Kelly took our cellphone down to the motorhome to charge it. Just as he was doing that, the lights came back on. It was a bit over 24 hours. I'm grateful but a bit more wary about assuming that everything will work.

Photos from our Mexican yard

I wandered around our yard, taking pictures for this blog, and came upon baby bananas just emerging:



We are in the tropics, but being at 5000 feet elevation means it's rarely extremely hot. It isn't known to freeze here. No wonder people say the Lake Chapala area, where we are, has one of the best climates in the world. We have bananas in several places on our 1000 square meter (1/4 acre) lot. Here's our main banana patch:



Many plants that we knew as house plants in Colorado just grow out of doors here. Here you can see spider plants and philodendron. We also have a lot of coleus and geranium.



It's not easy to get a good shot of the huge lychee tree that provides welcome shade for the front porch. It's making new fruit now. Hmm, just thought that part of why I love it here so much is that we spend hours every day on the front porch -- eating, talking with friends, reading, working on our laptops now that we have a wireless home network -- and I have many happy memories of porches from my childhood in Maryland.

We have two kinds of bamboo along the side of our property. I'm no fan of ankle-threatening cobblestones, and heartily concurred when Kelly recently took out a lot of the stones to give this bamboo more room to expand. The little green shoots are quickly taking advantage of the situation.




This entry is for you, Chinle! You were practically in the yard with me as I took the photos!

Learning Spanish: Making it a priority

Recently a reader of my blog emailed this advice:

Try to make learning Spanish a priority for yourselves. After all, Spanish is the primary language of Mexico. My experience is: (1) Spanish is an easy language to learn when compared with most other languages and (2) your relationships with locals will be far more satisfying because of a reduced level of superficiality. In other words, most Mexicans will appear friendly because you are gringos with money. But you will never truly acquire their respect and admiration without speaking their language.

I'm fluent if horribly ungrammatical and with a thick American accent... and I do work on learning some new words most days. (Some days just get away from a person...) I don't exactly agree with the comment that the friendliness comes from our apprearing rich, because I see it as a built-in aspect of the culture.

But I do agree with the last comment about the importance of speaking the language. Recently I sat on the porch of a well-educated Mexican family having a glass of white wine with them and feeling like an idiot for not being able to speak Spanish in a way that showed I too was a well-educated citizen of the world! Oh well. Those darn verb tenses need more of my time than I've found for them this year so far!

Living in Mexico; Questions, questions

I recently got an email asking if the writer could send me some questions about living in Mexico. I said sure, so long as I could answer in the blog. Here's what he asked, with identifying details removed. It seems they have a way to earn their living; that's part of what I deleted.

Well, my wife and I are in our thirties and we are looking at moving to Baja in the fall and selling my house in the U.S. How did you find Mexico to live in after living in the US for so long? I have gone down and visited people and they are great but I just don't know what to expect. I know it is much poorer and the culture is a lot different (and a lot friendlier). Does the heat get to you at times? Have you run into many Americans where you live? Do you have trouble with scorpions?(I killed one the last time I was down there that was in the shower under the shampoo bottle-after I got in! ) That freaked me out a little bit. What for you was the hardest thing to get used to? Is there any advice you would give out to us? Oh and my Spanish is about at the intermediate level. Any recommendations there?

Let me have a try at these. Remember that different people would reply differently.

• How did you find Mexico to live in after living in the US for so long? Very different. I love the sense of enjoyment here but sometimes the casualness about dates and times gets to me. Browse old entries of the blog for lots more about this.
• Does the heat get to you at times? Yes, but not as much as the cold of Colorado gets to me at times.
• Have you run into many Americans where you live? Yes. I wasn't sure I would like living in such a foreign "colony" but it's working out fine.
  
• Do you have trouble with scorpions? We have killed a few in our house. I am going to buy some stuff called Alfadex from a local veterinarian. He says it's pet-safe, which a lot of things aren't. I will spray the doorways and a couple of other places like the chimney where the scorpions can enter, being sure my pets aren't around the stuff till it dries. If someone gets bitten by a scorpion, try to stay calm, put ice on the bite, and get medical help if symptoms are severe. But also know that the scorpion anti-venom can cause allergic reactions so anyone receiving it should be watched for an hour or more.
  
• What for you was the hardest thing to get used to? Hmm, this would really be unique to each person. I guess for me it's the way Mexicans pass on the highways.
• Is there any advice you would give out to us? Have fun and don't burn all your bridges in the United States, as you won't know till you've lived in Mexico for some time whether it's really right for you.
• Oh and my Spanish is about at the intermediate level. Any recommendations there? Intermediate gives you a good foundation. Talk to people, read the local newspapers, find a Mexican to trade language practice with. I use homemade flashcards to write down the words I learn and want to remember.
  

