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.