Eating in Mexico: Part 2

One of the things visitors to Mexico notice, almost immediately, is the reasonable cost of eating out. Of course, "eating out" could take a number of forms.

Ajijic is full of restaurants, many of them good. Because of the large gringo population here, retired people who have the time to eat out frequently, there is fierce competition here for diners among restaurants. It is fairly easy to get an excellent dinner for between 60 and 90 pesos, which means that, even with drinks and a tip, you can pay $25-30 for such a meal. Of course, for those on a tighter budget, you can easily eat for significantly less, especially if you like quesadillas, burritos, or tacos. At lakeside, the variety of types of restaurants is like that in a large city like Guadalajara: Argentine, Mexican, Italian, Thai/Japanese, Vegetarian, Eastern European, Greek, Chinese, American BBQ, etc. The PROBLEM with all this reasonably-priced good food is that it's difficult to eat healthy. In restaurants, most dishes are meat or fish-based, with small servings of vegetables, high calorie, for sure. Maybe this is why I gained eleven pounds during the first eight months I was here. Now, we are much more careful what we eat, and we take advantage of the markets to get more fruits and veggies, eating in more, and I've begun to shed the extra weight.

Another option for eating out is small Mexican "loncherias" which are usually family-run small restaurants with a few white plastic "Corona" tables set up on the street, under a tarp, or in the front room of their home. The service is slow, no one speaks English, and you never know entirely what you're getting ( I saw "cabeza tacos" the other day...use your imagination!), but the food is delicious, usually with hot tortillas made right there and the salsa fresh out of the pot. At least around here, they warn gringos if something is "picante," or spicy hot. Mexicans love these little restaurants; and I seem to like them more than Pixie does. You can easily eat for $3 apiece, or less, including a cerveza. That helps stretch our monthly pension check! But again, these tend to be starchy and fatty meals. Just don't overdo it!

Then, there's take out. We have found a number of places which sell tamales, meat, or sweet corn wrapped in tortilla dough and then wrapped in corn husks and steamed for many hours. These are highly prized and delicious, cheap and not so fatty. There is also Chinese take-out and pizza available. Roasted chickens are available everywhere, as I mentioned earlier, with roasted papas (potatoes), for a reasonable price. Mexican like their pizza a different way. They like to take a perfectly good piece of pizza, with sausage or pepperoni, and smother it with catsup and mayonnaise. Go figure. Different cultures; different tastes.

There is also street food, which we are supposed to avoid because there seems to be little sanitary facilities for washing, etc. People sell roasted corn on the BBQ, and other Mexican traditional foods. People sell cut up fruit and in plastic cups.

I'm off to the writers' group this morning. Here's a new poem I'm reading:

What Makes Them Sing?

What makes them sing?

I walk by the short, dark men

I see them screening sand

Laughing and singing quietly

As they carry heavy white buckets of cement

Up old and splattered ladders

Again and again in heat.

What makes them sing?

Sitting on a stoop on a warm night

To escape the heat and cramped

Communal home they share,

Eating roasted corn

As children with filthy feet

Laugh with their somber eyes.

What makes them sing?

And love loud mariachi music

And fireworks and jokes

And fiestas that last all night

And driving too fast

And risking fate.

What makes them sing?

As we take over their space

And clog their streets

And expect, arrogantly

That they will accommodate our needs

And meet our unfamiliar standards,

While we not bothering to learn

To speak their lyrical language.

What makes them sing?

What makes them smile easily?

What do they know

That helps them live in

Their mean moments

With such grace that it draws

Me to live

Among their songs?

Photos of New House

We have finally moved into the new house, and I am including a number of photos here. Like many Mexican homes, our home is enclosed by walls, with a front gate.

One unique feature of the house is old-fashioned street light in the back yard. It provides illumination at night and is a conversation piece by day!


The previous owners left many pre-Columbian statues and plants. Here's an example from the back garden.
They also left this hand-painted, very Mexican headboard for our new bed. Mexican beds don't use box springs, just wooden platforms, so we bought a comfortable mattress.
This is the front garden included in the covered garage area by the entryway to the house.
Passageways around both sides of the house allow access to the back garden by the gardener without going through the house. We can close these gates to let Maggie into the back yard without worrying about her escaping into the street.
Our big purchase for the house so far has been this beautiful equipale table and chair set which we hope will allow us to enjoy after-dinner conversation with family and friends.
View of the living room from the dining area.
The back of the house with a view of the mountains. No view of the lake, unfortunately.
View of the back terrace, where we will put a grill soon.
Good kitchen, but ugly. We hope to redo the countertop with Mexican rustic tile, and paint the cabinets a color besides blinding white.
The stained glass panels on the sliders leading out to the terrace are one of our favorite features.

