As the year draws to a close, I thought I’d take a moment to pay tribute to a few old friends — a handful of books that have cheered me through my least favorite month of the year three years running now, as most of my decimated book collection lies buried somewhere in boxes.
A Year in Provence
Winter in Majorca
Maggie Darling
What kind of refrigerator will we need in Mexico?
This varies depending on where you’ll be living. In most parts of Mexico, it is not only possible, but one of the pleasures of living here, to shop for fresh food on a daily basis either in the local mercado or in handy tienditas. So a big honking refrigerator is not the necessity it is in the states where you have to get it over with once a week what with all the other demands of job, commuting, etc. This is good news, because electricity is very expensive in Mexico and the less your refrigerator needs, the better. (If shopping for a new one, seek out the best energy-efficiency rating.)
If you will be living in a hot area, you’ll probably want ample freezer space for making or storing ice cubes. I’d never noticed this before, but freezers come in different sizes proportionate to the refrigerator part, so think out your priorities in this regard.
If you’re living in a remote area, where you depend on forays to the big city for a large number of items, a bigger unit would be in order, despite the extra cost to run it. You might even find yourself dreaming about a freezer. A few bags of frozen mangos and strawberries from Costco began to seem infinitely alluring to me, a former fresh-food snob, after a few months of blackened bananas and an occasional withered apple being the only selection in town.
TIP: I’ve noticed that people keep a bag or two of ice in their freezers to maintain adequate cooling during power cuts (which are more frequent in the summer months). So don’t buy anything TOO small, or you won’t have any room left for the food.
Should you bring it or buy it in Mexico? Like all electronic appliances, refrigerators tend to be more expensive here, but you can find deals if you shop around. Buying in January can be good. Mexican refrigerators have energy-efficiency ratings on the label just like those in the US. The other thing to weigh is the cost of bringing your own – gasoline, trailer space, etc. Also, refrigerators are delicate and need to be moved standing up. We have bought two refrigerators here (we sold the first one when we moved from Yucatan because it wouldn’t fit in our cargo trailer standing up), and they have both been fine, quality-wise, unlike Mexican-bought stoves which sport great features like six burners and griddles, but seem inferior in manufacture and materials. LG, Samsung, and Mabe are a few brands that refrigerators come in. They’re available in all sizes and various colors, including the chic stainless-steel look, for a price, of course.
The first thing to be aware of is that all stoves run off propane in Mexico (I’m excluding wood stoves here, which are still common in some parts.) I’ve never seen an electric stove here, and I’ve done a fair amount of appliance shopping. (You do see electric hot plates.) The reason for all the stoves being propane has probably to do with the high expense of electricity (not to mention unreliability of the supply).
So, if you’re thinking to bring your own stove, make sure it’s a gas stove. And make sure it will run okay on propane (aka LP gas) by contacting the manufacturer. And (IMPORTANT) get whatever kit or supplies you need to do the changeover while still in the states. If at this point you’re asking if it’s worth the hassle, I will reply that yes, it probably is.
Because Mexican stoves simply do not seem to be of as good quality as those found in the states. They’re often a lot more attractively designed, and those things that go over the burners are easier to clean, and many of them come with six burners which is really dandy, and they have nifty griddles (parillas) that fit over two of the burners so you can do your carne asada right on the stove. Drool-worthy features, all. HOWEVER.
These stoves are just kind of… cheesy. The metal is paper-thin, and insulation and seals are lacking. Big-time lacking. When running the oven, the stove becomes almost too hot to touch, including the oven handle and burner controls.
If you end up shopping for one of these, be aware that not all models have a broiler on the bottom. They all LOOK like they have got, but many have just storage spaces down there. So if you want a broiler, make sure the one you’re getting has an asador.
The stove we bought (a sexy black Acros with 6 burners, a parilla, and an asador) has various levels for oven racks, but came with only one rack. So far I have not pursued trying to find a second rack. The parilla works great, but the asador has been something of a disappointment; it seems to take forever to get hot enough to brown anything.
