Shopping trip to Guadalajara

Recently Kelly and I and a couple of friends went to Guadalajara on a chartered bus that goes in once a month. This was our first trip, and there were actually two buses full of foreigners. The deal is that you pay for the trip in advance at the LCS (Lake Chapala Society), though you don't have to be a member there. The round trip is a reasonable 50 pesos per person, or about $4.50 US at current exchange rates. That money all goes to the local Red Cross, which is very active here.

The cost of chartering the buses is paid for by Walmart, and that was our destination. There are at least 5 Walmarts in Guadalajara, and this trip goes to one at a shopping mall called Plaza Mexico. There was a department store, aptly named "Suburbia" at the other end from Walmart, and numerous clothing stores, shoe stores, restaurants, snack bars, and whatnot in between. Not too thrilling, but practical.

I didn't take my camera along, but here is a link to a blog entry I wrote last year, about a mall in Queretaro, with quite a few pictures. That mall was more interesting architecturally than this one.

We left Ajijic around 10 and got to our destination something after 11; there may have been something interesting to see out the windows, but I was absorbed in conversation and whenever I glanced out, it was typical Mexican urban stuff. We didn't go through any quaint or charming areas.

Kelly and I first went over to an Office Max in another shopping center next door, and our most interesting find there was a set of one-foot panels of cork that we have put on our walls to create a photogallery with. Back in the first mall, we had lunch with our friends at an Italian coffee place, then went to Radio Shack. Just like Alamosa, Colorado, where we would do those sorts of things from Crestone.

I found a bookstore, and I bought a copy of El leon, la bruja, y el armario which is giving my Spanish a workout as I read it. This classic children's book by C.S. Lewis -- better known to you as The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe -- is really a good reading level for me, giving my recognition of past-tense verbs a challenge. (Today I came across a copy in English in Ajijic, and bought it. I've read that up to where I got in the Spanish, and discovered I did miss a few key plot elements!)

WalMart is Mexican-owned, I think, though it hardly matters to a shopper as it's the same thing as in the US. We found vegetable seeds and some solar lights for our yard, things we hadn't found near Lake Chapala. Well, we'd found seeds, but this was a better selection.

Around 3, everyone piled on the bus and off we went, in time to kick back with a swim at home. I'd noticed a headline on one of the Guadalajara papers, announcing that the population of the city is now 6.8 million. It's the second-largest city in Mexico and quite a handy resource for us lakesiders.

Music and a Dream

Something was pulling me up from deep sleep... I gradually realized it was music coming in the window. It wasn't the usual brass band that practices nearby. No, it was guitars and male voices, on a CD, coming from a couple of blocks away. It must have been deafening there.

Kelly was stirring too. He checked the clock; it was just before five. "It's a fiesta to wake up Kelly and Rosana," I muttered. As I slowly returned to sleep, I reflected on how extremely different Mexican and North American cultures are regarding sounds. Herein Mexico, there never seems to be a sense of intrusion when people play their music, loudspeakers blare out Mass from the church, or whatever. Someone said to me the other day, "Mexicans can sleep ten feet from a barking dog." I laughed at what this captures with a broad brush.

I slid into a dream of the two cultures. I was in a several-room house with some Mexicans. A Canadian woman walked through without acknowledging any of us, perfectly normal behavior for her culture, but I felt the sense of affront move through the Mexicans I was sitting with as she did this. I felt it too and said to myself in the dream, "How rude!" But the Mexicans were thwarting me too. There was something I wanted to do that seemed completely logical to me. I don't remember what it was but I do remember the feeling of perplexed frustration that they were literally standing in my way, just because it didn't make sense to them.

When I got up this morning, it was quiet, with just the sounds of birds and lawn sprinklers. The ubiquitous "Zeta gas" call from the truck with propane cylinders wasn't even to be heard, though it's getting closer now as I write. The music and the dream had left me with a sense of the subtle complexity of truly feeling at home in this different world that is Mexico.

Mexico with Heart website gets a new look

Today I revised the look of this website, though not the blog part. I added a photo of me to all the pages, and put the descriptive phrase Travel, live, and retire in Mexico! on top of the pages too. I've been meaning to do this for a while, but getting a photo that I'm willing to put out there isn't the easiest thing in the world, as many people will understand! Recently I just asked Kelly to take a bunch of pictures around our yard, and this one worked out okay.

If you'd like to take a look at the site, just click on any of the links on the right just below the picture of Mexico with a heart on it!

Veracruz, Mexico

The state of Veracruz is a stunningly beautiful, historic part of Mexico, with wonderful people. One of the readers of this blog will be moving there soon, so I thought I would toss out a few links and comments. I've set all these links to open a new page in your browser.

There is a great blog set in Veracruz and Colorado by John Calypso, who posts comments here at times. Highly recommended!