Just to get a sense of the area, this is the view from the front of our house. There is a very friendly burro across the street. And the mountains are, of course, prominent.

We are still busy cleaning up the old house and moving things here. We need to make a trip to Home Depot in Guadalajara tomorrow for a lawnmower, step ladder, and other essentials. Once we are finished with this craziness, I'll post the second part of "eating in Mexico."

Eating in Mexico: Part 1

Mexico is a land where people LOVE to eat. Everywhere you go, people are selling food: cut up fruit, barbecued chicken, fried potatoes, roasted corn on the cob, tacos, etc. There are lots of places to shop for food: supermarkets, roadside stands, outdoor markets, even directly from farmers. Finding food is not a problem, and usually at good prices. I'll discuss eating in this post and the next: eating in and eating out.

Perhaps one of the things I was most looking forward to in Mexico was the availability of fresh fruits and vegetables. The picture above was taken at the weekly tianguis, or outdoor market, in Ajijic. Vendors sell all kinds of food at the market, and it is the best place to buy fresh fruits and vegetables. We have our favorite vendor, Aaron, who takes good care of us. The fruits that we most enjoy here are pineapples, mangoes, bananas and plantains, cantaloupe, watermelon, jicama, oranges, limes, grapefruit, strawberries, raspberries, papaya, and apples. In terms of vegetables, we like to buy tomatoes, onions, broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, squash (summer and winter), and peas. I have not seen much asparagus here. Then there are some of the uniquely Mexican fruits and vegetables: the chaiote (a sort of pear-shaped greed squash), nopal (a cactus good cooked or raw, supposedly good for one's cholesterol, prickly pear (a sweet, white cactus fruit), guyavas (guava fruit), and many other strange, but often tasty fruits I don't know the names of. Some things here are disappointing here, like tomatoes. The juicy Maine tomatoes are nothing like the mostly plum tomatoes available here. Limes are wonderful, and Mexicans put them on everything. Lemons, however, are rarely, if ever, available. Limas, which look like limes, are neither sweet not sour; I don't know why they sell them. Here are some approximate prices at the market (in USD, kilo= 2.2 lbs):

tomatoes $1/ kilo
cucumbers $.50/ kilo
grapes $5.00 kilo (imported)
papaya $1.50/ kilo
limes $.80/ kilo
bananas $.80/ kilo
onions $.50/kilo
strawberries $1.00/kilo
raspberries (bought at the farm) $3.00/ gallon bucket

Mexicans are also very fond of their meat. Like the Native Americans, they believe in using all parts of the animal. When you walk down some back streets, you see large tubs of animal parts boiling in lard. The resulting "carnitas" smell delicious, but are difficult to identify. The Mexicans love them, but I don't partake. Meat is sold at carnicerias, or butcher shops. It's not unusual to see the butcher cutting up a carcass in the back of a pick-up truck before he brings it into the shop and displays the meat in refrigerated cases. The Mexicans are fond of roasting very thin strips of beef over a charcoal fire (carne asada). They eat lots of chicken (pollo) and it seems to be available everywhere, roasted and BBQed. Pork is very different here and really tasty. I was not a big pork fan in Maine, but here it's tender and very flavorful. They have many types of sausage, or chorizo, here, from bland to very spicy. Goat meat is popular, as is lamb. Meat is easily available and Pixie and I usually spend about $3.00 for enough for a meal.

Fish is also very popular here, and many Mexicans eat fish from Lake Chapala. The lake is cleaner than it was, but most gringos don't eat lake fish. But the fish shops (pescaderias) get fresh fish from the Pacific every day, and many types are available. Of course, I haven't seen cod, haddock, hake, or mackeral. The most popular fish here are red snapper, sea bass, and mahi-mahi. I am partial to snapper, which cost us about $4 for a meal. Shrimp are great here and huge. They cost about $8/ kilo, depending on the size. I have not seen mussels or clams.

One staple of the Mexican diet is corn tortillas. They are available everywhere, warm and fresh. I usually buy a 2" stack for about 5 pesos, or 50 cents. Mexicans eat them like bread. You can put anything in them, roll them up and eat. With beans they provide almost perfect protein. I like the beans, but I have discovered that it's easier to buy them in containers, already cooked, for 8 pesos, than to soak and cook them yourself. The also love bread, and it is readily available in bakeries for about 5 pesos for a small loaf.