Another thing that differs from your usual US stove is the lighting mechanism. Our stove has a semi-electronic feature for this. You hold down the top part of a little button while turning on the gas with the other hand, and sparks shoot out of all six burners, and eventually the burner with the gas coming out will light. Most of the time. Sometimes it helps to blow on it a bit. After a time you develop a technique of sorts, it’s hard to describe. You can also (mercifully, say I) just light the damned thing with a lighter. Which is how you light stoves lacking this electronic feature. Or what you do when the electricity goes off. Curiously, pushing the bottom part of the lighter-button turns on the oven light. So if you have the oven light on, and you light another burner on the stove, the oven light goes off and you have to light it again. A minor inconvenience, to be sure. The oven, by the way, does not share the electronic lighting feature and must be lit with a lighter.
One more thing found on seemingly all Mexican stoves of recent manufacture is child-proof dials. Fortunately you have to do something to activate these and I usually manage not to do it accidentally, but the next time I do I may need to consult the owner’s manual again. Hope I can find it.
We have had our stove for almost two years now, and have had only one major problem with it. It started leaking gas after we’d had it about 10 months. As it was still under warranty, we were able to contact the manufacturer about this and they duly sent someone out. Now, the MG, who is Mr. Fixit Extraordinaire, had already identified the source of the leak using the soap-bubble technique, which was A Lucky Thing, because by the time the technician arrived, it was no longer doing it (in the manner of cars which you take to the mechanic and they quit malfunctioning). Also lucky was that the technician believed the MG, and replaced the part on that burner, and lo and behold, no more gas smell!
Until the next time, a month or so later, and this time the MG couldn’t locate the source of the leak. He called the company again, and they couldn’t either, and we had to disconnect the gas every night so we wouldn’t be gassed to death, and the warranty was about to run out, and the MG spent hours and HOURS on the phone raving about why they did not have any more testing equipment than borrowing dish soap from us, and what were they planning to do about this problem, and finally they sent someone and just changed the gizmos on all six burners, and that was the end of that. And so far it’s been okay since then, which was a little less than a year ago.
By the way, kiss your notions of customer service a fond goodbye; it’s pretty much nonexistent here. And if you don’t speak really good Spanish (or know someone who does and who likes you a lot) – sheesh. We counted ourselves lucky because they actually fixed the problem and we didn’t have to throw away the stove and buy another.
To conclude, if you have a decent stove you’re fond of, and if it can be converted to use with propane, you might want to consider bringing that baby along with you.
Oddly enough, I have not found the same drawbacks to Mexican refrigerators or washing machines, which seem to be of comparable quality to their stateside counterparts.
So what’s the best way to learn Spanish? Some words of advice from one who learned it the worst way.
I learned, or rather studied Spanish, in college. I was so interested in this at the time that I majored in Latin American Studies so I could take as many Spanish courses as possible and fit in some cultural studies as well.
The Spanish department at my school was at that time hopelessly antiquated and taught basically grammar, supplemented with a little audio work in the language lab. Although the graduate student teaching assistants were mostly native speakers, English was the primary means of communication in the classroom. I quickly sensed I was getting nowhere fast with speaking and understanding, even though I was making all A’s.
Fortunately, I was really determined. I accepted an offer of free tutoring from a similarly obsessed Spanish major, and we would meet weekly to converse, dictionaries in hand and a strict “no-English” rule in force. Together we attended every Spanish film or cultural event that passed through the Bay Area. We ate in Mexican and Spanish restaurants. We perused exhibits of Hispanic art. We listened to South American charango music and saw flamenco performances. We made flash cards and drilled verbs. We spent hours in the language lab listening to historical recorded speeches by Fidel Castro, Lazaro Cardenas, and others. And we did eventually manage to speak and understand Spanish. But it was unnecessarily torturous (apart from the cultural stuff, which we loved) and I am convinced that the initial grammatical approach handicapped me to this day, particularly with regard to comprehension. I can speak Spanish quite well, but I still miss a lot of what others are saying, especially under suboptimal conditions, such as the presence of lots of background noise (a given in Mexico), or having more than one person talking at a time (like at parties).