Kelly and I have not been to the city of Veracruz but one time we drove down from Texas along the Gulf of Mexico coast almost that far before turning inland. That trip became the basis for my book, Mexico with Heart, which is completely online at this site. Here are the links to our Veracruz experiences:

El Tajin, incredible ruins in a magical setting:


The Emerald Coast Beaches, a slight shudder at passing Mexico's only nuclear power plant, and the Carrizal hot springs. This photo shows me alone in the hot water first thing in the morning. (We had camped there overnight... when people get there, it's much busier!)


We loved the city of Jalapa, also spelled Xalapa, but had a bit of a hair-raising day there.

Xico was the town in Veracruz that we considered living in. It and Bernal, Queretaro, where we did live last year, were our two favorite candidates to move to. This photo is of where we stayed in Xico:


We went back to Xalapa and its great museum before heading inland and out of Veracruz.

Viva Veracruz, indeed! It would be too hot for me at sea level but not up in the mountains!

A Podcast for understanding spoken Spanish better

This evening I came across a website which is terrific for improving your ear, once you are beyond the basic levels of Spanish. A woman who lives in Spain has recorded a number of short commentaries, and you can read the text while you follow the Spanish or you could just listen. Then, on the one I listened to, she discussed it a while. The only thing that might surprise those of us who live in the Americas is that, being in Spain, she uses the vosotros form for the plural of tu. I didn't find it a problem, even though I haven't thought about those verb endings in years.

I call it a podcast, and you may wonder what that is. It's kind of a blog on steroids. It uses various media -- this one uses written words and sound files, while others may have video. It's kind of a new thing online, and I'll be saying more later. I'm beginning to move just a little bit that way myself, with the sound files I put up sometimes. I'm also wondering about doing spoken bits just as I do written bits, where I talk about things here in Mexico.

Here's the link and a bit of her description:

SSL4YOU Spanish Segunda Lengua

Este es un lugar para mejorar tu nivel de castellano de forma sencilla y agradable.

Buenas tardes, mi nombre es Teresa Sanchez, les hablo desde Zamora, España y este es mi primer Podcast….. va dirigido a todos aquellos que quieren mejorar su nivel de español.

Short shopping trip around San Juan Cosala

This morning I walked down to the carretera (highway) a little before nine, while it's still a nice cool temperature. By cool I mean I don't work up a sweat and am still comfortable in slacks, as opposed to the capris or shorts I will put on later. I had swapped the long-sleeved shirt I wear early in the morning when having tea on the veranda for a short-sleeved t-shirt.

Even getting to the highway was a bit of a challenge, as I was following a young cow down a narrow street. When I saw a lady going into her house on that street, I asked her about the cow, which was heading right for the highway at a good clip. She said the owner wasn't around. By the time she and I had had this talk, the cow had safely crossed the highway and was checking out some plastic bags and other trash for possible munchies. I turned to walk down the highway and that was the last I saw of the cow.

My destination was a butcher shop that had been recommended by another gringa. When I found it, I told the couple running it just that. They asked who she was, and I said Maria from California. In our chatting (all in Spanish), they sent their best wishes to her husband. I said I hadn't met him yet, that I had met Maria at a monthly breakfast.

Their meat was all under refrigeration. I had been hoping to find some good chicken, but like most butcher shops in Mexico, they had beef and pork, as well as some cheeses and eggs. I bought a little pork and he asked me how to cut it. "To fry," I said, being totally at sea for a more precise meat-cutting vocabulary. He cut nice thin slices. I bought a few eggs too, after ascertaining that the dust on them didn't mean they were old. The shop is right on the highway and so the eggs get dusty fast. These were from yesterday, he assured me. I assume this doesn't mean from the hen yesterday, but from their distributor. Still, I think I will buy eggs elsewhere in the future.

They were very friendly and we exchanged a lot of personal information as I did the shopping. They know our names, where we live, how long we've been here, and other such data. I know that they are Alicia and Jose, that they have four children between 21 and 7 years old, and that I can phone them and they will deliver meat to my house. Considering that walking along the highway to their shop isn't that much fun, likely I will do that.

I walked away feeling just a little more connected in this town. When Chicho, a teenage boy I know, went by on a bike, I felt all the more connected. My mood improved even more on finding a bakery and getting some pastries still warm from the oven.

On my way up from the highway, I saw a woman who lives across from the school there. Yesterday afternoon Kelly and I had endured, with not particularly good grace, hours of extraordinarily loud popular music (including American rap) coming from the school. I asked Maria what that was about, and she said it was a day in honor of the students. Teacher's day had been earlier this month, and now the tables were turned, and the teachers had cooked for the kids and there had been dancing.

A nice outing. Tomorrow we're going to Guadalajara for much of the day. Should be interesting!

Bringing adopted kids back into Mexico?

I've been procrastinating a little on answering this question because it's far from a simple situation. Any comments from my readers who have lived in Mexico would be welcomed. Here's the question, with the specific location removed for privacy's sake. (It's a place I've never been.)