They love to drink Coka Cola, Squirt, and many fruit-flavored sodas. Mexico is apparently the greatest per-capita consumer of soda in the world. They call it "refresco." For alcohol, they mostly consume beer (cerveza) and tequila. Mexicans don't drink margaritas as much. They just add tequila to their squirt or fresca, or sip it like whiskey. They do make a drink called a micholada, which consists of beer, clamato juice, lime, salsa and salt. It's really not bad.

Mexicans are great snackers. They love potato chips, which come in a cellophane bag, without salt. The bag comes with a packet of chili hot sauce which they pour over the chips. Most stores have huge racks of cheap snacks and cookies, like in the US. Yogurt is very popular here, and homemade yogurt can be found everywhere. My favorite is celery pineapple. Fresh honey and soft cheeses are also popular. Many foods, like raisins, granola, nuts and dried chiles can be bought in bulk.

We find that food shopping is cheap here as long as you buy Mexican products. They do have stores that import US products, but you pay dearly for them, so we only buy US food, rarely, usually when we need an item for a recipe. So far we have done a good job stretching our pension check, so we haven't had to resort to eating beans on tortillas for the last week of the month, but we could if we had to.

It is interesting to note that I have gained about ten pounds since arriving here in May. Many of the Mexican foods are fattening, so I am trying to concentrate on the abundance of fruits and vegetables.

Immigration and American Politics

We recently participated in the first ever Democratic primary voting for Americans living abroad. As a voting group, we will have 22 delegates to the National Democratic Convention in Denver this August. The results were for Obama with 65% of the vote.

There was an article this weekend's Guadalajara Reporter about Obama and his plans for improving the US relation with Mexico, should he become the next US president. The Mexicans are clearly not happy with George W. Bush, and he has essentially ignored Mexico since it opted out of participation in his invasion and occupation of Iraq. Vicente Fox, seen as a lackey to Bush, has lost much popularity here. Calderon, the PAN candidate who replaced Fox as President, has distanced himself from the US administration. Barack Obama has suggested that he will focus considerably more on Mexican-American relations. He has proposed specific ideas which could help the situation: (1) Hold an annual meeting with Calderon. This may be largely symbolic but would undoubtedly bring the US president to Mexico and show that the US respects Mexico, which does not seem to be the case now. (2) Involve citizens, labor, the private sector, and NGO's from both countries to form an active bilateral agenda for discussions between both countries. (3) Invest in drug education on both sides of the border. Mexico, although the main conduit for drugs tot he US, is also facing many drug-use problems as well. (4) Disrupt money laundering and drug smuggling from the United States. I think this may be his toughest challenge, but his pledge to work with Calderon will help, since Calderon has made this a top priority here. (5) Develop a bilateral strategy for lifting up border communities, including creating micro-loans for Mexican businesses to create jobs. The most problems in Mexico tend to be in the border communities in terms of violence and economic desperation. (6) Finally, Obama hopes to renegotiate NAFTA to help create enforecable labor and environmental standards. NAFTA has not been good for Mexico, and has resulted in many corn, beans, and sugar farmers struggling to stay in business because the heavily subsidized US farmers can sell corn, beans, and sugar for less than Mexican farmers can.

Whether Obama can really deliver and help Mexican-American relations remains to be seen. But living in Mexico has opened my eyes to the other side of the problem of immigration to the United States.

First of all, I am surprised how many Mexican people I meet here have lived in the United States and have returned to Mexico. I am not sure why they have all returned, whether they were deported or chose to return on their own, but they seem to have great respect for the United States and miss being there. At the same time, they are emotionally attached to Mexico. Over Christmas, we met people who had returned to Mexico to spend time with their families. They were proud to demonstrate their fluency in English and were happy to be able to send money to their families here, but are very sad and frustrated with the hate being expressed for the Mexican immigrants, whether legal or illegal, in the United States.

I was also surprised at how many families have relatives living in the United States. Mexicans refer to the US as the "other side." In many small villages in Mexico, most of the young men have gone to the US, leaving their children and parents behind. It is almost a "rite of passage" in some Mexican towns for young men to cross the border for a year or two.

Although most Mexicans are not happy with the way they are being labeled in the US, they are most gracious hosts. They are unfailingly polite and helpful to Americans living here, and speak very positively of the United States. They are very frustrated that NAFTA, which I assumed would be good for Mexico, is hurting many aspects of their economy.

I think the debate about immigration in the United States is fueled by ignorance and racism. I am glad to see both McCain and Obama willing to adopt a more reasonable immigration policy towards Mexico. Both countries need each other, and the sooner US politicians come to grips with that reality, and start ignoring the hate mongers, the better off we'll all be.