Towards the end of my undergraduate career, I decided to audit a French class. Same school, even the same building probably. But the French department was light years ahead of the Spanish department, even though their basic text was equally crappy and overpriced. Their secret? They allowed only French spoken in the classroom. Madame, the teacher, spoke exclusively French, and she spoke plenty of it, keeping up a constant patter throughout the class hour. If you, the student, wished to ask leave to go to the toilet, or inquire when the next quiz was going to be, you had to do it in French. It was amazingly effective, miraculous, really. I learned more French in those 10 weeks than I’d done in two years of Spanish, and this despite the fact that I almost never had time to do the homework. Although I never pursued it that much and therefore lack vocabulary, I can follow a French movie almost as well as a Spanish one, and once after spending three weeks in Paris I found I was understanding maybe 75% of what I heard. I remain deeply impressed by the difference in these two learning experiences.
The moral: I would humbly recommend that you seek out what is called the “natural approach” in your language studies, and avoid old-fashioned grammar like the plague. If going to live classes, insist upon ones where only Spanish is spoken. If using audio or video material, look for similar qualities. You’ll gain a far better grasp of the language, a whole lot faster, and it’ll be more fun, too.
I was remembering a cookbook writer, Huntley Dent, the other morning as I combed the town for enough food for a couple days’ worth of dinners. Huntley Dent’s book is entitled Feast of Santa Fe: Cooking of the American Southwest, and a wonderful book it is (tragically lost to me now, with so many of its brethren, in the Great Pre-Move Book Unloading). A particularly memorable part is where he discusses some dishes traditionally eaten in the days preceding Christmas in tones of truly inspired poetry and longing for their simple goodness, their rustic wholesomeness, their utter foreignness to anything we eat today, in Santa Fe or out of it. “I WANT THAT FOOD,†I remember him writing, and he made me want it too. Of course I already wanted it, which is why I’d bought the book — but you know what I mean. (Actually I once lived in New Mexico, but that’s another story.)
My point here is that the sudden memory of this book caused me to snort out loud at my simple-life fantasies of yore, realizing that the Sonoran village where we now live is probably very similar to Santa Fe of 100 years ago. The chief difference being Sonora has beef and Santa Fe had pork.
A discerning reader glancing over these 10 feasts of Christmas as I think they were called, would quickly note that they all consisted of the same three or four ingredients, done up in slightly differing ways. There was pork, beans, flour tortillas, red chile, and I think green chile, although frankly he may have been stretching it there because there wouldn’t be any green chile by December, unless people canned it back then. Which I suppose is possible. It makes for romantic reading, all right — but don’t try it at home. Unless you’re forced to. Simplicity is all very well and something I aspire to, but I start getting health problems if I can’t eat some vegetables on a regular basis.
Our current location is actually paradise compared to the neighboring town where we spent the summer. There, you could buy beef one day a week, IF you arrived early enough. Sleep till 8 and you’d miss out. There was no pork, fish, chicken, lamb, or goat available at any time, ever. Vegetable selection was exceedingly limited and miserable in quality. Nobody in town sold butter. Here at least, we can get butter, a few more vegetables including broccoli, and beef/pork/chicken/fish most days of the week, but it still drives me crazy.
Do let me clarify that this situation is NOT typical of Mexico as a whole, far from it. The entire southern half of Mexico is blessed with colorful, overflowing central markets in most towns and a wealth of regional cuisines. The ranch country to the north, however, has far more austere traditions in food. If you’re attached to your eating habits, be sure to check out the local food shopping before settling on an area.
As my predilection is for a more or less Mediterranean-type diet, the lack of vegetables presents a real problem. I can stock up on olive oil, decent parmesan, and vino in the city (along with Friskies and kitty litter), and I can make my own bread. But the only real solution I can see for the vegetables is to learn to grow them myself. Stay tuned.
