XXII. Un Rascaespalda y También la Cabeza

A Backscratcher and Also the Head

Yesterday I was returning from the tianguis—the street market where you can find all manner of goods except, evidently, the bread which continues to elude us. Anyway, I had picked up un regalo there, a gift for my soon-to-be-birthday-girl wife. To complete the present I had stopped by another location just off the busy highway—carretera—that bisects our little town, and I was heading home heavily laden.

Un rascaespaldas with vertebrae massager embedded in handle.
The missing tine is to make this also a double-duty tool for
pulling the high chain that controls the ceiling fan's speed.

Stopping to rest on this sunny, unusually humid day in the shade of Café Gran Café’s awning, I commented on the weather and the load I was carrying to a well-dressed older gringo woman who was waiting there for some reason I didn’t catch. We had exchanged a few pleasantries when my attention turned to a small mujer from whom I had purchased a bamboo backscratcher a day or two after we arrived here in Ajijic several weeks ago. Thirty pesos, if I remember correctly.

She was approaching from the plaza around the corner, backscratchers and tchotchkes in hand, followed by two much larger people—a couple in their fifties, a little sweaty and looking confused, ergo gringos. The little vendor woman latched onto me and I was about to give her the standard, “No, gracias” when it became clear there was something else afoot.

Numbers were being thrown about en español. It was a confusion about money. I noticed the heavy-set wife was clutching a woven purse similar to several others in the vendor’s hand. Possession of this was the point of contention, and I was suddenly both the interpreter and the expected advocate for both sides in a negotiation as old as commerce itself. 

I presume that I was chosen because of the impression I had made in that prior experience with the backscratcher.

“Ciento ochenta,” the Mexican said. “A hundred eighty pesos”, I translated. “About twelve dollars”, I explained to the quizzical hombre blanco. I looked over to the elder (and I guess some might put me in that category as well) with whom I had been chatting a few minutes earlier, and suggested that her Spanish might be better than mine, but she shrugged and looked away. 

We went back and forth, the gringos looking for a bargain—as we’ve been taught to do with these people. It’s part of the game—we’ve been told—but for the relatively few items I’m interested in buying from street vendors, I usually pay the asking price, which is almost always incredibly borato, or inexpensive. Plus, I figure that I’ve been fortunate by birth and it’s good to spread a little of that luck around.

Anyway: down to one fifty, up to one seventy, and with each offer and counter offer in pesos I mentally divided by fifteen to give the rough dollar equivalent. We were stuck for a moment or two when the gringos expressed doubt they even had enough pesos. Where was the nearest currency exchange for their dollars, they queried. But I think that was a ruse. If so, it worked, and the vendor gave an offer in that tone of voice and a petulant expression that’s meant to express finality. A bargain was struck at one sixty—not quite $11, I translated.

My facilitator role in this bilingual exchange, as well as the recent and successful purchase of gifts for my wife, momentarily lifted my spirits and took my mind off the customs debacle over which I have been hassling and fretting the past couple of weeks. The day before I had found out that our household belongings—that we had had shipped here to Mexico, and for which we’d expected delivery soon after we arrived—we being summarily returned to Seattle. End of story.

Well, not really. We filed a claim for a refund of the cost of shipping—and are awaiting resolution of that—and we still have to decide what to do with the contents of those two boxes, most of which are feeling less and less necessary to our new life in Mexico. Fortunately, the helpful daughters back stateside have agreed to receive and house them for the nonce.

XXI. Un Poco de Esto y Algunos de Ese

A Little of This and Some of That

Some traffic at Seis Esquinas--the woman to the left is arranging 
red roses to sell. There are some customers heading to the neveria
for some ice cream, and the boomboxed compact is blaring out 
political ditties and songs for the upcoming election. 

This past week when there's been nothing else that seemed to need doing, I’ve strolled down Calle Ocampo, which, when it crosses Calle Colón turns into Constitución—the street where we live. I enjoy the immersion in Mexican culture as I stray away from the more anglicized area around the Centro. I took these photos of the tiendas, casas, murals and shrines as I passed. They each speak to some discovery about a way of living that is different from the city life stateside that I'm used to. 