The Future of Ajijic

Now that we are soon to be invested in the Lake Chapala area permanently, as homeowners, I have been wondering what the future holds for Ajijic. Perhaps the most startling thing about this village is that, in spite of all the gringos who have moved into town, it remains very Mexican. As I walk into town from our rental on the West side, I walk through "Seis Esquinas," Six Corners, a very Mexican neighborhood, and see the rhythms of Mexican life continuing in spite of the influx from the North: the old man cutting sugar cane, coconut, and nopal cactus to sell at his fruit stand, two old women in robozos chatting through a metal door, schoolchildren in their plaid uniforms and their backpacks holding their mothers' hands on their way to school, my friend Salvadore washing his horse and smiling to me with his gold front teeth, young men mixing cement with sand on the cobblestone street....hardly the image of a retirement community. Of course, I do see the gringos, like me, in their straw hats, walking their dogs, shopping at the little grocery stores, mixing comfortably with their Mexican neighbors.

Of course, many of the American, Canadian, and European expats tend to live outside the village in "fracciomentos" or gated neighborhoods east, west, and north of the village. We found homes in Ajijic to be unaffordable and with little or no outside space. Wealthy gringos are slowly buying up Mexican property and gutting the homes, transforming them into colorful showcases among the grey, cement Mexican homes.

The main road, or Carretera, which runs along the north shore of Lake Chapala connecting Ajijic to Jocotepec to the west and Chapala to the east, and beyond, is congested, particularly now when the population swells with the seasonal visitors. But even in the summer, the road is inadequate for its traffic. More and more gringo-oriented businesses are popping up to try to capitalize on the retirement migration.

The house we are buying is in Riberas del Pilar, between Ajijic and Chapala. The area is not very built up at the moment, although clearly, many houses are starting to be built in this area. There are many businesses along the Carretera in Riberas.

I try to imagine what the north shore, between Jocotepec and Chapala will be in ten or twenty years. The pace of influx of Northerners has abated a bit, probably because of the poor housing market in the US. If people can't sell their homes in the United States, they cannot afford to pay cash for a house in Mexico. Of course, the Canadian market is better, but overall, real estate here is selling slowly. For example, we were able to get our house for $30,000USD below the original asking price. But eventually, as more baby boomers retire, Mexico, and this area in particular, will become an increasingly popular retirement destination. The prices will probably keep going up, at least somewhat. There are new developments popping up all along the carretera, and I expect that, in the future, the entire corridor between Ajijic and Jocotepec will be developed.

The big worry is will the infrastructure be able to handle it? Will the water and sewer systems be adequate? Is the Mexican government planning for this increase in population? They are clearly glad to have the expats coming here, and I am sure planning is going on, but it is a huge challenge.

I am afraid that Ajijic itself will have to change as time goes on. As the limited space in the village is bought up, and the value of the property continues to increase, there will be more pressure on Mexican families to sell to assure their economic future. As this happens, the village will, inevitably, become where gringos live and Mexicans work. I hope this does not happen, but I think it likely will, eventually.

As the area becomes less Mexican, prices will probably rise, as has the price of real estate. Probably the best argument for us to buy a home here is to avoid getting priced out of the housing market. Rentals are reasonable now, but are likely to go up in the future.

We're betting that, in spite of the challenges ahead, the Lake Chapala area will continue to be a wonderful place to live. Certainly living in the US has its own challenges. The weather here, without the need for heat or AC, will continue to help us live simply. The abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables and fresh meats will continue to help us eat well. And, most of all, the beautiful, generous, and kind Mexican people will keep us here. As case in point: we shop at the outside market every week. Last week we inadvertently left a bunch of Bananas behind. This week when we returned, Aaron, the man who we buy our fruits and veggies from, shouted out: "Bill! Pixie! You left your bananas last week. Here, I have a new bunch for you today!" I hope this type of kindness never changes.

Finally, I am including a recent poem I wrote after Eric and Crystal brought the latest ultrasound image of Isabelle for us to see.

Isabelle

We think we see your spine

As we gather intently around the screen

To view the grainy disk

Your parents brought to Mexico

To demonstrate their fertility.

You do not know the world

Into which you are about

To be thrust.

Will you shine or struggle?

I think I see your foot

And now perhaps your face

Inscrutable and silent

Reserving judgment on us all.

Your heart, tiny and furious

Belies your otherwise buoyant repose

And I wish I know

What it will hold dear,

How often it will break,

If it will carry you well

Through tears and tragedy,

And how it will pound with passion

Against some lover’s breast

In darkest nights ahead.

I think I see translucent eyes

Peering into vacant space

And I wonder what they’ll see

Eighty years from now

When we are gone and you remain.

What will you think of us?

