REMEMBER THE GOAL

 THE GOAL DONNA- REMEMBER THE GOAL.

The goal was to live on 2,000.00 USD a month - less if possible.  However that did not include the cost of pain pills.  OH my goodness, washed cement walls that were 12 feet high, used a machete to cut grass and started unpacking.  Hay, I am just a little old surfer that should be laying in the sand on some island with good waves.  What the heck am I doing? 

Now, here is the weird part of all of this -  With the mountain steep road, a drive-way that will rip out the bottom of your car, windows that are crooked and the wood around the glass is rotting, and the putty between the glass and the rotten wood has long ago left this site, the cracked tile in the kitchen, not one single cupboard to put silverware or dishes in, guess what?  I like it.  Yap as nutty as it sounds - I like it.  Maybe my kids are right - I may need professional help.   

Ken is happy here.  Real happy here.  He loves the plaza and it is within walking distance.  For that matter, everything is within walking distance.  There is this beautiful kitchen in the upstairs unit of this place, but I like my funky kitchen.  Did I miss the 1960's and the "peace not war" days?  No I was there and was somewhat involved.  But that is not what this is all about.  This is about Ken.  Teaching him to live with-in his financial level - this is about living like Ken will have to live and you know it is not half bad.

Grant you there is still custom made furniture in the living room here.  However it is made out of twigs and stretched cow skin.  Whole living room set for 600.00 USD .  Plates to eat off of for 1.50 each.  They are not my special order design from Lenox - those are long gone, but these are not bad.  Ken can wash these and not brake them and feel bad about it.  I do not have hand crafted dolphins out of marble on my table - I have Aztec figure that can brake and be replaced by the hundreds.

All my life I worked hard to obtain things.  I now wonder why.  Oh I still acquire "things", but it is not anywhere like what it was or why I acquire things.  As an example I purchased a very expensive bed here in Mexico.  The Mexican beds are made out of cement with foam around them.  Just kidding, but they are really hard.  Then to make the bed even less comfortable, they have wood platforms under the mattress and there is not a box spring under the mattress.  Might as well lay on the ground outside, it would be softer.   The dirt is softer than a Mexican bed.

Well the owner got a gardener to do the yard.  God bless him.  The grass is at least 2 feet high.  There are three levels to the yard with steps leading down to the next level.  I found out that this was once part of a very large hacienda and was sectioned off into different properties.  This is the back of the main house.  The living room has no windows.  They put these doors in that who knows where they got them from.  Ken's bedroom door leads out to the outside as does mine but has a gap in the bottom of the door that a small cat could wonder in.  (well it is not really that big of a gap but it is about 3 inches at one point).  The door to my bedroom is off the living room and it has two middle sections in each door that opens up to see who is on the other side.  They must have been doors that were at an entrance to some section of the old place.   With the old  hacienda the sleeping rooms all had their own doors going outside to a open walk way that is around a interior court yard.  Because the house was divided and sectioned up the court yard is sort of gone and it is really nutty looking but I can fix that somewhat.   There are windows in both bedrooms but they open in and there is no screens on them so I will build a frame and put screens on them so that we have some ventilation into the house.  There are no other windows that open in this house.

 

My friends and family would think me nuts for having left the Chapala area for this.  We are for sure in living in Mexico and we are living in conditions that a Mexican (middle class kind of) would be living in.  I am scolded daily for not knowing Spanish by the people who live around me.  In the stores I am scolded - in the market I am scolded.  If you live in Mexico you speak their language. 

Now isn't it odd that when the Mexicans come to the states - they get everything written in Spanish for them and the Americans are to be tolerant to the language differences. The states have classes in Spanish for the Spanish children.  Here in Mexico - tough cookies - you speak our language or we are mad at you for not understanding.  We do not care about you not understanding what we say - we will speak Spanish and that is that. We will tell you off in Spanish for being so stupid.  Now at the same time that I say this there are many Mexicans that will try to help you with your Spanish or to communicate with you.  But if you live this deep into Mexico you had better learn the language.

I went down to this area near the plaza that is like their open market.  I doubled parked in the street like everyone else and left Ken in the car.  I just wanted to look and see what there was.  It looked to be about one block long.  I have no idea how many blocks or streets long it was but I got into this maze and I did not know if I would find Ken again or not.  When I came out of this place - I was in a different part of town and I had to go back into this place and try to figure out where I came in at.  I did reach Ken and I told him I would never enter that place again without him.

Talking about getting lost. 

We dropped off the laundry at this place for them to do it yesterday.  I thought I knew where it was.  Yap you guessed it - could not find that place again.   We lost our cloths - we drove and drove and drove up and down and over and over all the streets looking for this laundry place.  After hours we did find the place.  YA...

In this part of Mexico there may be traffic laws.   It seems to me that where ever you wish to go you just aim the car and go.  One way street - no problem. There is actually this place called seven corners.  Sure enough there are seven streets coming into one mass intersection of cars.  There two signal lights where you have to get into the right hand lane - the one nearest the curb (if there is a curb) to turn LEFT from.  You turn left in front of two lanes right to your left side.  Then if you wish to turn left going the other direction, you get into the left turn lane - nearest the center of the road.  Most streets have parking on one side so you park on the parking side heading whatever direction you want.  Oh and there is double parking all over town.

Public transportation is great here.  They have these min-vans that have signs on the window telling you where they are headed to.  They drive like bats out of a dark cave.  Then there is the taxi caps - 25 pesos anywhere in town. 

 One of the things that I find very interesting is the wells.  Every so often on corners of streets are these wells that the community uses.  They are quite interesting looking.  The wells are very deep and the town people still drink from them.  They also wash cars from them and anything else.  This is an old old very Mexican town.