Mexico, the US, and Asia

The other night, we happened to watch a travel documentary on TV. It was filmed in Myanmar / Burma, and Kelly and I both enjoyed noticing similarities and differences from our experiences here in Mexico. For one thing, banana trees didn't seem so exotic to us any more, now that we have quite a few in our own yard. Also, Kelly commented that the Asian people seemed less different from us than they might have if we hadn't been spending a lot of time with Mexicans lately.

The overall poverty appeared to be greater there than in Mexico, but also the roots in traditional culture seemed stronger. The narrator worried about how the modern world would affect the people he was seeing, when change came. Here in Mexico, the modern world is virtually everywhere and usually to a considerable degree.

The next morning, we drove to a nearby town for some errands. Our town of San Juan Cosala is one of the poorer-appearing towns in this Lake Chapala area, but compared to the places we'd seen on television the night before, it seemed spacious and the highway seemed near-empty compared to the much denser populations in Asia.

China and other Asian countries are selling a lot to Mexico. I've blogged about this before... much as the US is dealing with cheap imports putting people out of work, so too is Mexico. I know several small business people who are concerned about this. Even statues of the Virgin of Guadalupe may say "Made in China" on them! The other day, I was looking for clothing at the weekly tianguis or market in the nearby town of Jocotepec. I asked one lady if all her ethnic-looking stuff was made in Mexico. She said it was. I picked up a t-shirt and slacks combination and noticed that it said in English on the tag, "Made in Vietnam." I doubt the vendor was lying to me; more likely, she didn't know.

It's really one world we live in, trite but more fully a part of my own experience after being out of the US more lately. And Mexico is among the more prosperous parts of this world of ours.

Bikes and buses get heavy use by Lake Chapala

The other day, we drove from our home in San Juan Cosala through Ajijic, San Antonio Tlayacapan, and Riberas del Pilar, to the small city of Chapala. The highway, or carretera, goes through all these towns. We left our place about 6 PM, and on a whim I decided to start counting the bikes and buses I saw. (I wasn't driving.) One of the things we like about Mexico is the widespread bus service everywhere. Bikes are particularly popular along this highway, as for most of its distance there is a bike trail next to the road. The bike trail is also heavily used by pedestrians, but they'd better watch out for the bikes!

It was a warm evening after a hot day, and lots of people were going home. It must be less than 15 miles from our town to Chapala, and in that distance I saw 67 bikes with people riding them... well, I also counted a couple where the guys were standing by the bike, waiting for a chance to cross the busy highway. Almost all the long-distance bike riders were men on their way home from work, but here and there I did see a few women, who tended to look like they were out more for fun, as they wore track-suit type clothing or other leisure fashions. By and large, the bikes weren't real fancy.

In that same distance, I saw 10 buses. Most were local, while maybe two were long-distance from Guadalajara.

Of course, there were hundreds of cars on the same route. Kelly suggested I count them on the way back, but I skipped that pleasure.

Buying a computer in Mexico, or not

A few weeks ago, my computer died. It had the grace to live long enough that I got *most* of the new files since my last backup, though I did lose a few photos. At the time, I blogged about my choices.

I decided I wanted a widescreen Toshiba, as that's what my husband has and I have envied him from time to time, not just for the screen's width but also for the quality of the images on the screen. I did some research online and found one I liked for around $1500 US. I got a price quote from a local computer store for a similar computer: $ 29,000 (pesos) or about $2735 US. and the local one, while available the next day and with Windows in English, would have to have a Spanish keyboard.

I decided to take my chances with Mexican customs instead.

One of my friends here had a sister coming to Guadalajara late in March, and the sister (whom I'd never met) quite willingly received my laptop at her home in the US -- I had to call my credit card company and tell them that I wanted a special ship-to address for this large purpose, and the computer company then had to call the credit card company for a special permission, but that all went through fine. The sister had my laptop at her house for a couple of weeks, and let me know that it worked.

Once you arrive in Mexico, whether by land or air, normally you push a button and get either a red or green light. If it's red, then you have to talk to a customs agent. I had been visualizing her getting a green light, and sure enough she did, so there was no customs. And I soon had my new laptop! If she had gotten a red light, and had had to pay some duty, it still would have come out way ahead of the other price.

I've had the computer a few days, and just now I decided to see if I could upload images to my blog, which for some reason I couldn't do from Kelly's computer. No problem, so you photo fans can look forward to more pictures. This one is part of the Lake Chapala Society, and typical of a lot of the architecture around here.