New House for Valentines Day

After looking at all the available property in our price range over the past several weeks, we decided that we liked the pink house, shown on the last blog entry, most of all. Since we were not successful in our previous offers, we decided that it was a good house and it was worth one more try. We increased our offer slightly, and they accepted. So, we are now in the process of doing all the things necessary to move in soon after the closing date of March 14.

Fortunately, we were able to save some money from the sale in our house in Maine to buy some furniture for the house here. This house is largely unfurnished, although it includes all the appliances. We took Daniel with us to inspect it today, and he found only minor problems which he says he can help us fix. I have enclosed photos below, including one of Daniel inspecting the roof.

The house has two bedrooms with bathrooms, one of which we will use as a den with a pullout sofa for guests, an open living-room, dining room area, a kitchen with lots of storage including a butlers' pantry, a laundry room, a large bodega (shed), a two car covered parking space, a small front garden, a nice yard in the back with a deep covered terrace and another terrace in the back of the yard for a BBQ area. The house is four years old and in good shape. As you can see from the, photos it's very Mexican (the sellers are Mexican) and we can add more Mexican touches as we live there for awhile.

The house is located in Upper Riberas del Pilar, about halfway between Ajijic and Chapala, about 5 minutes from each. It has city water, a septic system, and the property taxes are $133 per year, somewhat less than in Maine.

Happy Valentines Day. I told Pixie I was buying her a pink house in Mexico for Valentine's Day. HAHA.



























































Note: I have included a link to the monthly critical thinking column I am writing for the English-language magazine, El Ojo del Lago, or The Eye of the Lake. You can access the magazine online by clicking on the link at the top.

Buying Property in Mexico

Until recently, foreigners could not buy property in Mexico. They could put property into a trust, but the property could not be passed down to one's heirs. The law has been changed so that now foreigners can buy property here, although not within a certain distance of the coast or the border.

We are in the process of trying to figure out whether or not we will buy a house here or continue to rent. Part of the decision involves being aware of the pitfalls of buying property in Mexico.

One of the primary concerns is that, as northerners, we are not used to the construction styles here. When we first visited here, I looked at the brick and concrete houses with tile floors and thought they must be indestructible. I was used to wood framed houses which always seemed to suffer from water and dry rot. Since it was dry here most of the year, it seemed as though these houses would require less maintenance. This was an oversimplification. Having lived through a rainy season, I have seen the damage water can do. Just like with wood houses, water is the culprit. Water can seep into walls and under tiles to create damage which remains unseen until it is serious. So where your house is, is of utmost importance. Drainage is critical. We almost made a serious mistake on the house we almost bought, as outlined in the previous two posts. We have since decided to limit our search to houses between 1 and 10 years old...enough time for construction flaws to show up but not so old that we are buying a slew of unseen problems....probably.

Another problem is ground stability. This shows up particularly in new construction. We have several friends who built houses on fault lines or on poor foundations who are now finding serious cracks developing in their houses. One friend, Judy, who I volunteer with teaching English, completed a new home last year and the house developed such severe cracks that she can no longer live in the house. She has had to move in with a friend; she is now in Mexican courts trying to get the money back from her contractor.

Mexican laws are different as well. In the United States, when we buy a home, there are laws protecting the buyer from blatantly false claims or serious problems with a property. The warning "buyer beware" is particularly important in Mexico where there is essentially no protection for the buyer. If a seller tells you something that turns out to be false, and you buy the house with that understanding, then you have no recourse. You had better make sure there is water, hot water, a working phone line, electricity to the entire house, etc. before you sign on the dotted line. Most people hire someone to help them check out the house before they buy. Some things buried in concrete, however, will remain a mystery.

Another problem people run into when buying a house, especially in the village, is noise. It's important to visit the house at different times of the day and week. Mexicans love fiestas, which is an endearing fact about living here, unless you buy a house near an "evento," a place rented out for parties which may last all night. Some noise is inevitable, especially during annual celebrations, but you could be stuck in a particularly noisy area without realizing it.

So why would anyone buy a house with all these potential problems? Rents are plentiful and reasonable, and usually come completely furnished. You have the flexibility to pick up and leave with no hassle. But, there are drawbacks to renting. Probably the most important one, in this popular area, is the danger of rental prices escalating rapidly. Yes, rents are affordable now, but once the real estate market in the US stabilizes and baby boomers like us start discovering Mexico as a retirement destination, prices will surely rise. Since we are planning to live here permanently, perhaps for 30 years or so, owning a house outright would be a good hedge against inflation. Also, just like with buying property, there are pitfalls to renting here. Unlike in the US, property here is often rented here without any regulations. The renter is often expected to do required repairs to the house at his or her own expense. If the roof leaks, it can be the renter's responsibility. We've even heard stories about renters who have invested their own money in a house only to have the landlord raise the rent because the property is now worth more!