I wondered if you could guide us as to the best way to proceed on our proposed trip to Mexico next year. We adopted (in the US) two girls of Mexican birth parents. We are planning to go back and meet the birth parents next year. We very much want to get together with them, but we also want to be safe and to feel that we are not exposing ourselves to too many dangers on a trip to a country where we have never been, with two small children who will be 5 and 7. Any support you could give us would be much appreciated. I am trying to learn Spanish!!! But it is slow going.

Hmm... there are pros and cons about a trip like this. I'll start with some cautions.

First, I would be 100% positive that your daughters' papers are in order IN MEXICO so that you run absolutely no risk of encountering Mexican objections to the adoption. The Mexican court system can be quite a hassle for anything, and I know a situation where a judge turned down an adoption for reasons that were specifically disallowed in Mexican law. The system here generally is more of who you know and less a matter of abstractions like "fairness" or "impartiality." (BTW, that judge's decision was not the end of that story, and for my friends who might think they know who I am referring to, it was someone else.) So I would think you would want to have signed papers from the parents from the time of previous paperwork, that they had given up the children willingly and without coercion, etc. Legal advice or a good talk or email conversation with the adoption agency you worked with is in order here. I imagine you have perfect passports for the girls, but if they have dual citizenship with Mexico, do ask advice.

Another caution would be regarding the parents themselves. If you were to be at risk of anything more than the usual tourist problems of diarrhea and so on, it seems to me (paranoid as I sometimes am) that the first question would be the parents. This is where your intuition is important, but cross-cultural communications can make intuition trickier. If they did give up the girls willingly, what is their attitude now? Do they have their lives in better shape and secretly hope that the girls will want to live with them (if they live together)? I don't know, of course. But you can be sure that some parents or cousins or other relatives will feel that the girls belong with their blood family. Do you have any ways of learning more about the parents before you go there? Rather than going to their home, you could arrange to meet in a place that was more secure for you, such as a good downtown restaurant or some such, during daylight hours.

A third caution concerns your not speaking the language. It's good to keep studying, because when you know almost nothing, every word you learn expands your vocabulary! BUT if I were in your shoes, I would hire a bilingual Mexican who lives in that general region (but not a friend or member of the family) to accompany me during the time of the visit and perhaps for more of the time. This would not have to be terribly expensive, and you could find someone who was recommended in a variety of ways. One way would be to join the useful forums (which have a paid membership) at mexconnect.com, a website about Mexico in English for foreigners. Another could be word of mouth. Such a person could be a tremendous help, and I would check out in advance their attitudes about adoption.

Well... you asked for support. I hoped I haven't scared you silly! Mexicans LOVE children, and travel with your girls should generally be fun, if a bit confusing as you deal with the exuberance of a Latin culture. I was 9 the first time I went to Mexico, and my sister was 5. Many foreigners travel in Mexico with kids.

The potential positive effects on your girls are another factor. To experience the culture from which they came at young ages could be terrific for them. My sister and I have lots of memories of that trip we made.

I remember once when I was a teenager and was dithering over some decision which I have now forgotten, my mother said, "Whatever you do, you'll learn something!" I'll echo that thought here.

Tal vez uds. son gringos buenos....

On April 30, I posted some photos of a Mexican family playing in our swimming pool with me. Jose posted the comment I've made the title of this entry, which means "Maybe you two are good gringos," which he explained further as not just hanging out with other foreigners. By extension, I also took it to mean that we weren't acting superior or racist.

That phrase of his has been rattling around in my brain ever since. Mexicans are so polite that they are generally not going to tell us gringos if we are doing things that offend or dismay them. But this short comment gets me thinking about some of the reasons that foreigners may not reach out that much:

• I've met some expats here who don't speak enough Spanish to interact much with Mexicans unless they happen upon an English-speaking one, and even then it may just be changing money at Lloyd or some other event not conducive to a longer interchange.
• Other foreigners may just be naturally shy.
• It's easy to create a routine and not go outside of it all that much.

I really think it behooves all of us here to connect as much as we can with the people whose land this is. A couple of world travelers I know have commented that the Mexican people are the warmest and most gracious of the entire planet. You don't have to have traveled much to know that any efforts you make here to reach out to Mexicans will be amply repaid.

When I wrote the book Mexico with Heart a few years ago, I had great fun writing a chapter called 16 Ways to Meet People When You Travel. The link takes you to it. Here's how it begins

Guidebooks don't discuss the single biggest thing that will make your trip a memorable success… meeting people!

The joy of connecting, even when it is brief, can make all the difference in how you feel. I noticed that as I wrote this report, I was smiling most of the way through it, remembering so many good times!

So here is a list of ways to meet people, with examples from our experiences….. Even if you are shy (and I can be at times), you'll find something you can do!

Taking the bus to and from Ajijic

This morning I had an optometrist's appointment at LCS (Lake Chapala Society) so I walked down to the highway not far from here and waited for a bus. A nicely dressed young woman, maybe in her early 20s, came along and joined me. I noticed she had a small paperback tucked under her arm. As a former librarian, I always notice it when people have books.

"Le gusta leer?" I asked. ("Do you like to read?")