Zapateria y abarrotes

A vivid orange building houses the zapateria, or shoe store. The fan-shaped ornamental spikes serve double duty as security for the second floor residence of the store owner. Security here can also be much more obvious, and its imagined violation more cringingly scary, as in the broken glass or concertina razor wire you occasionally see guarding the top of a wall. 

Frutas y verduras—this one is on the highway, 

or carretera. Notice all the cognates—words in 

Spanish that are suggestive of their English meaning. 

The little tienda to the right of the zapateria is a typical abarrotes, or grocery convenience store, you find every couple of blocks. Sometimes they also advertise "Vinos y Licores". You'll usually find not much more than soft drinks, snacks and candy, plus a cooler for yogurt, and milk and there's often barely room inside to turn around. If you want to expand your choice of vittles to include fresh fare you'll have to go to a place advertising "Frutas y Verduras"—"Fruits and Vegetables".

You occasionally come 

across a wall, or in this 

case, a fragment of a wall, 

that is decorated like this. 

Among—and sometimes above—all these shops are residences, most offering some visual idiosyncrasy that sets them apart. It may be a mural, a shrine—almost always to the Virgin of Guadalupe—or simply a style of ironwork or vibrant color of paint that distinguishes them from their neighbor.

Just after I cross Calle Libertad, I run into what we would call in The States a "pocket park"—formed to accommodate the angle of Calle Hidalgo's intersection with Ocampo, as well as the home of un árbol muy grande.

This is Seis Esquinas, or Six Corners, a mini-plaza surrounded by numerous shops each providing a different necessity—a polleria for chicken and a carnicería for meat, a loncheria for lunch and vinos y licores not to mention the Centro de Salud for what ails you. You'll also find a reparación bicicleta for bicycle repair, not to forget the nevería where you can pick up an ice cream cone, and next door is a papelería for office supplies and copias, or copies. The estética across the street tends to your beauty needs. Add to that the benches and ubiquitous shrine to the Virgen de Guadalupe, the basket lights hanging from the arbol and you've got yourself a fine place to gather day or night, to chat, wait for the bus, and greet or just watch the many passersby.

Admittedly, this shot is a block off Ocampo and expresses a
style that is not traditionally Mexican, but it definitely wakes
you up, and that's what we moved here for. Note the security
features at the roofline. 

Taken together this stroll takes me past places expressing their individuality in colorful and unique ways. Interaction is encouraged by the narrow sidewalks where you literally rub shoulders as you meet and pass, often with a friendly, "Buenas días". A quick step into the street to accommodate a mother and child or elderly woman with cane will usually elicit a gracias.

Most all of the tiendas are small owner-run businesses, and many enterprising people set up shop right on the street, in front of their casa, selling barbecued chicken or posole maybe only on two or three afternoons or evenings a week.

Rather than going to a Walmart or Krogers for one-stop shopping, you wander inefficiently, but more leisurely—and socially—around your neighborhood on a daily round to gather a little of this and some of that. In the interest of full disclosure, though, "this and that" has not so far included raw chicken or meat from one of those streetside shops.

XX. Es Que No Todos Brisas en las Palmas

It's Not All Breezes in the Palms

Bit of a breeze today, after last night's rain--the first cooling

since we've been here. The beginning of the rainy season is 

predicted by the clicking call of the "rainbirds", a form of 

cicada, that as it builds in frequency becomes a brief high-

pitched throb. They've been much quieter since the deluge.

As text and pictures have illustrated, our little town of Ajijic is a beautiful, fascinating place, but it hasn't all been cervezas, guacamole and brisas en las palmas this past semana. For one thing, for these two soggy Seattleites, the high sun and 90 degree weather definitely explain the rationale behind siesta time, or at least time to stay inside under the ceiling fan, or—if needs must—travel next to the wall in the shade, on the narrow sidewalks. May is the hottest month here, we keep telling ourselves.

For another thing, there’s the nine-day-and-counting delay in delivery of our boxes from Pay-Through-the-Nose Shipping.

This has sent me into a frenzy of activity—a whirlwind of emails and phone calls to local, national and international customer "service" reps of DHL (let them be named and cursed), and to the US consulate in Guadalajara and the Mexican consulate in Seattle. The sticking point seems to be a heretofore unknown requirement—perhaps dreamed up by Yessica, our DHL customs agent—that the boxes be returned to the US so their list of contents can be given a seal of approval by a Mexican consulate there before they can be shipped back here. WTF!

