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 Kristina Morgan

It still amazes me how much the people talk about why they moved to Lake Chapala. I think it’s a topic in just about every conversation I have ever had since moving to Mexico in 1993. Most of us are still thankful that we found this wonderful community and even though it is well-established it is still very open and very friendly to newcomers. Despite the simple, peaceful life we lead here at Lake Chapala with the second best climate in the world, the low cost of living and safety, I still get a lot of emails asking me about crime here from people wondering if we’re all just nuts to be living south of the border in a "dangerous place."

According to UN statistics, you're 3 times more likely to be a victim of crime in the U.S. than you are in Mexico.

Recent FBI statistics paint the picture even more clearly... The murder rate (per 100,000 people) in Baltimore is 43.3... in Washington DC it is 29.1... and in Detroit 47.3... But in Mexico, the murder rate again is just a third of that... about 13...

I just got an update from one of our Focus alumni talking about some of her experiences since moving to the Lake Chapala area. It made me reminisce about my own move six years ago and how I coped with it. It’s been a very interesting and wonderful journey.

First of all, I had never lived anywhere but Kansas City, MO…I was born there and lived there for almost 59 years. I lived in the last house I owned for 27 years. Obviously, I tend to root where I’m planted. Then I met Bill in April 2002. As our relationship progressed, one day he asked me if I wanted to move to Mexico. Dead silence for 30 seconds, as I assessed my gut feeling about this question…“Will it be okay that he is the only one you know?... “Can you learn to speak Spanish?”…“Will we be able to live on his social security?”…so many questions raced through my mind, but there were no butterflies or queasy feelings in my tummy, so I said, “Okay.” And, that was it.

 By Tere Ruiz

Very often we turn on the TV and watch the news, read the newspaper or talk to a person who brings bad news about the world or the neighborhood or the country we live in (do you happen to know somebody like that?). After listening to this news or comments about a specific situation, we start to feel fear about what we heard or were told and think of all the horrible things that might happen. Then we wait for the next newscast, or go to internet to research about it. Later we call or meet somebody and tell them what we heard and researched, and that person tells us what he or she has heard about the same topic. Suddenly we realize how worried, fearful, nervous and stressed we are feeling.

Has this ever happened to you? It is very common. Some people call this Collective Fear; everybody talks about something horrible that is happening, it is on TV, in the newspapers, on the internet, in every conversation you have, and every time you hear more and more about it, you feel even worse.