One of the most important things to remember, whether we rent or buy, is that we are foreigners in Mexico. We cannot expect it to be like the United States. If there are problems, they may be more difficult to resolve here. We certainly do not have the protections which we have come to expect in the United States.

We have been looking for property in our price range; property is expensive here thanks to all the like-minded gringos, many of whom are far more prosperous than us. If we find something soon, we may buy it; otherwise we will find a new rent, probably in Ajijic, which should be relatively easy to do. We will continue to look, as, hopefully, prices will fall a bit, at least for the next year or so.

Here are some photos of some recent properties we have looked at. We put a low-ball offer on the pink house, but it didn't fly. Oh well.

Bad News; Good News

Well, the BAD news is we're not going to buy the house discussed in the previous post.

The GOOD news is we're not going to buy the house discussed in the previous post.

It turns out the house is in an area which can flood badly during the rainy season. Of course, now, during the dry season, it looks wonderful. A new Mexican contractor friend offered to have a look at the area yesterday. He was concerned when I told him that we were in the process of buying a house there. When he saw the house, he pointed out the water flow during the rainy season and pointed out that this house was simply too low and in a flood area. In fact, he even found some standing water behind the house. "Sinking" our life savings into a such a risk would clearly be a bad decision. So, as much as we hated to, we withdrew our offer.

We are grateful to Antonio for taking the time to check this out for us. Back to square one. We are very disappointed that we won't be getting this beautiful, well-furnished this house for a bargain price. But, if it's too good to be true...

Our Children Are Convinced of Our Sanity

Well, all three of our children have now come for extended visits with their respective partners. In addition to having well-deserved vacations, they are all, it seems, coming away with the reassurance that their parents were not being completely insane when they decided, rather abruptly, to move to Mexico. Cassie and Alana, and Eric and Crystal, sadly have had to return to their work-a-day world in colder climates but hopefully full of warm memories with their experiences. Wendy and Troy are enjoying their visit with us now before they head back on February 10.

Everyone has seemed to enjoy exploring the village of Ajijic. Although the place seemed very foreign and overwhelming to them at first, all found it to be a welcoming place and enjoyed walking around, sampling the food, visiting the market, and lounging at the thermal baths. What's not to like? We have been enjoying the opportunity to have extended conversations with everyone and having everyone be on vacation so we can do what we like.

Wendy and Troy have returned from Guanajuato and San Miguel de Allende and are back in Ajijic relaxing. Troy is an excellent cook and enjoys shopping in the local markets and preparing wonderful meals. We, of course, are taking full advantage of this! We have been to Guadalajara with them twice, to the craft markets in Tonala and to the historic colonial district. But mostly, we've been enjoying their company and relaxing together.


Since several of our friends and relatives have been asking, Pixie's broken leg is completely healed and she is back to walking around without any problems. We are both watching carefully where we step in the very uneven terrain around here to avoid further broken bones.

We have been spending a lot of time over the past several weeks agonizing about where we are going to live after June. Although all of our children have fallen in love with our little casita by the lake, it is just too small and too dark for us. We want a sunnier interior space with enough room to entertain our friends. The problem we have been struggling with is our desire to live in Ajijic and the fact that we have no furniture anymore. The obvious solution is to continue to rent a furnished house here in the village. There seem to be plenty available. That's a good short term solution, but with prices destined to rise as more people move down here, the long term is murkier. We may live here for 30 years and we want to be able to afford to stay.

With all this in mind, we decided to look at homes for sale in the area. Prices are down a bit now, and owners are anxious to sell. Looking in Ajijic is just too expensive, so we have been looking at outlying areas, and we appear to have found an excellent buy in a neighboring settlement, Riberas del Pilar, about halfway between Ajijic and Chapala. We have found a brand new house that a couple built to sell. The house is one bedroom with a den which converts to a nice private guest area, but which, most of the time can be used as a den. It has two baths, one with a jacuzzi tub and the other with a shower. It has a big screened-in terrace overlooking a large garden with a brightly-colored ceramic fountain. It has a laundry room off the terrace, a beautiful kitchen with unique tile design and a breakfast bar. The living room has a stone gas fireplace, and there is a covered, secure carport with another interior garden space near the entry way. The house is completely furnished with a memory-foam bed in the master bedroom, a beautiful dining room table for eight, sofas, linens, dishes...everything we no longer have!

