Dealing with insects in your Mexico house and garden
Expat living in Mexico: Xalapa vs. Ajijic
Reports written some years ago about Jalapa, (or Xalapa as the locals prefer to spell it) Veracruz in MexConnect caught my eye. These tout the pleasant climate, cultural attractions, the presence of un...
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Theater in the Chapala lakeside: The Naked Stage
The Naked Stage, Ajijic's biting and sexy new minimalist theatre, had another successful reading in October — Moonlight and Magnolias. For those of you who missed it, it's a satirical swipe at the ma...
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Mi Pullman: remodeling a Mexican Art Nouveau townhouse II
This is a story about my love affair with an old house in Mexico. One day I found myself standing in front of a beautiful three storey, art nouveau town house. It was shabby, obviously neglected, and unlived in, but it had certain magic about it, which captured both my imagination and my heart. I knew, in that moment and with great certainly, that one day I would buy it.
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Mi Pullman: remodeling a Mexican Art Nouveau townhouse I
This is a story about my love affair with an old house in Mexico. One day I found myself standing in front of a beautiful three storey, art nouveau town house. It was shabby, obviously neglected, and unlived in, but it had certain magic about it, which captured both my imagination and my heart. I knew, in that moment and with great certainly, that one day I would buy it.
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Tianguis: itinerant traders in a traveling Mexican market
In Talpa, we have tianguis or street markets. Every two weeks, venders come from Guadalajara with their trucks loaded with fresh vegetables and fruit, herbs, ornate plants, cell phones, hair dryers and CD players. We can buy a galvanized milk can or rubber boots to wear in the milking lot. There are clay bean pots, stone metates for grinding the spices for savory salsas and machetes to clear the path through the woods.
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On the way to Oregon: Adventurers settle on Mexico's Bay of Banderas
An adventurous English couple builds a boat, sails toward Oregon to buy horses, but settles on Mexico's Bay of Banderas in La Cruz de Huanacaxtle where they run a restaurant and promote Huichol art.
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Boomers in Paradise: Living in Puerto Vallarta
Robert Nelson's Boomers in Paradise: Living in Puerto Vallarta, profiles fourteen "baby boomers" who now reside in Puerto Vallarta, The book, though, will be of interest to any expatriate (or would-be ...
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Juanita and the president: Obama's Mexican connection
Juanita, newly arrived from Zacatecas, and who has no reason in the world to make things up, admitted to being in love with the new American President.
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Doña Chayito, Talpa's treasure
She talked about the Cristero War (1926-1929) as if it were yesterday.
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A Mexican Valentine
It's Joaquina's first day on the job as our housekeeper, and she's outraged at how much my husband Skip and I have paid a roving vendor for clean-up rags. Newcomers to our Mexican village, we hadn't kn...
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New meaning to mañana
The good government of Jocotepec, centralized at the west end of Lake Chapala in the great state of Jalisco, has given new meaning to the word "mañana."
Too early on a Monday morning in mid-Decembe...
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From conspicuous consumption to conspicuous frugality
Ever since Al Gore sounded the alarm about global warming, everyone on earth is aware that mankind (an oxymoron if ever I heard one) must preserve itself and the environment if it is to survive. We mus...
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Consumer protection in Oaxaca, Mexico: A case study
PROFECO has its limitations. However, it does provide an important and valuable alternate means of dispute resolution.
read moreAA: Alcoholic Anonymous meetings In Mexico
You'll find AA throughout Mexico, even in small towns. NA has a sizable presence in the larger towns. Alanon is almost everywhere. OA, SALA and other programs are less likely to be encountered outside major cities. AA is very visible. I have noted where there are meetings in many cases, but like here, they move or change. We urge readers to help us keep this list current.
read moreWinemaking in the Mexican sierra
When he took the first sip of his nectar, Guy thought he could hear the angels sing.
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Hot wheels
According to the international brotherhood of insurance salesmen, a car or truck is stolen every 12 minutes in Mexico. That priceless bit of information is the marketing pitch for more and better cover...
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Comparing memories - tall buildings, Janitzio and a hamburger.
I was 9 years old the first time I visited Morelia, in 1973. I was living with my family in Xicotepec, a small town in the north of the State of Puebla. We spent our summer vacation that year with my g...
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Zoning Laws And Peacocks
Question: Can you hear a peacock's screech over the roar of city buses?
Answer: Yes.
Question: What's a peacock doing in city traffic?
Answer: No zoning laws keep...
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Friends You Make On The Corner
"Ya gotta start working early," five-month old Pita would tell you if she could talk. "Take my brother, Chavita, he started working when he was only one month old." It's true. Two years ago Chavita - n...
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Roustabouts For Hire
It was like following three battleships. The shoppers rolled away like bow waves before the three
"cargadores" who churned toward them with two hundred pounds of produce on each of their hand ca...
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Gringos are changing Mexico
Southbound gringos of retirement age have the uncanny ability to immediately identify changes that should be made in Mexican lifestyle. Maybe you've heard the laundry list.
"Punctuality is in desperat...
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La Llorona: does she seek your children?
"Don't go near the water," mothers caution their children, "You might drown." Good advice, but it has another meaning in Mexico and Texas. Moms living near the Rio Grande are protecting their children ...
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Sending a Child to School in Mexico
Mexican schools will welcome you as a foreigner - to a certain extent.
Your kids have had a blast in Mexico. You have as well. They're sold, you're sold. Everyone is caught up in hyper-speed tow...
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Bugs of San Blas
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow waxed poetic about the bronze bells of San Blas without seeing or hearing them. These less eloquent westwords are about the bugs of San Blas, a very up-close and much too-per...
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