Watching Pablo sleep
Part 1.
It's midmorning in Sta. Lucia and Claire lies on Pablo's right side watching him sleep. He can't go to sleep unless she watches. This is his belief, and his beliefs infect her, fester like spl...
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Coyote's laughter
On a starry June night in San Martin Obispo, the myriad odors of the countryside float on the air. Slightly menacing is the smell of the fire on the rocky hillside above my house, where slash and burn ...
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Michoacán's rural education
Michoacán Index
Gracias y Credits
The State:
State Map
Introduction to Michoacán
The Meseta Purepecha - Exploring Michoacán
Alternative Tourism in Michoac...
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Tarzana, my Mexican parakeet
Excerpt from a work in progress "Have Pets, Will Travel"
Curiosity can kill a cat, but in my case, it got me a parakeet.
When I first arrived in Mexico, everything fascinated me. In this particular c...
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A Christmas tree in Mexico
Finding just the right tree for Christmas in Mexico was a challenge from the start. My Austrian husband had grown up with a father who worked on decorations for their tree for weeks in advance of He...
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Learning to shop in the village
John's point wasn't, I sensed, simply a lesson in village economics.
When we moved to Mexico in 1976, I didn't regret leaving behind the Alpha Beta Supermarket, the 7-11 quick-stop, or Newport Mall. I...
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Calle Rico
The street is Calle Rico, as far as I knew, the only one with this unfortunate name in the entire nation.
read moreContentment: My life in Puerto Vallarta
From Letters To My Granddaughters
The author shares a typical day from her life in Puerto Vallarta and her techniques to reach contentment anywhere. Directed to her grandaughter...
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Where's everybody?
It was just about five years ago that my friends started to disappear from the streets of the little Mexican villages on the shores of Lake Chapala where I had retired some three years earlier. At firs...
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Patrick Dennis, art lover
Patrick Dennis found me in Sullivan Park, just behind El Monumento de la Madre in Mexico City, one fine Sunday, and changed my life.
His buddy, Nina Olds, Gore Vidal's mother, and my mother's buddy an...
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Limon, papaya y sabila
Copyright © 2000 by Maria Elena. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.
There are three plants that are an essential part of the Mexican household, limon [lime, not lemon], papaya, and the trus...
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Work permits for Mexico: advice from an old hat
Work Permits: Advice from an old hat
By Julie Black © 1999 All Rights Reserved.
Ask no more. Yes, foreigners can legally work in Mexico, for any length of time, provided they obtain the required...
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Cohetes, a Mexican tradition
Early one morning in late July, after being awakened by the infernal POP POP POP of today’s Mexican alarm clock, I arose reluctantly from the warmth of my bed, determined to find the true story of ...
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Buying a home in Mexico
Who would have thought that buying a house in Mexico would be such a scandal? Maybe it should have occurred to me beforehand that I would encounter some very unusual problems while trying to acquire pr...
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Mexican driver's ed, a Monterrey perspective
I can think of nothing more torturous than driving in Mexico. A free for all with life-threatening vehicles is not my idea of fun or adventure, but Mexicans seem to love it. When I first started drivin...
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Who would have thought?
I've been very quiet for the past few months; I apologize for the silence. I'm finally back, and I have BIIIIIIIIG news. No, it's not a divorce, or a birth, or a career change that brought me a six-fig...
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An unexpected visit
It was 12:30 in the morning. All of a sudden I woke with a start. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. What was that? I usually wake up at the slightest noise. There was a lot of noise outside the bedroom door. ...
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A bonding of families and countries
I can't say I was thrilled with the idea at first, but I was never against it either. My daughter spent her junior year at Harvard studying in Spain. She came home with new-found worldliness, self-conf...
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Who am I, and how did I end up in Mexico?
I remember my introduction to the theory of Chaos in the movie Jurassic Park. Mathematician Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) takes the top of Dr. Sattler's hand (Laura Dern) and drops a tiny drop of water o...
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By the way ...
I've been living and working in Mexico for almost two years, and lately, I've been reflecting a great deal about my experiences-and my articles. I was going to write about Mexican family economics (and...
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5.5 dimensions of cross-cultural love part 2
Last month I compared the phases of cross-cultural love to being inside the head of John Malkovich. This month, only 50 days away from my wedding, my perspective has changed; I don´t think being John ...
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"Mamítis" in Mexico
HEALTH ADVISORY: Beware of the Mexican affliction widely known as "Mamítis". Mamítis rears its ugly head in just about every Mexican family. It is insidious and slow to sho...
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To bribe or not to bribe?
There´s no denying it - Mexico is a beautiful land. But there is no uglier sight in this world than what I am about to describe. Imagine a portly man dressed in black pants with a yellow stripe down t...
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Latin lovers or macho men?
Mexican men, like the rest of the world, get their ideas about American women from watching talk shows, soap operas, and movies. Therefore, they think we are terribly easy, unfaithful, and willing to h...
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Crossing over: embracing my Mexican life
I should have known from the start that the wedding would be a success. I was too quick to doubt the power of such an event to unite people across physical, social, cultural, and linguistic barriers. A...
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