Her face lit up and she confided that she read as much as she could. She was on her way to work in Chapala and she would read in the bus. I said I sometimes stayed up too late at night reading. She confessed the same. By the time the bus came, we were deep into conversation about reading and languages and where we each live, which is within about 4 blocks of each other. I asked her if she knew any English, and she said only a little but it was necessary for her to learn more.

That got me onto one of my favorite topics with Mexicans here: what do they think of the influx of foreigners? She had good things to say about how we provide work and how we initiate clean-up programs. I asked if it bothered people that real estate prices went up, and basically her answer implied that the kind of places foreigners bought weren't in the price range she could ever afford anyway.

By the time I got off the bus in Ajijic, I had invited her to come by our house sometime and told her where it was. She works 6 days a week at a retail store, with Tuesdays off. It will be interesting to see if she does. Her desire for self-improvement was palpable.

Next, I did a few errands. I asked at the Ajijic post office if there were any available apartados, or post ofice boxes, and they said come back next week, on Friday. At the LCS, I bought US stamps for several letters that a member will mail from within the US, checked out a few books from the library, and signed Kelly and me up for a bus trip to a shopping mall in Gaudalajara next week.

Then I had one of the best eye exams I have ever had, from a very thorough, very professional woman. I will go back in a week or so to get the two pairs of glasses I ordered. The exam was free; new computer glasses with anti-glare using my present frames were 550 pesos, and bifocal sunglasses with anti-scratch protection on the plastic were about 1300 pesos, so both pairs combined will run me about $170 USD, with cataract and glaucoma checks. I've noticed before that glasses are not necessarily that much cheaper here. I really liked how Doctora Luz worked.

After other errands, I walked up to the highway to wait for a bus. It was early afternoon by now, and I was grateful for the slight breeze. It was partly cloudy, and I had an umbrella with me just in case.

I waited ten minutes for the bus. Boring. Then I remembered that my camera was in my purse. Here's a picture of the somewhat nondescript highway:



And this is looking down Colon toward the center of the town:
It's always fun to poke around Ajijic, and it was nice to get home. I took a nap, did some work on my computer, had a swim, made dinner, and settled down to work all evening on the computer.

Around 7:30 PM it began raining hard, and if you have been reading this blog regularly for the past three months, you can guess what happened next. We heard a loud noise from a couple of blocks away, as the cuchillo (a sort of fuse on the high-voltage electric line) once again gave way upon getting wet.

I immediately grabbed the cellphone and called the Comision Federal de Electricidad to report "no hay luz." ("There is no light.") The woman took the details of where I lived, and when I asked rather wistfully if she thought there was any chance of it getting fixed this evening, she said yes. The only thing that was a little different about this conversation was that a baby was crying during it. It's quite common for Mexican women to take their babies to work with them, if they work in circumstances where it's possible.

Kelly was keen to see the final episode of a TV program called American Inventor, so we walked over to see some other foreigners who live in a neighborhood that usually has power. It happened that they didn't get the right channel for that show, so we visited a while and walked home. As we came into our neighborhood, we were pleased and surprised to see the lights were back on. We chatted with some of the people who were hanging out on their front steps and learned that the power came back on within 15 minutes! That's a record! Kelly could have seen his show if we'd stayed home. Well, we're about to kick back with yesterday's The Daily Show, which Kelly recorded this morning.

I don't usually post to the blog twice in a day, but I think I will go ahead and get this up, just in case we get more rain in the night.

Refrigerator shopping in Mexico

We realized this week that the old small Singer (as in sewing machines) refrigerator that came with the house just wasn't getting things cold enough. When I put in the refrigerator thermometer that we had in our fridge in the motorhome, the freezer was fine but the refrigerator couldn't get below 50, except overnight when nobody was opening the door.

So it was time for a shopping trip. Yesterday we went to Soriana in Chapala. Soriana is a WalMart-like kind of place, a little bit of everything and lots of groceries. This being Mexico, they also have lots of baby stuff! Mexico has a number of different stores like this, (Gigante, Comercial Mexicana, etc.) and they are very handy. Soriana tends to be my favorite, maybe because I had such fun at one in Ciudad Victoria a few years ago. The link takes you to my online book where I tell that story, with a photo of Soriana down the page a little.

In any case, Soriana is the only one in the lakeside area. We priced new refrigerators. They had a good selection, complete with energy usage charts pretty similar to what you'd see in the US. The ones we liked began at about $500 US. I had never heard of most of the brands, though they did have Samsung. We asked about delivery and it was possible though the woman had no idea what the cost would be. We would just pay the guy who brought it.

While we were there, we took cash out of one of the several ATM machines and got some groceries (it's much like a regular chain grocery store in the US, though while you can get lots of kinds of salsa, they don't carry black tea). I also picked up the only model of crock pot they had, a simple Rival with one temperature and a bowl that doesn't lift out, for about $12 US. Kelly and I picked out a small barbecuing grill, on sale for about $30, and some bags of charcoal too.