Do you want to live among many or few of your fellow gringos? Because both scenarios are available. First of all, how’s your Spanish? (You do speak, or are learning, Spanish, aren’t you?) If it’s rudimentary or nonexistent, you’ll need to stick to places with enough fellow English-speakers around make life possible for you. I personally would find this kind of limitation unacceptable.
How sociable are you? If you depend heavily on the company of others for your well-being, and your Spanish is less than adequate, again, better keep to areas with a good supply of potential friends/drinking buddies/backgammon partners, or whatever.
Moving to a foreign country can be isolating, even if your language skills are okay. If you move with a spouse or partner, you’ll be thrown together far more (especially at first) than you ever were in your former life when you both had jobs, buddies, yoga classes, etc. It can be stressful on the relationship. Having ready access to some new buddies can be helpful.
If you’re engaged in absorbing work and used to spending lots of time alone, then access to social resources is not such a big issue. I usually spend the day painting (or more recently, writing this). We’ve made friends here, but don’t see them very often — much like when we lived in the states — because everybody is working.
The advent of the internet has been a huge boon to wanderers everywhere, allowing people to stay connected to friends, information, reading, and entertainment from just about anyplace in the world. It can really take the edge off living in an otherwise isolated situation.
A big advantage of living in a gringo-rich area, possibly even more important than the gringos themselves, is the resources that tend to collect around them. The thing that springs foremost to my mind is English-language libraries. (I really miss the Public Library!) There was one in Merida and I understand there’s one in the Lake Chapala area. There is also, I understand, a big organic vegetable gardening enterprise there. Things like professional pet-sitters, English-language bookstores, and English-speaking doctors are also more likely to be found in expatriate areas.
The big, obvious disadvantage of choosing an area with a large gringo population is the inflated prices you’ll find there. Most of the expatriates from the US or Canada that I’ve encountered are pretty prosperous (at least compared to us), and they tend to drive up housing prices disastrously. This was occurring in Merida when we were there, and has long been true of places like Ajijic and San Miguel de Allende. So, if you’re operating on a shoestring, you will have to go further afield (and speak Spanish) to encounter affordable housing either to rent or to buy. In a large city, like Guadalajara say, you could just explore the non-gringo areas, but smaller places are likely to be expensive across the board. We didn’t even bother checking out San Miguel when we were looking for a new location, because I just assumed it would be too expensive.
It is of course possible, with enough money, to live in a gringo enclave so insular you can’t even tell you’re in Mexico, but that’s not the kind of life we’re talking about here in shoestring-land. In order to taste the delights of the real Mexico, and also to cope with day-to-day life, it is necessary to acquire a decent amount of Spanish (it doesn’t need to be fabulous, just usable). Then you will be free to establish your other priorities and pick and choose accordingly.
Easy or difficult of access? This is something you don’t have to think about usually in the states, as travel is still so cheap and readily available. It’s a much bigger issue in Mexico, however, particularly if you’re in a hurry.
Consider: How far is the nearest airport? How often are there flights to where you might need to go? Some cities may offer direct flights to selected stateside destinations a couple times a week; these can be a real bargain. At other times it will be necessary to route through Mexico City (all roads lead to Mexico City), which costs more. Do you have aged parents or other family likely to necessitate emergency visits? Then maybe San Cristobal de las Casas, on its remote, cloud-shrouded mountaintop, wouldn’t be the best choice (although I think I read somewhere an airport was in the works).
If you’re planning to travel within Mexico, it’s usually a time/money tradeoff. Mexico has a fabulous bus system extending to every nook and cranny of La Republica, and prices are quite decent. But, distances being what they are, bus travel can involve many days, which has its own costs, like eating. Airfares within Mexico are pretty pricey. Rental car prices are comparable to those in the states. Gas prices are rising, although not to the same heights as in the states so far (unleaded is about $2.70 a gallon at this writing). If travel of any sort is going to be a big part of your Mexican life, and money is a consideration, then think well on these things.
