Focus on Mexico Blog

by Karen McConnaughey

I know I mention Jose, our gardener, and his wife Vicki (our housekeeper) a lot, but to me they embody everything that is good and fine and wonderful about living in the Lake Chapala area of Mexico. They take care of us…yes, because we pay them, but also because they care about us. I don’t know how the discussion started, but one time Vicki and I were having a conversation about a neighbor of theirs. Vicki talked about how this woman had no children and she was seriously ill, and that Vicki would help her out by getting groceries, cleaning her house or making her food among other things. She was relating it not because she wanted me to know how good she was, but just in a matter of fact way of that’s what neighbors do here…they take care of one another. I was a little overcome by her story and later came up and slipped $200 pesos into her apron pocket and just said, “para su vecina” (for your neighbor), and started to walk away. “Senora Karen,” Vicki said. I turned and she hugged me and said, in Spanish, that before she met us she had never known any Norte Americanos very well. She wanted me to know that she loved us and she would never leave us. She would be with us forever. Needless to say, we both had tears in our eyes at the end of that conversation.

Vicki and Jose take care of us in so many ways. They’re always afraid we’re being taken advantage of. Once we had some workmen here who Vicki thought took much too long and did not do a good job. After they left, she said that whenever we needed anything, we should ask her. If Jose couldn’t do it, they would find someone good for us to use.

So now when we need something done, we ask them and, for the most part, Jose has been able to help us. For instance, Jose painted almost the entire inside of our house, repairing walls and ceilings at the same time. In some cases, he had to chip out the cement and go down to the brick. Then he put in chicken wire to enforce the wall, re-cemented the area and repainted it. He did all of this for around $300 USD. And, honestly, we tried to pay him more, but he wouldn’t hear of it.

 by Karen McConnaughey

I do a lot of reading on the ‘net and ran into an article recently about retiring. The article opened by saying, “If уου′re a Boomer or fast approaching retirement age but уου′re far behind in retirement savings, don’t give up. You саח still pull together a retirement that уου саn enjoy. With perseverance, planning, and sacrifice, уου сan retire in relative comfort even with a late start.”

Oh Lordy…okay, so what if I don’t want to do any of that? So what if I want to retire now and enjoy my relative youth before I drop dead at my desk? How can I do that?

I know…I know…you’re the ant and I’m the grasshopper. It’s true. And, if you’re not familiar with that one…it’s the fable about a grasshopper who has spent the warm months singing away while the ant has worked hard to store up food for winter. And even though I knew the moral of the story was that we should be like the ants, industrious, conscientious, and hard-working, ready for winter and any other hardships that may come, my sympathies were always entirely with the grasshopper. So…yes…you’re back there slaving away, while I’m retired and enjoying the sunshine in Lake Chapala, Mexico. You’re working to get your retirement income up to what exactly? How much do you think it will take for you to be truly happy? Bill and I retired on his social security pension alone of $1500. Remember, money doesn’t buy happiness. Yes it takes some to get bу, but not as much as уου might have thought. Believe me, $1500 and a house in Mexico spelled HAPPINESS for the both of us…in capital letters!

by Karen McConnaughey 

One thing you’ll find out when you move to Mexico is that when you fix, repair or change ‘something,’ it will generally impact something else you might not have even thought about. We learned that when we got a pressurized water system for our house. I was tired of my little dribbling sink water and it seemed to take forever to do one load of laundry. Did I tell you we lived in a small Mexican village? So we decided to install a pressurized system. Great, right? Life will be perfect.

Our first adventure with the new system was taking a shower using our 20-liter hot water heater.  A shower…hot water, then immediately cold water. Oh yeah…pressurized system, water gone quickly! Off to the ferreria (hardware store) to get a new hot water heater…a really big hot water heater…72 liters. Sometimes Bill and I are such hayseeds…the minute it was installed, we waited an appropriate amount of time, and I got my request in first, “I’m going to take a shower!” Bill was surprised…As the man, I think he expected to be first. Not being the first can be upsetting to a man’s psyche. At that moment I didn’t care…I went first! It was such a lovely, wonderful, pressurized, long, hot shower that I really tried to stay in there to see how long it would be until the water ran cold. It never happened. Bliss. When I went into the living room, Bill immediately jumped up and said, “How was it?” I just smiled and said, “I never ran out of hot water.” He immediately had to try it and came out long afterward with the same silly smile on his face. Life was really perfect now!

by Karen McConnaughey

I heard from my friend Kitt Vincent again. You might remember her from a previous blog, Journaling from Lake Chapala Mexico. She is involved in so many things that I’m just amazed by the vitality of both her and her husband Bill. Again, her journal was full of all the wonderful and interesting things they have been doing, but at the end, she takes time out to talk about the serenity of our wonderful area. I enjoyed it so much I wanted to share it with you.

“Now in the middle of all of this busy-ness, there is still time to sit quietly in an open air restaurant, listening to latin jazz, eating good food with a gentle breeze and a setting sun. People have corn growing in their yards and mangos are ripening on the trees. People use a long pole with a net on the end to pick avocados, mangos and other fruit off of the trees that line the streets. Our neighbors have some new baby chicks and the other day Bill had to turn up the TV because the roosters were too loud. I love this place! The donkey still cries at night to be with her mate in the next house. The dogs know we belong here so they only bark when there are new people walking on our street. I love driving through the small villages on our way home and seeing families sitting out in front of their houses having a meal with grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins; you know…just everybody. And I love seeing the young people standing in the shadows of the doorways sneaking a kiss.”

 

By Karen McConnaughey

Not everybody loves peace and quiet all the time. Many of us need social stimulation. Culture. Shopping. Restaurants. Companionship. A life of excitement, friends, fun -- even luxury. And the leisure to enjoy it all. Can anyone say…Ajijic, Jalisco, Mexico?

We have so much to do here that you might need to keep a social calendar, and also develop the talent to say, ‘no.’

First of all, Lake Chapala is 45 minutes from the central hub of Guadalajara where you will find not only whatever food you want, but all the cultural events you could hope for. This past year we even had nine live feeds of the New York Metropolitan Opera – transmitted by high definition video – on the big screen in Guadalajara’s Teatro Diana. Those present at the first presentation gave “Tosca” a big thumbs up. “I loved it!” said Chapala area resident Marian Wellman, as she stood in line with friends afterwards to buy tickets for upcoming broadcast operas. “It’s the Met! But you can afford it!” Paying only 80 pesos for a presentation that a New Yorker would have to pay a minimum of $20 USD for.