Sandi Books, Suburbia, and Other Shopping in Guadalajara

Yesterday morning Kelly and I drove back into Guadalajara, as I had a doctor's appointment. We went in early enough to go to Sandi Bookstore, the largest English-language bookstore in Guadalajara. Being the book fanatic that I am, I had long been curious to check it out.

It's a very attractive store in a pleasant neighborhood, easily accessed when coming in from Jocotepec and thus arriving in the city on Avenida Lopez Mateos... there is a map on the bookstore website. There was a tiny bunch of parking places right in front of the store, and we got one.

The first thing I noticed on entering the store was the extensive collection of travel guides (Lonely Planet) for every corner of the globe. Wandering around, we saw a good collection of books for expats to learn Spanish and a selection for Mexicans to learn English. There were children's books. Much of the entire collection consists of textbooks in English, with the upstairs balcony full of medical texts in English. While I had a momentary vision of aging expats self-diagnosing in the aisles (something that wouldn't be beyond me), the main customers are no doubt Mexican medical students.

Back downstairs, I was surprised to see a book about Things Fall Apart, an important novel by Chinua Achebe about the destructive effects of Europe on West African culture which I had written a term paper on in grad school in the 1960s. Kelly, an archaeology buff, found a book but I actually walked out of there barehanded.

Ordering US Books from Sandi for Delivery in Mexico

The best news to me about Sandi Books is that they offer a way to order books in English for delivery here in Mexico. We chatted, mostly in English, with a very helpful woman who explained the process if you don't go to the store to do it: we email or otherwise contact them with a list of what we want ordered. They prepare a cost estimate and we go to a bank in our community -- in our case, it would be in Chapala -- where there is a procedure for paying that estimate. The prices are either identical to US prices or a small percentage above them,

Then the books are ordered by Sandi from the publishers, and normally they get them in 4 to 6 weeks. They then ship them to you, using a courier service I hadn't heard of and the name of which I have forgotten, but she said it was like Fedex or DHL. I asked, with some doubt, if they delivered to obscure little back streets and she said yes, no problem. The shipping charge was about 75 pesos plus perhaps something more for each book, and you would have paid for it in that estimate.

This isn't as easy as having friends bring things down, but sometimes it's quite a while between friends. I'll report if I try this.

Readers in the US may be wondering why I don't just buy from Amazon and have things mailed down. After all, we do have a post office box in Ajijic. Not only are the Mexican mails slow (we got a Christmas card one Easter) and unreliable, but you are more likely to be charged duty. I thought the customs fees were around 30% but one woman I know bought an expensive technical book and the duty was over 100%.

Suburbia: Kind of Like Macy's

We left Sandi Books and only got lost twice going a few kilometers to the Plaza Mexico shopping mall. Kelly dropped me off there and went off to retrieve his Canon Powershot camera that was being repaired somewhere else in the city. I went into the well-named Suburbia which is a department store kind of like a Macy's. I didn't think the prices were any cheaper than in the US, but hey, I am here and I needed some things. Topping my list was a new set of cotton sheets, but they had none in the relatively rare bed size we have, queen. Okay, another time maybe, or maybe I'll get some brought down from the US by a friend. I was also looking for some cotton underwear and they did have all-cotton panties for about $6 US each. I didn't need them that much, but the longer we live in Mexico, the more I want to find resources for things I will want so I don't have to get them in the US. I did try on a cute dress, also in my preferred cotton, which interestingly came from India, as did a nice cotton nightgown I didn't need right now.

My next stop was a GNC store, widely found in Mexican malls. I got some vitamin C and vitamin E at okay but not great prices, but struck out on a multi-vitamin/mineral supplement without iron similar to the Twinlab one we take. So that will be a purchase for our next mule from the north. Just as I was leaving the store, my eye fell on a deodorant that is the exact kind I prefer, something I usually get from a health food store in the US. So I bought one of those.

After a visit to my doctor who says my ear is just about totally healed, I found Kelly in the mall. He had picked up his camera just fine, only getting lost once. We headed home, with compassion for those who have to endure big city traffic daily, wherever in the world they may live.