In the parking lot a small boy (maybe 7) insisted on helping us put things into Cando, even though I told him no. He was persistent and just kept handing me things so eventually I gave in and let him help, giving him a peso, about 8 cents, for taking the cart back as well. At the same time, Kelly had said yes to a young man who offered to clean our very dusty windows, and he seemed happy with a 5 peso tip for that.

Our next stop was in Riberas de Pilar, a suburban area west of Chapala and east of Ajijic. There's a store there, Tecnicos Unidos though I'm not sure that's what's over their door. (It's on the mountain side of the highway, going downhill after you've passed Clinica Maskaras and Mom's Restaurant on the lake side.) We have been very happy with the used Maytag washing machine we bought there, so we decided to stop in and see what refrigerators they had. I am not a huge fan of second-hand refrigerators, but I was open.

It didn't do anything for my skepticism that the first unit I saw was of the Mabe brand. "Maybe it works," I grumbled. But inside there was a large Whirlpool without that horrible musty smell old fridges can get. It was about $300 US with a one-year warranty and free delivery -- the guy groaned good-naturedly as he remembered the long uphill climb to our house from the street -- and they could bring it over between 1 and 2 the same day. We agreed, and the deal was done. We also wanted them to take our old one, and they agreed to that, saying at least they could use it for parts.

So we now have the largest refrigerator we've had in years. One benefit is that we are keeping all our beer, wine, and packaged juice and milk in it, along with containers of water in the freezer, so that when the electricity in our neighborhood goes out, things will stay cold a lot longer. By bedtime last night it was down to 50 degrees and we commented that all those liquids went in at probably 75 degrees. This morning it's down to 40.

There are other appliance -shopping choices in Mexico. All over the country, in any small city, you will find stores that sell appliances and furniture and that deliver.

On to the next adventure...

Caminos de Michoacan

In 1979, Kelly and I fitted out a Ford Econoline van, left our jobs for a while, and spent three months roaming Mexico, with one month in Guatemala. We spent a night in a hotel in the tourist district of Mexico City. We were going to spend another night there, but the air pollution was getting to us. We drove out of Mexico City in the evening rush hour and kept going till we found a lovely cliff-top campsite. We made friends with some local people, watched the full moon rise, and went to bed early.

We woke early too, the van jiggling as if a group of the kids were climbing on it. I raised our curtain -- no kids there. Gradually we realized it had to have been an earthquake. We turned on the radio as we had our morning tea, and learned that there had been a quake in the Pacific, felt in the very tourist district of Mexico City where we had been. Damages had not been extensive, but some tourists had run screaming out of their hotels.

Very grateful that we had left the city before the quake, we drove that day looking for a tranquil retreat. Someone told us about a tiny village down in a valley, in the state of Michoacan. We drove down dirt roads and found the village, where we were welcomed warmly.

It was perfect. We parked on the edge of the simple plaza, in the deep shade of tall trees.I visited the very basic school and chatted with the teacher. A young girl brought us a gift of homemade tortillas from her mother. A woman who had the key took Kelly with his water colors to a ruined old hacienda, where he had a great time painting. Later, we took a walk and I saw a familiar plant beside the trail. A Mexican man was coming the other way, and I pointed to the plant and scratched my arm vigorously with a questioning look. He laughed and nodded. Poison ivy. We didn't touch it.

We traveled with a simple tape recorder, and the next morning the kids gathered around and sang us a song called Caminos de Michoacan, or Roads of Michoacan. I kept the tape all these years, and now I've turned part of it into a short mp3 file. Clicking on the link should start it automatically, if you have an mp3 player on your computer.

When I listen to this, I am transported back in time to that simple little village, where the warmth of the villagers was such a gift. Those kids would be in their 30s now, close the ages we were on that trip. No doubt some are still there, and others are probably working in the US or living in big Mexican cities. We don't know what the name of the village was, so I doubt we will ever find that little Shangri-La again.

A single woman wonders about moving to Mexico

One of my readers sent me these comments recently:

Nice to hear about the women's expat group you went to. If I move down there (I'm single and can't afford to buy, but would have a small pension), I would be sort of a Midlife Maverick type, and would love to meet others who are similar. I realize you are married. What do think about single women relocating there? I've heard it's not a good place to meet men, but, what do the locals think? Can single women blend in there? So far, it sounds good, based on what I've read online, but I'm always looking for more insights from others.

My real question on that issue is how does a single woman (especially w/o children) fit into a culture that is so very family oriented, where singleness is rare, even with men (I guess). Being single in the states is part of the rugged individualism ethic, especially nowdays, when women can have careers and lives of their own. Maybe their family or marriage was dysfunctional and being single is really the better option. I get the picture that there are a number of single women in the expat communities. How well do they fit in to the Mexican culture overall? Are they considered pathetic or freaky? Just wondering.

I would love it if any single American or Canadian women who have been here would post comments. Here's my take: I think that the Mexicans find us gringas different in so many ways that they don't expect the same things of us that they do of women in their own culture. They won't necessarily know that you don't have kids, since you are not of child-rearing age. Nor will they necessarily know you are single. (Mexicans are not always shy about asking personal questions, though!)

