In Talpa de Allende, there is a neighborhood girl who calls me her quasi-godmother. We have studied English together for the past few summers, but I find her attention span jumping about like a monkey. We decided we would study “Cooking in the Gringa Kitchen” this summer. I am not Karen Hursh Graber or Diana […]
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Almost every community of any consequence in Mexico has an annual day or week set aside when a saint or revered person is honored with some type of celebration. If, for example, a town’s name honors San Patricio or San José or San Francisco, then on those Saint’s Days there will usually be fireworks, parades, […]
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It all began with a casual comment by my friend Rodrigo Orozco — also known as Tarantula Man, thanks to the anti-poaching project he leads in western Mexico — when I told him about a hike I was organizing for the following Saturday. “Sorry, John,” replied Orozco, “I’m going to be tied up for the next 44 […]
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From Cholula we are in the city of Puebla in a matter of minutes. Though Puebla is a city of maybe 1.5 million people, it is not a city of tall buildings of steel and glass. The old part of town surrounds the main plaza or ‘zocalo’. The plaza is dominated by a magnificent Cathedral and buildings […]
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When we return to Canada in the spring, we are cheerful, rested and tanned. We tell our friends that, yes, we had another glorious extended vacation in Mexico. After the exchange of a few pleasantries, some people are likely to blurt out: “Six months in Mexico! Whatever do you do every day? What do you […]
Continue ReadingI 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-confidence, fluency in Spanish, and the love of her life. Carlos, a young Mexican man studying law in Spain, was […]
Continue ReadingWho 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 property here, but I think I still had faith in the goodness of people and the future of Mexico at […]
Continue ReadingI’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-figure salary (too bad). But it’s certainly life-changing, and I feel a bit like a traitor…. It […]
Continue ReadingI’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 I will!), but for the moment, I need this month’s space to share some of the feelings that have resulted from […]
Continue ReadingThere´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 the side. He is standing on the side of the street, hidden except for his pot-bellied “panza” that […]
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