There are a few downsides. We are not in lovely Ajijic with a lake view anymore. Riberas is a developing community with many houses being built. There is a house across the street and some empty housing lots around our house. So, for now, the house is surrounded by rather ugly empty lots. One lot next to our house has been sold and a new house will be built there. The lot of the other side has not been sold yet. We will have a beautiful house and garden, but no great view. We are a ways from the highway, so we will be more reliant on our car.

The clinching factor for me was that the house is a very affordable price with low maintenance. We will be able to live in the center of this thriving community and be assured of a secure affordable home for many years to come. The property taxes on this house are, unbelievably, $100 USD per year! Not heat or AC is required in the houses here, so the cost to maintain a house, after purchase, is minimal. So, after much critical thinking agony, we are in the process of purchasing the house. We are meeting with the builder and are hiring a building engineer to inspect the house this week. We will move in late May. The owners need to stay on the house till April at least, and we're coming back to the US in April and May, so we'll move when we return. Here are some photos of the house from the realtor's website. I'll post more when we can get back into the house to take photos.

Family Visits and Colder Weather

Christmas is over and we are into the dead of winter in Mexico. Well, perhaps that sounds a bit dramatic, but it IS cold here now...at least for the moment. OK, the temperature is not that low...in the mid 40's at night and the low 60's during the day, but it SEEMS very cold. The houses are drafty and make of brick and concrete...so if it's 45 degrees on the outside, it's 45 degrees on the inside too. We have been having small fires in our fireplace, and that warms it up a bit, but I'm still wearing my fleece in the house. Of course, when I think of the winter Maine is having I cannot complain, but I do hope this snap is short-lived.

We had wonderful visits with four of our six family house guests so far. Eric and Crystal and Cassie and Alana all were here over Christmas for two weeks. Sadly, they are now back in Muncie and Providence. They all had a chance to become familiar with Ajijic and enjoyed exploring the area on foot. It's about 1.25 miles from our casa in West Ajijic into the center of town, and the walk winds through a very Mexican area known as Six Corners. Cassie and Alana in particular enjoyed exploring some of the different tiendas and vendors throughout the village. We all had some wonderful very traditional Mexican food, especially at a restaurant in San Juan Cosala, Tia Lupita. Cassie, who had problems digesting wheat, found that the abundance of corn tortillas was a wonderful, as she could easily eat and digest them. We picked up buckets of raspberries and found lots of ways to use them. Crystal, in her pregnant condition, had some difficulty with some of the Mexican food, but she was able to find some palatable food nonetheless.



Here, Eric and Crystal accompanied us to a fiesta with a mariachi band shortly after their arrival.























We hosted a neighborhood fiesta the weekend before Christmas for our gringo neighbors and our Mexican friends. Here are Cassie and Alana enjoying day, and Cassie and Yoselin working on some drawings together. They became good amigas that day!



We all enjoyed experiencing Christmas in Mexico. We went to a Posada with Eric and Crystal. This is a traditional procession, usually for children, where they weave their way throughout their town reenacting the nativity story. As the children playing Mary and Joseph knock on doors looking for lodging, they are turned away from many homes before they find the stable with a manger. Many people follow the procession singing Christmas songs, sometimes holding candles. It's a very big community event which is repeated for the nine days before Christmas. People will pass out the traditional hot fruit punch to the revelers at the end of the Posada.


There are many Naciamientos throughout all villages in Mexico. These are nativity scenes, and some of them are very large. There was a big one with metal figures in the gazebo in the Ajijic plaza. Traditionally, they do not put the baby Jesus in the manger until Christmas morning. Cities like Guadalajara have huge naciamientos throughout the city, and many families have large ones in or in front of their homes.
Christmas eve is really the big event in Mexico. The plaza in front of the main church in Ajijic was a busy, festive place with many types of nativity scenes, music, and celebration.
Families were going in and out of the decorated church and attending Mass, happy to be together and enjoying "Navidad"

Later in the evening, after we had opened gifts and Cassie and Alana returned to their temporary digs at Fred and Mardele's house (Fred and Mardele are friends from our Fellowship who were away for the holidays and graciously allowed us to use their house for Cassie and Alana to stay at night while our guest room was occupied by Eric and Crystal), they went walking around town after midnight and found families sitting in front of their homes with bonfires, eating and drinking and enjoying each other. Christmas Day was quiet and everyone recovered from the revelry of the night before.