Driving into Guadalajara from Lake Chapala

Recently Kelly and I drove into Guadalajara, and I took some video of the trip in with my little camera. It's pretty mundane but often people up North want to know more about many of the details of life here, if they are thinking of moving here.

This trip was through Jocotepec and then into Guadalajara on a four-lane highway. I'm sure it's far more common for expats to go into the big city via the highway from Chapala, but this at least gives you a taste.

Lost and Found in Mexico: An Award-Winning Film

When North Americans fall in love with Mexico, and with their own lives here, it affects them in many ways. Some blog or do little videos for places like YouTube. A large number of my friends here have taken up painting. Some are active in fundraising for orphanages, animal shelters, and other causes. Still others roam the country or just laze contentedly by the pool, happy to have their major achievement years behind them.

Until I heard from Caren Cross, I didn't know of anyone whose response to Mexico was to make a film! She describes herself on her website as a "first time filmmaker who became obsessed with wanting to figure out why she and others had abandoned their lives in the U.S. to live in a small town in the mountains of central Mexico." That town is San Miguel de Allende, and your can see an excerpt from the film on her website:

http://www.lostandfoundinmexico.com/trailer.htm

And while you're there, you can find out more about her and the project. By the way, if you watch the short trailer from the film, you may notice that the lip movements are not in synch with the words you hear. I asked Caren about that and she said it's a problem that can occur in transferring a film to video.

Lost and Found in Mexico will be playing at the Festival Internacional de Cine en Guadalajara, which takes place from March 7 through the 14th. Copies can also be purchased from the website.

Being married to a long-time film and video producer, I know how much has to be done behind the scenes to make a project like this happen. (Kelly is doing more website creation these days... that local history video of San Juan Cosala is the first video he's done in several years.)

Do take a look at her site, specially if you are wondering if living in Mexico might be for you!

At Home in Mexico

Yesterday, Valentine's Day, marked the second anniversary of buying our home in Mexico. We had a long talk over lunch about being here, all the various pros and cons, and what we see in the future. While we are not totally clear that we will be staying here for the long term, we have no other plans. For now, there is noplace that we would rather be.

To celebrate, I made another slideshow video called At Home in Mexico. This one one is almost entirely photos from around our big yard and little house in San Juan Cosala, near Lake Chapala. The music is more Caribbean than Mexican, but I liked it!

 

Another Good Mexican Medical Experience

About a month ago, I wrote about going to the Ajijic Clinic with an ear infection and how I was generally pleased with the care I received.

Unfortunately, the infection flared up again later in January. I tried another GP here in the Lake Chapala area, and also liked him. He had me take another round of a different kind of antibiotics.

But that didn't solve things either. So my tender pulsating ear forced me to face my dislike of traffic in Guadalajara and get myself to an Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) specialist. There seem to be none in the Lake Chapala area.

I had enthusiastic recommendations for two different ENTs, and I chose simply on geography. There is a monthly bus excursion from Ajijic to Plaza Mexico, one of quite a few shopping malls in Guadalajara. My understanding is that the Walmart in the mall pays for the bus. The trips are arranged by the Chapala branch of the Red Cross, you buy your tickets in advance at the Lake Chapala Society, and your 50 pesos round trip benefits the Red Cross. Buses leave the lake area around 9 AM and get back around 4 PM, I think.

I chose the ENT whose office is a couple of blocks from Plaza Mexico, just beyond one of Guadalajara's excellent hospitals, the Del Carmen. Since I don't imagine I will ever drive in Guadalajara, that monthly bus would give me a convenient option to forcing my honey to drive me around. I'd heard that quite a few lakeside residents use the bus for medical appointments.

I called yesterday and was able to get an appointment with Dr. Andres Badial for today. Kelly drove me in, and he went with me to the appointment. Dr. Badial was very personable, took plenty of time, really listened, asked lots of questions, checked out my ears and fixed me up... suctioning out a lot of gunk from the ear removed the loud tinnitus that has impaired my hearing for these weeks! I am to go back next week for a follow-up. The cost of the office visit: 500 pesos, or about $45 US. His English was completely fluent. (His office phone in Guadalajara: 3813 4334.)