Remoteness per se is not necessarily a big deal. It’s the mix that any particular place has to offer that’s important. Progreso, Yucatan, where we lived, for example, was a great location for access to the US by plane; less so for access to the rest of Mexico. This place is pretty damned remote, perched on the tip of the Yucatan peninsula. BUT, it’s only a half-hour from the Merida airport, which has daily flights to Houston, daily reasonably- priced flights to Houston, at that. I flew round-trip Merida to Albuquerque, New Mexico in June of 2006 for only $500. A couple months later, the MG and I traveled to Guadalajara round trip, a far shorter distance, and it cost us $400 each. (I’ve noticed that on Mexican carriers, roundtrip airfares are not discounted as opposed to buying each direction separately, but I don’t know if that’s always the case.) The Merida airport has dozens of flights daily to Mexico City, from where you can connect to anyplace in the world. And, you could do the whole thing without using your car; a taxi from Progreso to the airport was about $25.
Additionally, we were able to ship a crate of five large (48 x 36″) paintings from Merida to our gallery in Arizona, via DHL, for about $500. So, Progreso/Merida was excellent for access to the rest of the world, despite being at the end of the earth and a 7-day drive from Tucson.
In terms of shopping, Progreso had a great central market (roast pig tacos for breakfast!) and a pretty fair small supermarket. We shopped for wine, parmesan, and cat supplies at Sams and Aurrera in Merida, a half-hour drive away. Progreso got its own Aurrera about a month before we left.
In the northern state of Sonora, where we are living now, the situation is very different. Here, we are a three-hour drive from the US border, four to five hours’ drive from the Tucson airport, and a three-hour drive from Hermosillo and its airport. That’s in your own vehicle. There is bus service which of course takes a lot longer.
As far as shopping goes, only very basic items are available in the local tienditas; all other shopping must be done in the city, three hours and maybe $50 in gas distant. The nearest bank is an hour and a half away. Careful planning is of the essence when living in such a remote location. One example: We forgot to fill the truck with gas the day before departing on a trip to the states, and so, after getting up at 4 a.m. for an early start, were obliged to sit around feeling very disgruntled until our local Pemex station opened at 7.
Tropical or temperate climate? This was a biggie for me. I had a lingering suspicion I might not thrive in Yucatan, having once spent a summer in Ft. Lauderdale, which has a similar climate, and boy, was I right.
Some people just love the tropics — (mad dogs and Englishmen, and quite a few Canadians) but if you have never spent the hot season in these precincts, check it out before making any big commitments. I was utterly miserable, having always lived in pleasant Mediterranean climes like California, or the dry desert Southwest. I found the humidity smothering and oppressive. I couldn’t figure out what the hell to wear, because having anything at all next to my flesh was torture. The local women went blithely about bareheaded, in miniskirts and skimpy tops, a style which I declined to emulate because (a) that kind of exposure isn’t too flattering on me, and (b) my skin would have cooked to a crisp. Wearing a bra was unthinkable. I finally devised an acceptable outfit for the street, consisting of a linen-y blouse with pockets which hid the bralessness, a short denim skirt, and a large-brimmed straw crownless hat whose open top allowed the steam to exit off the top of my head while providing shade for my face. So much for fitting in with the locals. I was able to walk to the market and back in this getup, but once home would have to rip it from my body in desperation and run to stand under a cold shower for ten minutes. Around the house I wore loose rayon tank tops and mini-pareos, and hoped nobody would come to the door.
To be fair, many big old houses in Yucatan stay fresh and cool in summer, but our casita, with its asbestos roof, was not among them, despite the high ceilings and sea breezes. Some people resort to air conditioning, at least in one room, to cope with the hot season. Unfortunately I am physically and philosophically allergic to air conditioning. And electricity in Mexico is shockingly expensive.