In a nutshell, I don't think you or any of us do fit into the culture, to use your phrase. Not in the sense that a Mexican would. We can have good friends, we can be very welcome here, but our role in life here is always going to have some outsider flavor to it. Perhaps this isn't true of someone who has lived here for decades and speaks the language well; I don't know.

In some parts of Mexico, a single foreign woman might have to put up with a lot of 'friendly' interest from Mexican men, but I think that it's better around here. At that expat group I went to, it seemed to me that a fourth to a third of the women were single. I'm sure you'd have no trouble meeting other single expat women.

Regarding not being able to buy a house, I've mentioned before that in Mexico the costs of rentals are low in proportion to what you get, compared to the US. So renting is often a good idea.

A Saturday Night in Mexico

Yesterday was a day celebrating the Virgin of Fatima. On a street not far from here in San Juan Cosala near Lake Chapala, mass was said outside and there were brass bands and a procession. Then it shifted to lively dance music, with fireworks at midnight.

We din't go down, but we could hear it all just fine from inside our house. The people next door, a Mexican family from Guadalajara, were here and partying as well. A little after midnight, I went out to see if I could capture the sounds of the fireworks. They were over but here is about a 30-second file of the Mexican party next door. The wind was blowing in our trees as well. This is an mp3 file, and if you have a program that plays mp3s on your computer, clicking on the link should automatically start the party.

The party wound down around 2:30 AM.

The Monte Coxala Spa

Two women I met recently, a Canadian and an American, picked me up this afternoon and showed me some places that they and other foreigners have found around San Juan Cosala. We explored a meat market, a flower shop, a seamstress, a bakery, and other shops around town. We stopped in at Anita's Animals, a shelter for many cats and dogs. Then we drove steeply uphill through the Raquet Club, an upscale gated development, and turned to go to the Monte Coxala ecological spa.

What an amazing place! It's still being improved on and expanded. We met Lola, the manager who speaks excellent English, and she showed us around. Here, she's on the left and Jeannie and Ann are on the right.


Yes, that's an Olmec-style head in the background. Here he is again:

You can take a hot bath inside his head.

And here is the view out over Lake Chapla to the other shore from up there:


Lola gave us brochures describing the many treatments they offer there. Hot springs, massages, facials, and more. How will I pamper myself first? It's a hard choice but at the moment I am most curious about the choco-therapy which would, among other things "give the skin softness with a velvety effect." When I eventually get there, I will gloat, I mean report, here.

Mexican Mother's Day

Yesterday was Mother's Day in Mexico. We knew it was a big deal all over the country, as is motherhood. (Paradoxically, the word madre has a whole complex of negative connotations and the more polite term when asking after someone's mother is mama -- while padre is slang for cool and padrisimo for very cool.)

It started off around 2AM with a brass band not far away. We both woke up and realized it was no doubt serenading some mamas. It wasn't till 5:30 AM that we heard more serenading. It continued into the daylight hours.

We were home most of the day but one of our Mexican friends, Jose at the Tia Lupita restaurant, had told Kelly that there would be something happening in the plaza around eight in the evening. So we strolled down a little after the appointed time, to check it out.

A stage with a painted backdrop showing mountains and sky was set up on the edge of the plaza, and people were occupying over a hundred chairs that had been set up. Others were sitting or standing on steps, the regular benches, or on seats they had brought. Several young women and a young man were circulating through the crowd, offering trays of beverages at no charge. Little kids were running around everywhere. We saw one other foreigner for sure, and maybe a couple of others. Kelly and I found part of a rock wall to sit on.

No performance had started yet, and I started chatting with the Mexican lady next to me. She is grandmother to 23, and two of them came up and hugged her. Four of them live in the United States, a few in Guadalajara, and the rest here in San Juan Cosala.

"Where in the United States?" I asked in Spanish.

"Watsonville," she said.

That rang a bell with me. We've met men from this town who have lived and worked there and in Santa Cruz. When I said that to the woman, she guessed that around a thousand people from San Juan Cosala live in that area. Considering that the population of San Juan is about 5,000, that's quite a crowd. It's a pattern that happens also in the big cities in Mexico -- people who leave their towns in search of work tend to stay together and help each other out, keeping alive the kinship and community ties.

As the performance started, she pointed out which groups were from here. There were several traditional dance groups, and from what I could follow of the introductions, they perform in the general region. If any of them were from San Juan, I didn't pick it up. The dancing and the traditional costumes were beautiful; the sound system was not.

The lady I was chatting with between performances was curious about us. Did we live here in San Juan Cosala? Yes, I said, for the past three months. In the Raquet Club? she asked. That's where most of the foreigners live. No, I said, since we are in Mexico, we prefer to live in a more Mexican area -- conveniently omitting the fact that we couldn't afford to buy anything in the Raquet Club most likely. I told her what street we live on and she told us it used to be called Avenue of the Fleas.

