Focus on Mexico Blog

Love Living in Lake Chapala Mexico

(Karen McConnaughey, Retiring in Mexico) Permanent link
By Karen McConnaughey 

Bill and Karen laugh a lotSome of you probably read our blogs and newsletters and think that things couldn’t really be as good as we say it is living in Lake Chapala, especially with the media continuing to hit you over the head with how dangerous Mexico can be.  

 I wanted to share a couple of letters that appeared last month in the Guadalajara Reporter. These made my heart sing because I feel both truly represented why we love it here and how welcome we feel in our adopted country. And, the kindness we feel here is international. The expatriates living here come from somewhere else, and we’ve all left family and long-time friends behind. This is such a close-knit community that it doesn’t really occur to us NOT to help someone in need, no matter what nationality, religion, race…we’re all just members of the same community. Wouldn’t it be nice if the rest of the world felt the same way!

 

Thank You

Friday, November 04 2011

Dear Sir,
I want to say a huge thank you to the wonderful Mexican people who came to my rescue this week.

On Thursday morning I tripped and fell on a cobbled street in Ajijic and suffered a few bruises and cuts, one of which bled quite a lot.  Within seconds after I fell there were at least three young men there to help me. They found some towels to apply pressure and made sure nothing was broken before they would allow me to move.  Once the bleeding was under control they flagged down a passing family who drove me to the Ajijic Clinic. When I stepped out of their pickup with blood on my face and hands, a woman outside the clinic ran inside to tell them I was coming in and needed help.

Loving Lake Chapala Mexico

 

Retired Expats in Lake Chapala

(Karen McConnaughey, Living in Mexico, Retiring in Mexico) Permanent link

Bill and Karen McConnaugheyAs Bill and I look back over our more than seven years of living in the Lake Chapala area, we know one thing without a doubt…moving here was one of the best decisions we have ever made.

We made the decision based on the reason many of you do: We were tired of working, and wanted to enjoy whatever years were available to us. Bill was 62 when we retired to Lake Chapala, and I was almost 58. We didn’t know what to expect…neither of us had ever been to Mexico on a trip, let alone lived here! During our research we found that Lake Chapala had the best weather and the cost of living was way below what we were used to in the United States. We were both so tired of snow in the winter and hot and humid days in the summer that we knew we needed something different, weather-wise. As for a lower cost of living, we were able to retire on Bill’s social security alone. Of course, we had bought a house in Mexico, so we were not paying rent.

The one thing we didn’t anticipate, but experience every single day of our lives is the warmth, kindness and generosity of the Mexican people. I’m sure you all realize you can have perfect weather and reasonable expenses and still be miserable because you’re not enjoying life. Don’t you usually find that’s because of the people who surround you? We find that too! I would like to share some of our experiences with the Mexican people we call our friends.

When we moved into our Mexican village…and don’t be confused, thinking I’m being cute and quaint; it IS truly a Mexican village with only about 25 gringos living in a community of about 25,000…I knew only the basic Spanish that everyone picks up, Gracias, Buenos Dias, De nada, and so on. Very, very basic. Bill was fluent in three languages, none of which was Spanish! Our neighbors were wonderful. Once they knew I was trying to learn Spanish, they spoke to me in one-syllable words. For instance, if the electricity went out, and I wasn’t sure whether it was just us, our barrio (neighborhood) or the village, I would usually walk up to the front gate to see if someone knew. Fernando (or one of his multi-generational family living in the house across the street) usually was sitting on the stoop. I would ask, “Luz?” (Lights?), and they would wave their hands back and forth in the universal sign of an X, and say, “No, no luz!” We got along just fine.

Read more about retiring in Mexico

Help Lake Chapala Villages Improve Living Standards

(Marie Dwyer-Bullock, Charities) Permanent link

Help Needed in Lake Chapala Villages to Improve Living Standards

 

Recently, I received an email from Dr Todd as follows:

  •  "Marie, many thanks for your long time support of the kind of projects we try to work with the people. What needs to you personally see in a village or in villages in general about the lake (Chapala)? 

