Posts Tagged ‘mexican living’
Finally, some of our American expat friends are beginning to wake up to the ranting and raving I’ve been doing about living in Guanajuato. Now, if you’ve been reading my columns on a regular basis you know from time to time I lose my mind, rather totally, and go all Pancho Villa about life in Guanajuato.
Mind you, I am not talking about normal Mexican things. I am not talking about things like stores never opening when they say they will. I am talking not about the traditional, provincial Mexican custom of never showing up on time for anything. I am not talking about never offering so much as a “How-Do-You-Do” when the kindly Mexican is asked why he didn’t call to cancel an appointment by his good anal-attentive American pal. That’s not what I mean.
I have been talking about things in my columns like getting shoved off the sidewalk into the path of a bus manned by someone who thinks he is a racecar driver. I am talking about calling for the bottled water to get delivered only to have it finally come after you’ve died from thirst and your body was shipped back to the States three months ago. That’s what I mean.
My friend sent me a story today. She is one who has finally admitted that perhaps my wife and I see this sort of stuff, and she doesn’t because she and her husband, in typical American expat fashion, stay pretty much holed up in their lavish estate (it isn’t really an estate but I am adding this in case she reads this-and she occasionally does) until they need something. When they venture out, when they pull themselves from their American TV channels beamed from space via satellite, they drive everywhere. They rarely walk so they seldom have the pleasure of being run over by a bus when a kindly Guanajuatense pushes them into its path.
Our friend went to the Mega Superstore today. Yes, gentrification has begun in Guanajuato with a superstore, on the scale of a Super Wal-Mart, to totally destroy a way of life and ancient culture in Guanajuato. She was in a line with just 7 people in it. A Mexican woman, with no groceries, was in line in front of her. When “her turn” came, she whipped out her cell phone and called her large extended family–comprised of several generations–to get up from the coffee shop and come up front to check out. So, here came her family, about 30 of them, with shopping carts full to overflowing, to cut in front of our friend and check out. Our friend did the “Guanajuato Shove” and cut in front of this woman saying, “Con Permiso” and checked out before she would have surely been thrown, shoved, and elbowed out of the way.
“In general, Mexicans are polite and formal when dealing with foreigners from the North. Newcomers from the States often take this treatment as friendliness, but it is far more complicated than that. Mexicans and other inhabitants of Latin America often wear a mask that
covers their true feelings.” – Ken Luboff
All sympathetic ranting and raving will be entertained and appreciated by phone or e-mail.
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Sometimes I marvel at how my wife and I arrived in Guanajuato, Mexico, with so little Spanish and with so few cultural skills. Somehow we managed to survive some pretty severe bumps in the expatriation road. It was in our ninth month of living here when we decided we were sufficiently equipped to handle venturing away from the warm and secure nest that we rented from an American expatriate who had excellent bilingual skills. We believed we were ready to live in “real Mexico” and to cut the ties from this informal but very secure situation. We had a good guy who helped us out, a lot, when the frequent confusion of trying to adapt to a new culture overwhelmed us. We were not ready and could have used someone as a mentor to continue to guide us through our language fumbles and our attempts to develop bicultural fluency.
I don’t think I can begin to explain all the various things that can go wrong when you get it into your head to live in another country, especially Mexico. And, wrong they do go. These days, so many Americans and Canadians seem to be attracted to the Prime Living Locations in Mexico where well-developed Gringo infrastructures already exist. Some of these cities are Lake Chapala, Ajijic, Puerto Vallarta, and San Miguel de Allende. However, the prices in these cities are now so high that many of those retiring Americans who once could move into these areas are finding it difficult. Therefore, they are resorting to new expat frontiers like Guanajuato.
My wife and I had no clue when we moved here that so many have been silently moving into the Marfil area of Guanajuato and buying up property. Nor did we know how many well-laid plans were in effect to buy up housing in the city with the intent of renovating the properties and turning a profit by opening Bed and Breakfasts or reselling the newly remodeled house at a hefty profit. It’s happening. People are flooding into Guanajuato.
But, OMG, the things that can go wrong without facility in the language and culture! Misunderstandings are guaranteed. Hurt feelings are a sure thing. The Gringo thinks he is prepared and oh, how he is not!
Even if you are just planning on living here to try it out, maybe rent a lovely little villa or casita, stuff goes wrong and hits the fan.
A city in Mexico where no Gringolandia has existed is not going to have that well-honed Gringo infrastructure the other cities have. How the Gringo is treated in a city accustomed to a large Gringolandia and how they are treated in a city like Guanajuato, that has a small but developing Gringolandia, will be as different as night and day.
The first most obvious thing is English is NOT going to be widely spoken. This has been a bane for not only potential Gringo expats but for Gringo tourists as well. To avoid a meltdown requiring a ton or two of Prozac to calm you, get it into your head that where there are few to no Gringolandians running around the place, there is not going to be a plethora of bilingual or bicultural Mexicans to help you. It will pretty much be “Se Habla español” only.
Are you planning a trip to Mexico as a sort of reconnaissance mission to an area of Mexico that you think might be fun to be one of the first to “Go where few Gringos have gone before?” How will you master making reservations in a hotel, hostel, Bed and Breakfast when the person on the other end of the phone has no idea what you are babbling in English? Couldn’t someone paving the way for you, mastering the headaches before your arrival, be the ticket?
If you want to see the need for this, just take a gander at the many online travel forums and see what they are writing on the Guanajuato pages. One of the biggest complaints is that American tourists think they have made reservations set in stone and when they arrive here, no one has heard this poor American was coming. If, perchance, the reservation was waiting for them, the American all too often finds none of the extras they asked for.