As Kelly and I walked back to the shopping mall, he commented that this level of care was an example of the high quality of medical work that we are beginning to get used to here in Mexico.

Mexico: the Trick is Living Here... A Review

Julia Taylor didn't plan to live in Mexico. She had a career as a salmon biologist and a life that was going just fine in Washington state. But when the U.S. government refused a permanent residence visa to her husband, a Mexican citizen, the young couple moved to Cuernavaca and started a new life there. And luckily for the rest of us, she wrote.

Mexico: The Trick is Living Here is part how-to guide and part story of Julia's experiences. Now in its second edition, this downloadable ebook is very enjoyable reading. If you are thinking of living in Mexico, especially on a modest budget, I'm sure you'd learn a lot.

Repeatedly, I found myself nodding my agreement with her comments. Here's a bit about driving that had me chortling, not at what she is saying but at how well she captures the feeling of it: She asks the question of whether it is okay to pass on the right, and then answers her question:

While I only pass on the right when I'm in a total traffic snarl, other people pass on the right at any time they want to and this is okay with me. I simply allow them to cut in front of me afterwards and continue on my merry way." Note the chipper attitude implicit in that reply. It is important to be totally at peace with the new driving rules. [page 24]

Here's a related pithy comment that reflects on one of the more challenging cultural differences we Notherners encounter: "The police in Mexico have no commitment to the truth but they do have the power to define it." Okay, that's sometimes true up north, but much more here.

She warns against using IMSS, the inexpensive and badly overworked national health care system. It almost killed her husband after he had a broken arm in an accident. I've heard other horror stories like this about IMSS and also good things. Me, I plan to avoid it!

Of course, there were places where our experiences have been different or where I disagreed with her conclusions but that is natural when you have two different people writing about as complex a country as Mexico, from different parts of it! She is much more cavalier than I am about eating unprocessed vegetables, for example. Another topic we would handle differently is that Julia describes having your social security payments deposited into a Mexican bank. While this is one option, she doesn't mention what I believe is a much more common one, that of having the payments deposited in a bank in the US and then using an ATM card (debit card) to draw out cash.

She and her husband have a son who was born in Mexico and there is a section on how to do the correct paperwork to get U. S. citizenship for a baby born of an American parent in Mexico.

The ebook talks about teaching English in Mexico. Julia goes into many details of working and paying taxes, including getting an FM3 resident visa. Her experience was even more tedious than ours, and that's saying something! She doesn't talk in this section about getting an FM3 like we did, as people with income from outside of Mexico. Hers is the working type. (There are various types of FM3s.)

She interviewed Canadians and has a good section on the tax and other implications for Canadians of establishing their residence outside of Canada.

The ebook isn't chiefly about retiring in Mexico, though she mentions it quite often... it's a mixture of her own experiences and information she has gleaned from numerous interviews she did for the book.

Kudos to Julia Taylor for her ebook Mexico: The Trick is Living Here. Do read more about it through this link!

San Juan Cosala Historic Tour Video

A couple of days ago, Kelly went on the historic tour of San Juan Cosala that I had taken last year. I had run into Gerardo Tolantino, the tour leader and an English teacher here, and asked if it would be okay if Kelly videotaped the tour. He said yes, and here are some selections from the tour:

One of the most interesting things to me is that San Juan Cosala was the first town in the whole Lake Chapala region. It's even older than Guadalajara!

New Videos on Mexico

I've just been having great fun producing a couple of videos on Mexico. I went to a site called animoto.com and uploaded a bunch of our photos. I uploaded some royalty-free music I had for the first video below, and used some of theirs for the second. Their software did all the rest.

Here's one on Mexico in general:

And here's one from our Manzanillo and Colima trip:

If you happen to have a YouTube account, I'd love it if you would rate the videos, or comment, to help them get noticed! To go to them on YouTube, here is the link for first one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvBhJHR3H9k

and the second:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NdzYwYbxzA

If you would like to try something like this yourself, here are some animoto how-to tips from my Internet Marketing blog.