Charities in the Lake Chapala and Ajijic Mexico AreaI wanted to share my response to him, and have posted the rest of Todd's email to me highlighting what he is currently working on (click the "Learn More" Button). He is an amazing man, so full of knowledge and expertise, that he willingly shares for free for the benefit of all in the Lake Chapala area.Todd also works with the officials of the local villages of Ajijic, Chapala, San Juan Cosala, San Antonio, Jocotopec and many many more to help with their water treatment plants, testing for pollution and toxity in Lake Chapala and tirelessly works on a myriad of other projects, many to help women and children. 

 

We have an amazing collection of fantastic people living in Lake Chapala and Dr. Todd Stong is high on the list.

Learn More

Spoiling the Help in Lake Chapala

(Karen McConnaughey, Living in Mexico) Permanent link

Do not spoil the help by Karen McConnaughey

One of the first things Bill and I heard when we moved to Mexico in 2004 wasn’t ‘don’t drink the water,” it was "don't spoil the help." This was from someone who had lived here 40 years! When we asked what this meant, we only got knowing looks and nodding heads from everyone. We’d never really had a permanent maid or gardener before, and apparently no one wanted to say out loud what they really meant. So we just dove into it the best we could. And, since neither one of us liked housework, we thought this was going to be a great system.

Our first maid just showed up at our door one day. We thought, “why not?” She lived in Ixtlahuacan and since we knew no one in our village and the only people we knew in Ajijic were our real estate agents, we thought luck was smiling on us again, since “God takes care of idiots!” She didn’t last very long…she just disappeared one day. We saw her once in the plaza, but she ducked and went the other way. We still don’t know what we did wrong, but we were going to try to be wiser the next time and make sure we didn’t spoil the help! Of course, for awhile, we thought ‘we’re adults; we can clean our own house.” Didn’t work out. We had to fire ourselves and look for someone more responsible.

We found Vicki working for a friend in our village. She worked for Adele three days a week, and was looking for more so we had her come by the house just to look it over…we thought. She walked in, picked up a broom and started cleaning. We weren’t too good at Spanish at the time, so we had to call Adele for advice when she started asking us questions. Unfortunately, I knew the word ‘sucio’ (dirty), and when Vicki was on the phone with Adele, I heard the unfortunate sentence, “Si, la casa es muy sucio!” I should have been embarrassed, but I just laughed, because she was right.

Learn how not to spoil the help

Perfect Climate in Lake Chapala Mexico

(Karen McConnaughey) Permanent link

Beautiful Lake Chapala during rainy season Bill and I had three main reasons for picking the Lake Chapala area as our retirement destination of choice. We wanted…  

  1. A temperate climate
  2. A lower cost of living
  3. To leave the rat race 

We had both worked since we were 16, and we were just tired of it. I thought Bill would want to retire to Florida (where he lived previously) or Phoenix (where his daughter lived). We were both tired of Kansas City winters and never wanted to shovel snow again. I knew if he chose either of those places, he would be saying ‘bye’ to me in his rear-view mirror. I just couldn’t take the heat or the humidity. And, I didn’t want to have to live the rest of my life inside in air conditioning. I could do that in Kansas City.

When he brought up the idea of Lake Chapala, I seized upon it and started doing extensive research. Anyone who has read any of my blogs or articles knows I’m an information junkie, and I love the Internet, so it was a no-brainer for me to look at what I was getting myself into!

So many web sites, so much time: First I read, “Lake Chapala is Rated by National Geographic as the 2nd Best Climate in the World ... The semi-tropical climate in Lake Chapala, Mexico is probably the first major attraction to the area. This pre-colonial village in Western Mexico's Sierra Madre mountains makes for unparalleled living in a quaint Mexican village with all the services and amenities of lovely Guadalajara, Mexico's second-largest city, only about 30 minutes away.”

So far, so good!

I found out that being nestled in the Sierra Madre mountains was a huge factor in the temperate weather. Lake Chapala is surrounded by protective mountains and the effect of the lake water moderates the temperature. The mountains are also the reason we have no fierce weather such as tornadoes, violent winds, ice storms, and definitely no snow! I had always said my whole life that I did not want to live any further north than Kansas City, Missouri. I had no idea what I was putting out to the universe! Thank you! Especially with the wild weather Kansas City has had the last two winters with two years in a row of at least 35 inches of snow.


Loving the climate in Lake Chapala