LESSON: Even though this is a work still in progress—or more accurately, stagnation—if we had it do do over again, I'd forego shipping in favor of buying more big old suitcases and schlepping them through baggage claim and customs, checking first to see what the airline limitations and excess baggage fees would be. The word is that taking your belongings through customs personally, whether driving or flying, seems to raise fewer flags than shipping.

Screen shot of the main piece in our
quest to exchange our temporary
residence visa for a card

A further bureaucratic test awaits us as we move further along the process of replacing—within 30 days of our arrival—the temporary resident visas with temporary resident cards. I began that task yesterday with a visit to the immigration office in nearby Chapala to get the list of hoops through which we need to be prepared to jump—subject, of course, to revision without notice. Cynicism aside, this first experience was reassuring—the representative was patient, spoke perfect English, and wrote down all the requirements carefully. 

Still one more thing, though: for almost as much as we recently deconstructed our life in the States, we are constructing a life here in Mexico. This means answering such simple questions as how to set up (all instructions in Spanish, of course) the answering machine, printer (another Arggh), internet connection, DVD hooked up to TV, etc. Also—where and when to take out our garbage (on the corner, in the morning—so the dogs won’t get into it overnight—any day of the week except Domingo, and forget about recycling), and how to get those big garrafones of water delivered, since we don’t quite trust the water purification system installed in our complex.

Portogarrafón with our just delivered agua.
Getting this delivery was quite a triumph,
with the bonus of our friendly delivery guy,
Emeterio.

Like most USAmericans we're used to grocery shopping experiences that are one-stop affairs with wide aisles, bright lights, air conditioning, copious signage and vast quantities of goods. Here—not so much. There are two small, less-than-more full service grocery stores within pretty easy walking distance, so long as there are not too many bags to carry home down picturesque but not-too-well paved sidewalks interrupted by cobbled streets. Of course there’s the language challenge again, and some things, like kalamata olives and orzo, have been hard to find (OK, cultural chauvinism acknowledged). This situation has led us to the heretofore-avoided heresy of going to the local Walmart.

For my culinary spouse, in addition to the shopping gauntlet, both the high altitude and the unfamiliar food products, as well as a new—even if well-appointed—kitchen, have made food preparation a trial, and not the joy she is used to. 

We tell ourselves it’s early days yet, we’re just going through the initial, maybe even one-time processes, setting up systems, establishing routines, learning customs, etc., but we are sure looking forward to getting most of this stuff behind us so we can take some language courses, volunteer at the local food bank, go on some hikes, take in some fiestas, do a little traveling, partying, spend more time lazing in the plaza or lounging on the balcony. It will all come, verdad?

XIX. Desde el Balcón, la Mañana del Martes

From the Balcony, Tuesday Morning

Doors of the Axixic gallery, with the disconcerting face of
La Mestiza next door. We have yet to figure out if the gallery
has regular hours, or if it's even ever open for business.

Sipping strong coffee, sitting on our balcony our fourth morning in Casa de Luz, we have begun to discern patterns among the more distinctive walkers on the sidewalk across the cobblestone street, in front of the gallery that rarely seems to open. 

The first we notice is a trio of mom with baby in carrier—the infant with the same knitted pink cap as yesterday—preceded by a young boy, perhaps kindergartener by the looks of him, studying a sheet of school work as they all walk east, as far as I can see, along Calle Constitución. Yesterday—Monday—the boy was all decked in white, pants neatly pressed; today, still well-turned out, the pants are black, the short-sleeved shirt red.

A few minutes earlier I had spotted a small, slender woman carefully dressed in an old-fashioned manner with her steel-gray hair pulled back, walking slowly from up toward Colón. Yesterday, she had made the same trip carrying a black plastic trash bag to the mound of basura waiting for pickup on the corner. Today, though, she crossed to our side of the street and turned north up Castellanos. A quarter hour later she returned, looked up at us and returned the smile of my sociable spouse. I had the binoculars to my face, trying to catch a glimpse of what I took to be a mourning dove in the hummingbird tree in the garden behind the gallery, so just caught the tail-end of this friendly gesture.

