The American Expat Life in Mexico

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.