When Kelly and I wandered off, the show was still in full force. I had enjoyed feeling the sense of community so palpable there. It made me a little homesick for Crestone, and I also wondered if and how I may eventually come to feel a part of the community here in San Juan Cosala.

A gay couple's view of Mexico

Dean, one of the readers of this blog, is a gay man who is thinking seriously of moving to the Lake Chapala area with Dave, his partner of twenty years. I asked him if he would send me some comments on being gay in Mexico that I could post here, and here is what he sent. He also made the comment that he is very heavy and that he's been stared at for that in Mexico more than for being two men together.

Our first trip in Mexico was to Puerto Vallarta. Sooo gay. We felt very comfortable there and that might have set the tone for a rest of our trips. We've always been treated very well. We find Mexicans very polite and helpful and don't have any complaints. I know or have corresponded with several gay men expats in Mexico and hear similar stories.

A couple in Morelia said their neighbors were not happy when they first moved in, but earned their trust quickly just by being good neighbors. There are also several gay couples around Patzcuaro that have similar experiences.

We have a friend in PV who has had a boyfriend from Zihuatenejo for years. He even built a house for his partner's family there. I think they're accepting, but are still disappointed that their son is gay.

I talked with a man in Ajijic who says he and his partner are very comfortable there. He said it's not much of an issue to most people and that they have more straight friends than gay. We saw several couples, I'm assuming, when we were there as well.

One problem we had was from a gringo couple at the place we stayed. We could tell they were stand-offish. After they left another guest told us they were "disgusted" that we were "sharing a bed". She said they also made some terribly racist remarks too, so no surprise I guess.

At a restaurant in Ajijic we received awful service and wondered if the waitress had a problem. We later found out awful service is standard there.

In Guadalajara the hotel manager insisted that the clerk put us in a room with two beds. We get that in the states too.

We've only been tourists though. I have to wonder if neighbors will accept us when we live there full time. Will we be free to live anywhere we want?

Two Mexican Men

Yesterday Kelly and I went out in the afternoon, in our little Toyota motorhome, Cando. We drove across San Juan Cosala to Ruben's restaurant, right next door to the big hot spring the town is famous for. I had been to Ruben's last week for the women's meeting I blogged about, and at that time Ruben had invited us all to his big 60th birthday party. So that's what Kelly and I went for. We took the motorhome rather than walking or taking the bus because we did some shopping too -- getting a couple of floating pool toys from a stand in the street by the hot spring and getting some groceries. We are thinking about what kind of car to get, but we may want to get it in the US later this summer, we'll see.

The party at Ruben's was in full swing when we got there. A mariachi band in elegant light blue clothing was playing. There was food and drink. People were mostly sitting at tables, listening to the music and chatting. I waved at several of the women I had met last week, enjoying the feeling of knowing some people! We joined some of the women I'd met at one of the tables.

Ruben was everywhere, the gracious host. I don't know his whole story, but he was born in nearby Jocotepec, he became an American citizen with excellent English somewhere along those 60 years, and now he runs this restaurant and is a bridge between the two cultures. The party reflected this, as there were both Mexicans and foreigners present, at least 150 people, I'd guess. Someone pointed out the mayor of Jocotepec to me.

So that's one Mexican man.

The other? On our way home, we drove up a narrow street, with just enough room to drive between the curb on one side and the vehicles parked on the other. That was fine until we reached a point where a gray-haired man in dirty clothes was lying on the sidewalk, with his feet in the gutter. I got out and asked some kids if someone could help the guy move out of the street. The boys tried but he kicked at them drunkenly. I went over and spoke to him but I doubt he could understand my accent and I certainly couldn't understand what he said, though I got the general drift and it wasn't printable.

Backing up wasn't an option as we had just barely gotten by a wide truck just before this.

A man appeared at the corner ahead and he began motioning to Kelly to drive forward past the drunk and his feet. Inch by inch, Kelly moved forward, just clearing the feet, which at least weren't moving much. I found it harrowing, but we got past okay.

Two lives.

A Few of Kelly's recent Mexican photos

I just went fishing around on Kelly's hard drive (love networked computers!) and found a few recent photos:

The wiring here is something else. Kelly took a whole series to try to understand what's going on in our street.

This critter blends perfectly into its surroundings.


"Song is the voice of the heart," says this art on a wall.

By the shore of Lake Chapala. The fencing is from when the lake was much lower a couple of years ago.


There's a nice surreal touch to this one, isn't there?

Questions about crime in Mexico

A reader recently emailed me these questions:

How do you find the crime where you live? Is there a lot or a little? Are the Americans "hit" more since people think they are rich?

I don't think I am an expert on crime anywhere, but I'll have a try at this anyway. As a general observation, in Mexico there is less crime against people than in the US and more crimes against property. The kind of random violence that occurs in the US is rare here. Domestic violence, unfortunately, does not seem to be rare, but you are unlikely to get tangled up in it.

There is a cultural difference between Latin countries and northern ones regarding physical things. In Latin cultures, if you own it, it is your responsibility to be sure it is secure. Quite a few of the stories I've heard here of theft from people's homes were in circumstances where the door was unlocked and nobody home in midday or something like that.

