Focus on Mexico Blog

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...

 By Tere Ruiz

All the people who live in Lake Chapala have different kinds of beliefs, ages, culture and background. This is such a cosmopolitan place to live in. In Lake Chapala you may have friends of all ages, either locals or foreigners, who come from big cities or small villages, who’ve had education to the highest levels or who haven’t, and everyone comes from different countries. All of these people had experiences unique to just them. Some experienced war; others the birth of modern technology. Most let their experiences shape them; a few may have missed the entire flavor of an experience.

All the people here are very different and yet the same in their attitude of caring and sharing.

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.

Mexicans have a deeply rooted love and affection for their family. Considering I have no Mexican roots or ancestry, I am the first to admit how lucky I am to have all of my family here at Lake Chapala with me. They moved from Texas, California and Colorado to be here. Many of you know I have my husband and three children here….but did you know that my parents, brothers, my aunt and uncle and two cousins have also migrated south and all of them live within 15 minutes of me? This Thanksgiving one of the things I will be most thankful for is having my family and almost all of my extended family here at Lake Chapala. It is truly amazing to me that such different personalities from such different places have all converged in the most beautiful, simple and charming place I have ever been—and we all love it.

After settling in, I realized that despite the fact that I have almost all of my family here and being immersed in a completely family oriented culture in Mexico, we were all busy with our day to day lives and not spending enough time together. Weeks would go by and none of us had even talked! We were an American cliché living in Mexico. So we got together and decided to spend time together as a family, every Thursday night, come rain or shine. 

by Kristina Morgan

Unless you’re completely out of touch and don’t watch the news or read tabloids you’ve heard of 2012. There’s even an action-packed movie by Mel Gibson that promises to scare the heck out of you if most websites about 2012 haven’t already. So is 2012 the end of the world? The beginning of a shift in spiritual consciousness that heralds the Golden Age of humanity?  Or just a bunch of conspiracy-theorist hype?

A History Channel program titled "Decoding the Past: Doomsday 2012: End of Days" says a galactic alignment or magnetic disturbances could somehow trigger a "pole shift."

"The entire mantle of the earth would shift in a matter of days, perhaps hours, changing the position of the north and south poles, causing worldwide disaster," a narrator proclaims. "Earthquakes would rock every continent; massive tsunamis would inundate coastal cities. It would be the ultimate planetary catastrophe."

Living in Chapala, Jalisco, Mexico makes the Mayan prophecies that originated here particularly fascinating to me but I wondered what the Maya really think of their prophetic date and about being at the source of all this hoopla, especially where it concerns a prophecy that may be ladled out in heaping mugs of fact-distortion and fear—or mean the end of the world. So what do the Maya have to say about these interpretations of their calendar?