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IT’S THE PEOPLE

If you have been following the twists and turns of our life here in Mexico, we hope you have been entertained, informed, and felt like we are doing our best to “keep in touch” with y’all.

There are some funny anecdotes of the broken, not working, unpredictable events of day to day life.  YES!  There are hassles.

For instance, we need to get our gas tank filled so we can cook and have hot water.  Simple.  Just call the place that filled the tank last month.  (remember our first days of being here?)  Thanks to Mikee’s expert organized filing system I locate the receipt.  On the back are 3 phone numbers.  The first is just for emergency leaks.  The second is only for commercial accounts.  The third number does not work.  (oh, and that’s not unusual to have to try phone numbers several times before they “magically” work)

OK -I really am not in the mood to spend an hour on this task.  So, Mikee Googled the name of the gas company and came to this page.

http://www.chapala.com/webboard/index.php?showtopic=25673

Tried the number there.  Success!  Have a conversation (completely in Spanish. pat on the back for myself) and get the guy to come.

Done

-with the calling part.  Next is the waiting part.

This is how is goes with getting gas.  You call.  They very nicely tell you they will come sometime in the morning.  You wait all day.  They show up the day after -almost at the end of the day when you have given up all hope.

Do we get angry at this?  Why?  Doesn’t change anything.  You just learn to call at least a couple days before you really need it.  Problem solved.

There are neighborhoods where the gas and water trucks deliver.  But this seems to be right in the heart of the true Mexican neighborhoods and not up here where we are.  (tell you more about that later)

There are many forums that discuss life here for people (like us) who are non-Mexican.  A common thread rings through…

It’s the people.

The people that we come in contact with each day are “just so friendly.” It’s hard to describe.   We are used to walking by people and not even saying a greeting.  But here, you always say hello to everyone you come in contact with.  And not just “hi” or a quick wave.  It’s more of a “hello, how are you?”, “fine, thank you and how are you?”, “good, thank you.  have a great day.”  It’s not even just a formality.  It’s a for real conversation.  All day long.  No wonder our spanish is doing so well; we use it constantly.


The other day I was trying to pull out of my parking spot on the super busy Carretera (main road in town) and this little VW bug was coming by all spitting and stalling (the car, not the people) and having a hard time and the car behind it had 4 young teen guys in it.  (boy am I getting old)  😉  The guy driving the second car apologized to me for not letting me out because he is pushing his friends car (the spitting and stalling VW bug) to keep it running.  He apologized for not letting me out. How cool is that?

People are so nice.  Just so nice.  They don’t keep schedules, but they are happy and pleasant and nice.

By the way, it’s never a problem to have to pull out and even cross 2 lanes of traffic.  People let you out and even check the oncoming traffic.

Someone asked me today why don’t these companies (like the gas company) just make schedules.  Hahaha!  That word doesn’t even exist here.  🙂

That got me to thinking- why are we so scheduled?  Why is life in the States so much more hectic?

Well, life there costs more money than we have.  Everyone is working so hard just to keep up.  Our days have more to do than time we have.  So there is always a shortfall of money and/or time.  Thus the need to schedule or plan every second and every dollar.

Most people here are poor but they have enough money to live on and they don’t spend more than they have.  And what they can get done in a day is what they do.

In many affluent lands (even poor US people have more than most people in the rest of the world) the priority is work work work, friends, family.  Life is controlled by someone else’s expectations.  Here people are in charge of their own life.  For better or worse.  It is what it is.

…and because of that people are very nice.  So even though there are hassles and frustrations daily, it’s the people that make this such a great place for our family to be living right now.

PS-not many pictures in this post so here is one of my “darling” children on a video skype conversation with family back in the US.

{ 5 comments… add one }
  • DAD February 16, 2011, 9:16 am

    INTERESTING !

  • nicole palanzi February 16, 2011, 1:29 pm

    I enjoyed this commentary! Very true,and try to involve someone in a convo hear i n day to day living,well doesn’t work too well.Love those beautiful kids.Love Nicole

  • Heather E February 17, 2011, 7:17 am

    Here in the states it seems the only way to have people be super nice to you when you are taking a walk or running errands is if you have an adorable dog
    melt their cold cold hearts… Sad but true. Perhaps we should all act more like dogs (except the sniffing butts part, that’s gross) 😉

  • Emily February 18, 2011, 11:14 pm

    (Heather hanging head out window while driving by with service group) “I love your doooooog.”

  • Heather E February 19, 2011, 6:50 am

    Haha- you LOVE IT!

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