There are others we will come to know: a made-up and plump-breasted young woman whose ample haunches are tightly encased in black or, occasionally, leopard-skin tights, carrying a to-go cup of coffee as she hurries to work somewhere on Colón; the impossibly skinny man with the Indian face who braves the cobblestones in his bicycle, and is sometimes seen with a twenty pound bag of dog food slung over the handlebars...others to come.

XVIII. La Primera Semana

Beautiful and exotic describes much we have seen the past week. This flower 
is of the aptly named Flamboyant Tree, Delonix regia, of which there are
several in the plaza and many along the malecon.

The First Week

My serene-but-curious spouse and I just returned from the plaza where Sunday night doings are in full swing, maybe even fuller swing than when I first posted from Mexico, a week ago. It’s been a very full semana, to say the least, and the most important achievement is us staying healthy, both physically and mentally. Oh, there have been moments, but all in all we’re more than OK.

Of course, the other huge accomplishment is renting our beautiful Casa de Luz, as described in my last post. We’ve spent the past two days since moving in by, first, boxing up all of the owners’ stuff that was in our way or that we didn’t want. We growled at their golf clubs left in our closet, and I carefully removed the offensively redundant “Owners Cabinet” labels from two locked cabinets.

"Owner's Cabinet"
label has been removed
from cabinets, top right,
in office/guest room

Next, my supremely well-organized wife found just the right place for all of our belongings—all, that is, that are not still being held hostage at customs. What remains is a very well-appointed and decorated living space that has begun to feel like our own. I hooked up our laptops, set the clocks to the right time, copied keys, picked up the laundry I had dropped off the previous day at the lavandería, and other similar manly tasks. And, of course, hiked over to El Torito Super Mercado for coffee, coffee filters and milk—a necessity.

Throughout our first couple of days, our personable rental agent, Eduardo, has been a solid, if somewhat elfin, presence: checking on the utilities, being a buffer from the owner, calling us to see if everything is alright, telling us when and how to leave out the garbage, how to order water delivery, etc. We like both him and the sweet, solicitous Alejandra, also of Roma Realty.

The Mexican version of 7-11 is called Oxxo. This is a
previous iteration--usually flagged as an abarrotes--a type 
of convenience store found every couple of blocks.

We have begun exploring the neighborhood, seeing the sights, and finding tiendas that meet our needs. Many visits have been paid to the local vino y licores store, more for bottled water than the harder stuff. I’ve picked up some aguacates, piñas, tomates, papayas, etc. as my handy spouse has begun easing into meal preparation. We are both tired of eating out.

I had a surprisingly hard time yesterday finding some bread. The local panadería was out, and apologized for that fact. Nowhere else around the plaza had any, and I didn’t want to wait, nor did I feel I could count on, the woman who sometimes sells from the trunk of her car at Colón and Hidalgo. I had seen a bakery just down the block but it sold only dulces. The friendly owner, however, welcomed me to the neighborhood and directed me to a grocery store on the highway, or carretera.

Not something we've seen on our
suburban Seattle streets.

I enjoyed all these peregrinations about the pueblo—the new and foreign sights, trying to make sense of the strangeness and if that was not possible, just appreciating it. I treasured— and hope I will continue to value—each interaction as a chance to create or reciprocate a friendly feeling.

And back home, here at Constitucion 23C, we have reveled in our mornings and evenings on the balcony, with coffee or wine respectively, as we look out over this new land we are beginning to inhabit.

XVII. Casa de Luz

House of Light

Our Casa de Luz has a balcony overlooking Calle Constitución,
right on the parade route. We imagine morning coffee taken
here as we watch the street come to life.

GRACIAS A DIOS!  Today we sign the lease for the dwelling where we will live for the next year. Tomorrow we move in! In Roma Realty’s online listing it has the bland name of “Smith”, referring to its gringo owner back stateside, or maybe province-side since he might well be Canadian. We're re-naming it Casa de Luz—House of Light.

It has every one of the most important things on last summer’s original wish list: 

La Mestiza is one of two colorful art
galleries directly across the street. 

Location—a block and a half from both the plaza in one direction, and ex-pat’s resource center and gardens in the other. Two blocks from the beautiful lakeside malecón. Check! And it’s on the parade route so we can look down from our balcony (Check!), with an active (but not too) and varied street life. Double check!

