Morning Thoughts

It is a very quiet Sunday morning in my neighborhood today. All I hear outside are a couple of roosters, a morning dove and sparrows chirping. I like the peace of Sunday mornings. 

Chico hasn't been out much this week so in a couple of hours my friend Nicks and his dog, Dog, are coming by to take us all to Lake Taco for breakfast. That is Dog's favorite place. Three blocks before we get there he starts jumping around in the back seat, sticking his nose up front and whining. He can hardly contain himself. His favorite waitress always brings him a bowl of chips and gives him pats on his head. . After watching Dog eating the chips, Chico has decided he will eat them too. So we have two happy dogs on the floor crunching on chips. I like their breakfast sandwich. Nicks likes the chilaquiles. It is a fun morning for all of us. I will take some photos and put them on this afternoon after I get home.

The other day someone wrote to me that he/she, I don't know which, couldn't live here on 800 dollars a month and had to move on. That made me feel sad because this is a beautiful place.  I wrote back that I live on that amount. It is possible but you have to adjust your expectations. Live like the Mexicans, not like the expats. For over eight years I did not have a kitchen. I lived in two rooms with just a bathroom and then I moved upstairs to just one room with a deck. I made an outdoor kitchen that I loved. Just had to take my dishes into the bathroom to wash them. I was happy in both places. Now I live in a typical Mexican house, downstairs, and with a kitchen. I love having a kitchen now.  My rent in all these places has been low. So I can easily live on 800 dollars a month. Eating out too.   I don't go to expensive places. 

It may take awhile to find inexpensive housing but you have to keep looking and get to know the locals, especially the Mexicans. As I have often written, there are two economies here, the Mexican economy and the Expat economy. When I was forced to move last time, my expat friends tried to get me to rent places here for around four hundred dollars a month. I thought that was too much. Finally my friend, a Mexican woman, showed me a place that her Mexican friends had for rent for 2500 pesos a month. (With today's exchange rate that is 143 American Dollars.)  I took it.  I have had some problems here, like lots of dirt in the water or no water and noise from parties in the neighborhood but even if you were to rent an expensive home, there would always be problems. There is no such thing as a life without problems.  I have friends living in beautiful expensive homes who cannot sleep because of the noise in the neighborhood. And their own water problems. I just want to encourage anyone who is thinking of moving here to not give up. I don't know of anywhere else in the world I would prefer to live. I feel so blessed to be able to live here. It is worth whatever effort you have to put out in order to stay here.