Winter was marginally better, but to tell the truth I found that pretty unpleasant as well. The humidity was such that one felt chilled at 65F. A malign wet wind blew, ushering in respiratory complaints and flus far nastier than any I’d experienced in drier climates. When it was cool, and the sun was out, it was creepily possible to feel both hot and cold at the same time, a sensation I found singularly disagreeable. No, I did not adapt well to the tropics. We ended up moving.
If, like me, you prefer a temperate clime, you have lots of choice, as the whole north of Mexico qualifies, as well as the vast high central plateau. The climate in many of these places is rightly described as “eternal springtime.” The main thing to be aware of in these areas is that, even if it’s eternally spring outside, the masonry houses can be cold at some times of year, so don’t give all your warm clothes to Goodwill before leaving. And bring that down blankie, and the flannel sheets, and all the rest of it. You can always get rid of it later. But you can’t dash out to Target and buy a new one if you need it.
Are you undecided between living at the beach or inland? One thing to keep in mind is that as a non-Mexican citizen you cannot own property outright within a certain distance of the coast, although a legal mechanism, the fideocomiso, exists to make quasi-ownership possible and secure, but it will cost you extra in fees, legal expenses, and hassles. This is also true of owning property close to the US border.
If you’re leaning towards the beach, IMHO the climate on the Pacific coast is far more pleasant than that on the eastern side, which is very humid.
Another thing to consider, if you are on a budget, is that maintaining a house on or near the beach will take much more time and money than a comparable property inland, due to the corrosive effects of the salt air. Three coats of marine varnish on your new mahogany door can morph into dust in less than a year.
If you are looking to live inland, check out the altitude of prospective locations. Many areas of Mexico are at 5000 feet or more, which has a salutary effect on the climate in areas below the Tropic of Cancer. Consider also if you have any health problems that might be affected — for better or worse — by higher elevations.
If you have a favorite mode of exercise or recreational activity (hiking, cycling, deep sea diving), make sure you will be able to practice it in the new place.
Will you live in the city or the country, or somewhere in between? Most people contemplating a move have a preference in this regard already. Something you may not have thought of (I certainly hadn’t) is that, in Mexico, the further away you get from the city, the less goods and services become available.
This is in total contrast to the US, where the cruddiest burg of 25,000 boasts substantially the same shopping as a large metro area — it might not have Macy’s or Nordstrom’s, but it will have Lowe’s or Home Depot plus a few independent hardware stores, at least one or two art/craft emporia, a fabric store or two, bookstores new and used, all manner of auto supply stores, plumbing and electrical dealers, discount clothing places, thrift and antique shops packed with goodies, not to mention Target, et al., and let us not forget an ample selection of supermarkets and drugstores. What was I talking about? Oh, yes. Well, a comparable variety of consumer opportunity is to be had only in the largest Mexican cities, and even then — it ain’t the same.
If you are lucky, a town of 30,000 or so MIGHT have a Walmart or Aurrera or Soriana, where you can buy wine and Friskies, plus an assortment of local shops (clothing, fabrics, auto supply, bike repair, etc.). From central Mexico on down, most towns of any size have traditional food markets. Stores like Sams Club and Costco (sole sources of imported parmesano, quantity olive oil and kitty litter), and shopping malls are found only in definitely urban areas, say over 200,000 population. If you crave a truly rural ambiente, expect only the most basic items (dried beans, toilet paper, milk, tomatoes and such) to be available locally and be prepared to shop for gringo luxuries on costly pilgrimages to the nearest large city.
A subcategory of the city vs. country question is that of sophistication vs. rusticity. In general, one finds more sophisticated surroundings and company in the city than in the country, like anywhere else. But I will point out that there do exist smaller towns, notably in the colonial areas, which possess an extremely rich cultural heritage and are stuffed to the gills with arty, literary, and intellectual types, both Mexican and foreign, which can thus offer the best of many worlds. I suspect Mexico contains limitless possibilities in this regard, if you take the time to explore.