Barb's 3 month review

After 3 whole months in Mexico, I thought it would be good to have a look at how we have adjusted to this new life. Wally and I are still very pleased to be here. It was great to see the boys and their families but it made me very sad to have them leave. But we have only 4 months and Wally and I will be back at White Point Beach. And then we will be back in July again for a visit. Matthew and Angela will be back in February and at first Jeffrey and Tarra were talking about coming back for a month next year but Aiden was so unhappy (he screamed most of the flight back). I think they are reconsidering coming down next year with 2 children!

When we first moved here we were lucky to have our real estate agent suggest we hire a property manager to assist us with the setting up of our utilities and hiring the maid and gardener. He really was there to translate for us. It would have been much more difficult if not impossible without him. This was our first indication of how much our lack of knowledge with Spanish was about to affect us.

We are very pleased with the house. At first I thought that we would be replacing all the furnishings, but for financial reasons that was not going to happen in a hurry. And now that we have lived here a while, I have decided not to replace as much as I thought. We lived for 2 months without a barbeque which was hard, but once we bought a wonderful barbeque for me and then a microwave for Wally, we were much happier cooking. We have had no TV which we both thought we would miss but do not! We read and/or 'work' on our computers. We had put all our CD's on the iPod as we were only allowed to bring a few CD's with us. This meant we had all our music on the iPod but only ear phones to listen with. This was less than satisfactory. There was one music station on the radio here that played classical music, but we still missed our music. So yesterday we made a trip to Costco and bought a speaker system for the iPod. Even the maid, who was here today, did not get to play her Mexican music on her transistor radio! Also, I finally found someone who sells compost bins in Guadalajara and we picked up one yesterday as well. How to make Barbara very happy!

The weather is as wonderful as was predicted. We arrived in May which is the hottest and driest month of the year and then we have experienced the wettest part of the rainy season; neither the hottest or wettest weather has deterred us in the least. We have had some considerable downpours with definite leaks appearing in our wonderful house, but none of the leaks were over furniture and the floors are all ceramic tile, so no great damage. The rain can happen during the day, but 95% of the time it rains at night and we have sun during the day. Who could ask for more? The mountains have all changed from brown to wonderful shades of green and all the gardens are in bloom. We do have the interesting experience of having rivers flowing down our streets after a heavy downpour, but the water is warm and usually passable.

The social life is progressing nicely. There are infinite opportunities for involvement in a great many areas. Every Sunday, we have been going to the Open Circle which is held outside in the Lake Chapala Society (LCS) gardens and then we go out for lunch. If the speakers are not that interesting, you can just relax and look at the gardens and listen to the birds. Mom would have loved it! On Tuesdays the organic farm group give a talk on gardening, cooking, Mexican folklore, local history etc. I always go to those and Wally joins me sometimes. Every month there is a classical music group who present Mexican musicians from all over the country who preform in a local church which is open to the garden; again you can see the gardens and hear the birds singing. Next Wednesday I will be going to my first Gardening Club garden tour and then to a meeting at the Nuevo Passada hotel for a gardening talk about roses and lunch in their garden. Almost all of the restaurants have gardens as part of their dining area. One of our particular favourites even has a peacock who seems to be on constant display for the peahens. Jeffrey and Tarra bought us a book on hiking in the Ajijic area, so Wally and I would also like to follow their example and start hiking.

My gardening has given me much pleasure as I learn about new plants and how to treat the familiar plants from home to this Mexican climate. I have found a great large garden centre which has an English-speaking staff member who is very helpful. The plants are incredibly inexpensive and very healthy. I am happy that my yard is pretty bare except for the bougainvillea vines and virginia creeper. I have tried to focus on the courtyard as it is very bare and the courtyard off the guest room. However, my poor gardener and I are having a couple of problems because of the language barrier and my reluctance to let him do most anything. He is here three days a week for 2 hours each day and he is used to doing everything and of course so am I! I have been successful in having him leave the grass on the lawn when he mows, but he still wants to plant the bushes after I allow him to dig the hole. I guess we will somehow work this out. Wally is adamant that he needs the work so we must keep him all three days. He is a very pleasant fellow but I just don't want him out in the garden doing the things that I want to do. On the other hand, although I think having the maid 2 days a week for 5 hours is way more than needed, I can appreciate that I have never had so clean a house!

The food is another interesting experience here in Mexico. First of all we love the spicy food! We have it whenever we eat out. At home it is more like we ate back home. I still really like to cook so we don't eat out very much except when we have company and then we love trying new foods and new restaurants. Matthew, who is a great cook and loves Mexican food, stocked my cupboard with all the spices and accoutrements I need to cook Mexican food. As well he gave me some cooking instructions to get me started. However, the only things I have attempted are guacamole which I can make quite quiet or very spicy, salsa which can have a lot or little amount of cilantro ( I like a lot) and margaritas which until Tarra made a batch with strawberries and crushed ice, I have been completely unsuccessful with.

The grocery shopping is again a novel experience. Firstly, as strange as it may seem, everything is labeled in Spanish! Wally and I did not have time to learn it before we came. So our initial foray in to grocery shopping took us a long long time! We are better now, but have not really been successful with reading the ingredient lists. But it will come. The experience at the weekly market is better in that you can point to what you want without knowing the appropriate name but... then they tell you the price! No comprendo! Wally is getting much better at this as I always let him pay! The local produce is fantastic, fresh and inexpensive; however our reliance on our familiar food from home is not conducive to inexpensive food costs. Once we got over the initial excitement of finding a familiar cereal or cracker and positively snatching it off the shelf, we started to notice the COST! Kate and Jack became very good at shopping at the small local stores instead of the two gringo supermarkets that we use. Another new skill for us to learn.

Our health has definitely improved a lot, especially mine! Wally is feeling great and is very pleased with his care from our new doctor. He is taking fewer medications since we moved here. I have come off all my asthma medications and have come off or reduced some of my lupus medications. My specialist in Halifax has sent a referral to a specialist in Guadalajara; I will be pleased to go see him soon as he will check my blood work and then hopefully further reduce my medications. My fatigue has almost disappeared. I am down to one lupus day a week, which means the other 6 days I am raring to go! Well I guess I am still 61 years old which is slightly limiting.

I have left the most trying part of our life in Mexico to the end, learning Spanish! Wally has been much more attentive to learning the language. I have been much more attentive to the house and garden! We have a 'learn Spanish' course on our computers and I have finished the first Cd and started the second of 8 Cds, while Wally is on CD #7! We both started beginners Spanish at the LCS for 1 month. I did one class and Wally did 3 classes. So I am relying on Wally not only for driving me around but also to communicate for me! Speaking of driving me around, I will be very pleased when we get back to Halifax and change the ownership of the car into both of our names so I can drive again. I do walk a lot and enjoy it, but man will it be good to drive again!

So I guess to summarize our limited experience in Mexico we would say 95% is wonderful and 5% is frustrating. So I hope you all will be able to come down and see what life is like in Ajijic, Mexico with Wally and I, as I think we will be here a long time.