Today I’m sending up rockets ( cohetes). It’s a day worth celebrating. If you have lived for any time in Mexico in a small town you know what I mean. That first rocket exploding at 5:30 in the still pre-dawn of a quiet winter night before the donkeys start braying and the roosters start crowing says […]
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Travel articles always emphasize the good and minimize the bad. After reading so much about so many different paradises all over the world, one begins to wonder where the authors find all those wonderful words to describe the mundane and tarnished glories of all those Gardens of Eden. So it was, and has been for […]
Continue ReadingThe construction of the new road was headed by an engineer named Manuel Gamboa. A faithful devotee of the Santo Niño de Atocha, he placed an image of the Santo Niño in a small cave alongside the road and prayed both for protection against accidents and for a successful conclusion of the project. Then the […]
Continue ReadingAll foreigners to Mexico who apply for and receive an FM3 permanent residence document are carefully instructed by the Mexican officials that the newly documented resident has the one-time right to import his used household furnishings to Mexico without the necessity of paying import duties. This is the story of one such resident who decided […]
Continue ReadingIt 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 first I thought they were sick or had moved back to the “old country” but then I met a […]
Continue ReadingIn the wake of the tragedy of 11 September, 2001, I was reading as much news as I could get my hands on. I was shocked to read one article that talked about a scam that briefly made the rounds in the US, where the promoters were asking for donations for the victims of New […]
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The people waiting at the Civic Center either went to get someone out of jail or take the train to the US-Mexico border. That was life, dia y noche in San Diego and the most charming way to enter Mexico, via Tijuana. Immediately after 2nd Ave. the Blue Line: San Ysidro-Tijuana, ran in both directions. That was […]
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Considering we were relative newcomers, it was a surprise and an honor in 1979 when we were asked to join the planning committee for the 450th anniversary of the founding of our village of Jocotepec. I couldn’t resist saying to my husband, Georg, “I presume 450 years ago is when the Spaniards found it. The […]
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Now that Jocotepec’s major annual festival, The Lord of the Mountain, is history once again, my thoughts turn to the next important holiday, Valentine’s Day, when we celebrate sweethearts and lovers. Here in Mexico February 14th is also known as Dia de la Amistad (Day of Friendship). What a typically warm and Latin addition to the […]
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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 had no qualms at saying good-by to the traffic on the South Coast highway, or the swiftly disappearing charms of Laguna […]
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