Lots of Light—big, arched windows with finely crafted steel window panes fill most of one wall in

Looking into the main room from streetside balcony door

the great room, facing the morning sun. French doors of the same style open north and south onto balconies. Big glass bricks for skylight in the office. Check! Screens for mosquito season. Check again! 

The right size—not too big and not too little, with an extra bathroom and room for guests (!) and office in addition to the usual complement. Check!

Attractive interior and furnishings—It looks great—Smith has good taste! Or, at least, we share the same taste. Check!  (And there are no weird smells)

Good water pressure—we’re talking about showers we can live with, and since our funky—but it has a good garden—hotel is woefully lacking in this regard, I made sure to test Smith. Check!

Workable kitchen came well-equipped; another counter is
off to the right for coffeemaker and food processor. I
can wash dishes and watch the street action.

Workable kitchen—A big check here. The classic U-shape with all the mod-cons, plentiful cupboards and tiled counter. New combo washer/dryer in the corner and its own little french door to the front balcony. Double check!!

Anyway, the important thing is that as soon as we walked in past the winding garden path, sculptures and wall mural, we knew it was right. 

Eduardo, our friendly rental agent, has been dealing the past couple of days with the money-grubbing Smith who wanted more than the original listing price (?!). There was a hairy period there while we waited through negotiations, ending with a little give and a little take. We’re still within budget of 1/4 of our monthly income for the rent plus utilities.

LESSON: We made a list of what we wanted, what our budget was, and we stuck to it. We followed the rental market for nearly a year online and developed lines of communication with several rental agents, so we knew what was available. We came to realize, however, that no deal was going down until we had our sandals on the ground.

Now, it’s off—like Don Quixote—to deal with our customs snafu, and see what lesson we can draw from that experience.

XVI. ¡Ay, Caramba!

"Hoppy", whom we hope will bring us welcome emails. I
purchased him this morning on a trip across the plaza for
coffee. I assume he was made by the woebegone fellow
I bought himfrom for 20 pesos, about $1.50.

Bugger All!

Yesterday we were on top of the world. Today, not so much.

Yesterday we saw the sweet little casa that checked every box on our wish list. It was (is?) available, and our good-humored young rental agent says he went to bat for us with the owner. Now, about 30 hours later, the owner hasn’t got back to us about our offer for a long-term rental. So, we put our backup plan into effect and we wait.

Our fallback is not so bad at all. Good location and adequate in every other way. Except, it is only available until October. We’ll take it, if we can, on a monthly basis and hope Smith—Casa Mas Deliciosa’s owner—gets back to us with his approval in good time. We got in touch with backup's rental agent and she’ll show it to us tomorrow morning.

Our backup plan. We're meeting the agent tomorrow morning, and plan to
ask for a day to commit because of the possibility of Casa Mas Deliciosa.

Figure we’re batting about .400 so far, but this is where we hit a rough patch. 

We’d been expecting word about delivery—sometime today—of those two big boxes that we had shipped from Seattle. We had arranged for them to be stored here at our hotel until we could move. While I was in the shower, the front desk got a call for me from Pay-Through-The-Nose Shipping. It was bad news.

Yessica—PTTN’s custom agent in Guadalajara—informed me, after I had scrambled still wet into some clothes, that our boxes had arrived at GDL (as I had figured out by tracking online), but that the list of contents for each box did not have the requisite US Embassy stamp of approval. Say what? Needless to say, this was the first we had heard of this how-in-hell-do-we-get-that? requirement. 

Yessica also told me what PTTN could do, which was, free of charge, return our boxes to our address—where we no longer live!—in the States. Or any other address stateside we would choose. I didn’t choose and told her she would have to keep the boxes for at least a week until I could arrange something. 

Our new Nokia cellphone, muy borato
at $450MX, about $30US.

Yessica said she would call us on Monday, which presented a problem since we don’t have a local phone that might be available then. So, we girded our loins and dropped into the Telcel (Carlos Slim’s business) office just down the block and bought a muy borato cellphone to give us a local number.

Meanwhile, I posted a query on both of the local ex-pat’s webboards (previously cited) about what to do when you're on the horns of this dilemma, and am currently getting spotty advice. Perhaps a customs broker?

In all the meantimes, we’ve rested, mediated, prayed, and affirmed our love. What more can you do?