When we were gone from here for a few days a while ago, someone reached into our locked side porch, which has open grillwork, and pilfered a few tools. I wrote about it at the time, and one of my readers emailed me that we should have gone and confronted the thief, since we knew who it was most likely to be.That would not have been a good idea, as it would have caused the fellow to lose face, and it is important not to do that. We were in the process of fencing our yard anyway, and we've had no further problems since then.

Are Americans more likely to be targets? I would guess that the answer to that is yes, if they seem wealthy. Or maybe if they are drunk. I did chat with an American man who had been robbed twice in the Lake Chapala area, and it came out gradually in the conversation that he had been drunk both times.

Kelly and I pick our times of day to cross the border or go to any area that might be at all rough.We feel generally safer in most parts of Mexico than in many parts of the US.

Feeling more at home in San Juan Cosala

It helps that I'm now completely over that nasty bug I had last week... didn't even get the trots when my cast-iron-stomach husband did last night!

But the main reason I am feeling more at home here in San Juan Cosala is that I've met some interesting foreign women from this part of the Lake Chapala area. Turns out there is a group that gets together once a month for breakfast. I went a couple of days ago, and had a grand time. We were Americans and Canadians mostly, but there was also a German, an Englishwoman, and a Mexican married to an Englishman. Ages ranged from a good bit younger than me to getting up there... We went around the circle with introductions and brief how-we-got-here stories, and two or three of the women knew of my town in Colorado, Crestone.

One of the things that struck me about this group was that they are all happier in this more Mexican region and wouldn't want to live in Ajijic, which is sometimes called gringolandia. There was a lot of sharing of information and ideas for trips we may take together. They live from Raquet Club on the outskirts of San Juan Cosala, in El Chante, quite a few in the larger town of Jocotepec, around to San Pedro on the south side of the lake.

One of the neatest discoveries for me is that on my very street there is a Mexican woman who gives massages and does facials and is said to be a wonderful person. I'm looking forward to finding out!

The town has water again

After eight days, town water is trickling back into our aljibe, or water storage tank. It feels good, and also we are happy to see how well we did while no water was coming in. It's been over 12 hours now that the tank has been refilling.

I bet a lot of the local people are really relieved. We are always quite careful with dishwashing, showers, etc., having lived in dry places a lot, so with our storage capacity being without water didn't really impact our lifestyle in the house. Not so for people with less storage.

Did it drive us bonkers? We had some bad moments but I find the electrical outages far more frustrating, since online is practically my lifeblood. Even there, being without power yesterday didn't bother me nearly as much as it had two weeks ago. Guess we're getting used to being here. Last night we had a little rain and it didn't knock out the power, a good sign.

Even our cat Misty is settling in well. She had one day a couple of weeks ago when she hissed at our dog about 20 times. The poor guy couldn't even get near me without her jealousy flaring up. I had a little talk with her about living in a family, and did some EFT for her (I mentioned it in a post a while ago) and it seemed to help. Also, she loves her very own cat door, made by cutting a square in a window screen, and she mostly stays right near the house when she's outside. I close her in by the late afternoon.

I was invited to a breakfast meeting of local foreign women which happens once a month, and will be going off this morning. Looking forward to that!

Power out and back on

Last night we had our second rainstorm since we moved to our house in San Juan Cosala. The first one was on Easter and was spectacular. The one yesterday was on Mexican Labor Day. It was a sweet rainfall for about three hours in the evening. We were very grateful for it, as we are conserving water since the town water is still out.

Just about the minute we heard the first raindrops, we heard a loud popping noise from down the street, and there went our electricity. We sat on the porch and watched the storm till we got cold... for the first time since the last storm... and then we came in and puttered around a while by candlelight.

I couldn't reach the electric company by phone last night but I did this morning. The woman said it would be about an hour and a half. Kelly decided to hang out down the street near the pole and talk to the repairmen when they came. He took something to read, luckily, because they turned up about four hours later, after Kelly had chatted with several children who were curious what a gringo was doing sitting on the sidewalk.

Our Mexican neighbors think it's great that we call, since few of them have phones and they feel that we are taken more seriously. Kelly did talk with the repairman, who said it could have been lightning or a bird, but he did replace something.

So we'll see what happens the next time it rains. Could that be today? It's still partly cloudy. On the other hand, tomorrow and Friday are holidays of sorts, so maybe it will be one of them.

Mexican plastic bags post on my new blog

I've recently started a site on ecological living, simplegreenliving.com There isn't a lot there yet, but I did do a blog entry yesterday on saying no to plastic bags in Mexican stores, which I thought might interest some of my readers here.

The cicadas are singing more... actually it sounds like a loud electronic screetch. It's chiefly pleasant because it's said to mean we are getting closer to the rains coming. Lake Chapala is pretty low these days. There were a few drops of rain yesterday and today, but the actual rainy season wouldn't be expected a while longer.