On Christmas Day, our Mexican friends, Daniel and Dora asked if they could "Borrow" our tree to give Jesus and Yoselin their gifts: new bicycles! Daniel had been teasing the kids telling them that since they had no tree, they could receive no gifts! "No arbor, no regalos!" So once he'd put the bikes under our little tree, he brought the kids over. Rather than squealing with delight, as we expected, they soberly smiled and took the bikes outside to try them. We think, culturally, they don't show their emotions as much as we do. In any event, this was a huge gift for children who have very little. It took many months for Daniel and Dora to pay for the bikes. We also gave the kids a pinata. When the extended family gathered here later in the day, we watched as the children whacked at the very durable Christmas-tree shaped object before the candy came pouring out.

We were invited across the lake to Rick and Leigh's house in San Luis Soyatlan for a big dinner. He had even hired a guitar trio to seranade us with romantic Mexican songs. Cassie sketched a picture of them which she gave to them before we left. They were very appreciative, and seranaded Cassie with a special song at our table. It was a lovely dinner with ham and turkey and salad and margaritas, and other pot-luck foods, but a very different experience form our "usual" Christmas dinners in Maine! Here is a photo of our host Santa Rick posing with Pixie.









Eric and I climbed up to the Chapel in the mountain behind Ajijic one morning for a wonderful view of the lake and the village. Eric and Pixie and I took a trip to Teuchitlan to see the recently discovered round pyramids which date back to 400 BC. Cassie and Alana took the overnight bus to Mexico City to see Frieda's house and enjoy the atmosphere of that huge city. But mostly we hung around and enjoyed much warmer weather than we have now and had good family time.

Wendy and Troy arrive on Monday and plan to stay in Mexico for a month visiting us and doing some traveling on their own. We are looking forward to that! Pixie is planning a pagan service for the Fellowship on January 13, and I'll be getting back to teaching and taking Spanish after the Christmas break.

Happy New Year to all our friends and family!

(Despite what the header on this post suggests, this was actually posted on January 5, 2008!)

Feliz Navidad!

It is indeed a strange feeling. For the first time in my life, we are going through a winter season in a climate which never freezes. The flowers are out, the days are sunny and warm, the skies are bright blue, and there is ne'er a wisp of frost in the air, let alone the white stuff. We hear Christmas music in the air; in fact, we're going to a Christmas concert on Monday, yet it hardly seems like the holiday season. Of course we are going to see all of our children and their partners over the next few weeks, so that will seem more like Christmas. We do have our house decorated, pictured here, a Mexican pine, and Pixie's nutcrackers on the mantle:













We had a very interesting trip to a 130 year-old hacienda in the mountains near Mazamitla. We have a small dinner club with our good friends Paul and Jeanne and Steve and Sue, who accompanied us on this trip for two days. We hiked a bit in the mountains and ate authenic rural Mexican food on a Mexican schedule: Breakfast (desayuno) at 10:00 AM, lunch (comida, the large meal of the day) at 3:00 PM, and a smaller dinner (cena) at 8:00 PM. Since the hacienda is a working farm, we enjoyed butter, cheese, and "crema" made on the premesis. Paul and I, awaking early one morning, had a unique "hot chocolate" made from chocolate, corn alcohol, and warm milk directly from the cow's udder into the glass, a traditional Mexican eye opener!

























My English students are making great progress, and we are continuing to have a wonderful time. We laugh and I have my usual good time hamming it up. Next Thursday, our last day of class before the Christmas break, they told me they wanted to have a "Posada" with me. Now, this seemed a very strange request to my gringo mind. A posada, you see, is the Spanish word for hotel. It also refers to the ritualistic reenactment of the nativity scenes which are popular around this time of year in Mexico. Puzzled, I replied, "Una posada? Con Virgin Maria y Christo?" They thought my ignorant response was hilarious. "No teacher, a fiesta por Navidad!" I had images of them wanting me to play Joseph or something. I was greatly relieved. So on Thursday, we are all bringing food and small gifts. I tried suggesting a Chinese auction, but gave up. They were looking at me like I was crazy, so we'll do a simple gift swap. I'll try to remember to add photos to this blog entry after the party, in this space. [Here are a couple of photos of the party, with at least some of my students. Notice the guy in the back row with the Yankees' cap. That's Jose Antonio, and he loves to wear that cap to tease me.]













Tomorrow we go to our first Quinceneara, for the 15 year old girlfriend the son of our Mexican friends. After the church service at 6:00, I guess there is quite a fiesta....we'll see. I'll take some photos, and add them here. [OK. Below are the photos of the church service and the Banda band at the fiesta. It was a great event. By my count, there were over 250 people at the fiesta, and we were the only gringos. But we felt most welcome and had a good time. We had goat stew and beans for dinner, and enjoyed the music and dancing, lubricated by cerveza and tequila!]














Next week life gets a bit hectic for us as the kids start to arrive. I may not post much over the holidays, but I'll post photos after.

Feliz Navidad to everyone!