This nightmare you read on the travel forums is multiplied to the power of infinity and beyond when the Gringos wants do more than just plan a trip to Mexico.
If the Gringo wants to study in Mexico, what happens when the school that promised to pick you up at the airport doesn’t show? And, if by some miracle you manage to make it from the airport to the prearranged homestay with a Mexican family, what if the Mexican family whose address you were given as your accommodation has no idea what you are talking about because you only speak English and the family only speaks Spanish? What if the house at the address you were given is vacant?
What about retiring to Mexico? Do you want to rent or buy first? Do you want to build from scratch? Do you want proper documentation to get into the country? What about all the permisos you are required to have to remodel or build a house in Mexico? Want to invest in rental property? The problems associated with this venture are infamously legion and, should I say it, legendary!
Even if all you want is to rent a scrawny little casita, the potential for your naiveté getting you ripped off is magnified.
We have this pal who came to Mexico with virtually no linguistic skills. He rented a house from a Mexican woman who convinced him that if he paid a six-month lump sum for his rental, she would cut him a deal for a discount. He paid and she flew the coop with his money. A few weeks later, the real landlord showed up wanting his rent. The lady had scammed him. She wasn’t even the landlord of the property.
And all my friend wanted to do was rent a place in Guanajuato. Imagine what waits for you if you want to buy property, try to secure your own permisos, handle your own visas, and so on.
Having someone who is bilingual, bicultural, and whom you pay to represent you in your expat adventure is not only needed but the time is ripe for such services. I predict this sort of “mentoring for hire” service will have a huge surge in the days to come when our fellow monolingual Americans, realizing they can’t afford retirement in America, will be knocking on the door of Mexico.
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Based on my going-on five years of expat experience in the city of Guanajuato, Mexico’s Heartland, I do not think the current expat guides such as Howell, Merwin, and Luboff, apply here. It is so stark in fact, that the difference between Guanajuato and San Miguel de Allende is almost like comparing apples to oranges. Here are two cities, two Colonial Mexican Heartland towns, so close, and so different. What’s changed it? The Gringo presence and the Mexican’s subsequent adaptation (subjugation?) to the Gringo presence.
Is this a bad thing? Is it bad that the Americans have swept into towns such as San Miguel de Allende and with their money effectively changed it from uniquely Mexican to something all together different? My view is that it is a bad thing. My traditional understanding of expatriation, one about which I feel passionately, prevents me from seeing the changes in San Miguel as something good. It prevents me from seeing the Gringos in San Miguel as expatriates. What that city has become is a playground for the rich Gringo. The Mexicans in the town live to serve the Gringos. That is something with which I take great exception. However, for most Americans, living in Mexico would be impossible without a town like San Miguel whose entire infrastructure has been redesigned and functions to serve the American who wants to live there. I cannot argue with the fact that what San Miguel now is, is what it is, and there’s no going back to what it was. The ultimate sadness is that the town’s Mexicans I am not sure ever had a choice in the matter.
Mexico as a Concept
So, what is the Mexico as a Concept that draws Americans to towns like San Miguel de Allende or any Prime Living Location in Mexico? What is the Concept of Mexico about which the popular expat guides, online websites, newsletters, seminars, speak? What Concept or Image of Mexico is attracting the American who wants to leave the U.S. to live here?
Primarily, Americans think they can come and live here because Mexico and her people are just like us. I mentioned this in our first book, The Plain Truth about Living in Mexico. I tried using the phrase, “Don’t forget, Mexico is not America.” throughout the book to try get across the point that is very much lost on Americans: “Mexico is not America.” Americans typically do not hold any depth of cultural awareness and too often think that all that is necessary to live with Mexicans is throw some money or technology at them under the guise of “Now, we gringos are here to help these poor third-world Mexicans” charities and soon the Mexican will jump through America hoops and be “just like us.” I’ve often wondered if Americans would be so willing to move here if they knew in advance that there is not someone “just like me” under that Mexican’s mestizo skin.
Do not think me glib or disrespectful here. This American woman in Guanajuato was once telling me how the Gringo Charity to which she belonged was here so that they might help these “little brown people.” At first I thought I had misheard her until I asked my wife in private who had also heard this hideous remark.
I remain convinced that Americans think they can come to Mexico to live because Mexicans are just like Americans, only in a different wrapper. That seems to be the extent of America’s cultural awareness. I cannot begin to count how many times I have heard the following two statements from the mouths of American expats:
1. I know they understand what I am talking about and are pretending they don’t.
2. If they are going to work for me, they are just going to have to adapt to me and assimilate my ways, including speaking English.
I really wonder if Americans would come here if they really knew what lies deeply layered underneath the surface of the Mexican mind?
Americans, and especially Texans, think that because they’ve eaten tex-mex, attended some cross-border festivals, have driven across the border to go shopping, worked with a few Mexicans in a construction project, screamed at a few of those projects’ Mexican workers, had a few Dos XX beers while camping in Reynosa, can say “Yo quiero Taco Bell,” that they’ve pretty much mastered Mexican culture and living in Mexico will be a cinch. Americans (and don’t forget those Texans) delude themselves into thinking they know Mexicans. They are more willing to admit that there are vast language and cultural differences between themselves and the Chinese than they do with Mexicans.
They are convinced they are cultural experts when it comes to Mexicans and therefore willingly pack it up and move here based on this delusional Concept about Mexico: Mexicans are just like us; Mexico is just like America. They can handle it, they reason, because after all, they are just Mexicans and are just like us.
NEXT: Mexico As a Concept and Not As a Reality part 4
