Ten Things I Learned in Ten Years

2009 was the 10th anniversary of our marriage to San Pancho. In 1999 we bought a plot of land; in 2000 we began building a house; and in 2001 we spent our first winter here. We loved the place then, and we still do, but our love has matured. No longer are we starry-eyed newly-weds.

Because 2009 is a milestone year, and it is ending, I am prompted to take stock. I offer these observations, in no particular order, for anyone contemplating wedlock with San Pancho.

1.Being handy is helpful. Anything with moving parts will malfunction in this climate. Neither my husband nor I is a Do-It-Yourself genius, but we regularly repair blenders, toasters, printers, the kitchen range, the barbeque grill, the sewing machine, and the disposal. And we still need to call the electrician/plumber about once a week.
2.Traveling between the U.S. and San Pancho is time-consuming and expensive. Given that we live in Connecticut, spending winters in Florida would be simpler, but, in my opinion, boring. Every day here brings its own little adventure.
3.Owning a home in San Pancho costs more than we expected. True, there is no heating expense, and labor is cheaper. However, the mildew, termites and jungle vegetation must be kept at bay when we are not here, and we have to pay people to do that.
4. Learning to manage household help is, for me, an ongoing process. It is too easy to become preoccupied with what the “help” is doing or not doing.
5. Being able to speak Spanish, even if one is not fluent, makes life easier. The Spanish classes I took at the community college have proved invaluable. I can talk to the guy at the hardware store and to my Mexican neighbors.
6.Life in Mexico is not orderly. For instance, in Bucerias, a town near the line between Mountain and Central time zones, business owners arbitrarily choose which zone they prefer. This kind of unpredictability can be charming or infuriating.
7.One can learn to sleep in the midst of crowing roosters, blaring disco music, barking dogs and raucous partiers. I will never understand the Mexican cultural norm about noise. I have concluded that, since I am a guest in this country, I should accept its noisiness or go somewhere else.
8. Part of the fun of living here is doing things differently than we do in the U.S.. We don’t have cable television in San Pancho, so we read more. Instead of cooking our usual fare, we experiment with Mexican ingredients. We take time out to watch the sunset.
9. We have become more conscious of health and safety risks. We are older, and we have seen friends run into problems. Now we don’t drive at night, we carry a cell phone, and we buy medical evacuation coverage.
10. Maintaining friendships and activities in both the U.S. and Mexico--a book group, a class, a volunteer activity—is a challenge. The reward for my constant balancing act is that I have two hometowns, two places where I belong.

365 Days of Me Time

Leaving Puerto Vallarta for the drive up the coast to San Pancho, the billboards and banners almost blot out the azure sky. Buy into this! Buy into that! The signs for Los Amores (The Lovers) show an impossibly beautiful couple, retirement age, smiling at each other as though the Viagra shipment has just come in. Another announces: You’ve Been Good—You Deserve It. An older man grins like the cat that got the cream. He deserves that infinity edge pool, those lounge chairs…possibly that swimsuited beauty, too. Life Built Around You. Life! The whole enchilada. Resorts, spas, beach clubs, residences, condominiums—Invest! All this is for people with Lifestyle Addiction. Could that be us? Those ripped bodies outlined by gauzy white cotton in the ocean breeze? We no longer care for the environment, the common good; we’re not our brother’s keepers—it’s 365 Days of Me Time, 24/7.

It was August when I wrote that; now it is December. The sky is an even deeper blue and the temperature has cooled to perfection, but The Crisis has come upon us. On the drive, I count 127 empty billboards. Only a few bother to plead Disponible (Available). About 40 others wait to be put out of their misery, so faded and tattered that their messages are no longer legible. Everybody said they were overbuilding condos…Now, no matter how good you’ve been, perhaps you don’t deserve a second or third home. In fact, you’d better hope you can live on love.

I'm a Bad Boss

I’m no good at managing household help. Never had so much as a cleaning lady back in the States. Now Lady Got-Rocks has a maid, gardener, and pool man. If I had my druthers, everyone would just do their jobs with no instructions or feedback required from me. Sometimes I even plan my runs to Vallarta to coincide with their work hours so I don’t have to watch someone make my bed and wash up my breakfast dishes.

But every worker needs to feel appreciated, good performance noticed and commented on. So I force myself to remember with notes in my day planner: Compliment Ana for cleaning the ceiling fans; kibitz with Manuel about how healthy the plumbagos look. As if it were a chore for me to say something nice.

Nor do I deal well with poor performance. I limped along with Manuel for three years, watching as scores of plants and palms died from lack of water, weeds and dry leaves cluttered the grounds, irrigation and water filtration systems deteriorated for lack of maintenance. Manuel is a smart, talented guy who knew what needed doing. The two of us talked about corrective action but not much happened, especially when I was in California, as kindly neighbors recently pointed out. Neighbors who had rescued Manuel with small, no-interest loans almost as many times as his employer had.

“If you weren’t trying to sell part of your place, we probably wouldn’t even bring this up,” they said to me last week. “Manuel is a nice man, and we like him. But we see you’re trying to spruce up the garden with new plants that aren’t being taken care of.”

For the previous two months, in my absence, they had jotted down the number of hours Manuel came to work: My supposed Monday-through-Friday, 7 A.M.-to-noon caretaker showed up two days a week for all of an hour.

That did it. My hand was forced; I had to act. But to fire him without having clearly stated that his job was on the line seemed unfair and contradicted all my previous-life preaching as a human resources manager about progressive discipline. It also seemed unfair that I’d have to fork over a big severance (“finiquito”) amount if I fired him. Gringos rarely prevailed in fired-for-just-cause hearings; settlement amounts varied wildly and were often exorbitant.

So I did four things:

1. I talked to Manuel about his breach of trust, about the improvements I needed to see, about the fact that he could lose his job if the improvements didn’t happen.

2. I found someone to act as his supervisor and informed Manuel that he would now have a new boss. As expected, Manuel balked at this arrangement. "If you are so unhappy with my work, I might be forced to resign," he said.

3. I spoke with an accountant who figured out the much-reduced severance amount if Manuel were to resign(FYI: for a three-year, part-time employee, 10 days of vacation + 15 days of Christmas bonus [“aguinaldo”]) I told Manuel that I would pay him that amount plus five extra days to sweeten the deal.

4. I pleaded with the universe to please, oh please, let Manuel to see the wisdom of resigning.

The universe responded. Manuel took my offer and signed a letter of resignation. A new gardener starts next week. And I’ve learned my lesson. Like it or not, in person or in absentia, I need to step up to being a better boss. It’s only fair.

Waiting At The Bank

Our mission: to retrieve records of our closed Bancomer checking account. The only person who could process that request, the teller told us, was the branch manager, so we signed our names in the designated notebook and took seats in the waiting area.

The bank was crowded that morning, and despite a long line to see the manager, the atmosphere was friendly and convivial. Decorations for a special offer on checking accounts added a festive touch; balloon arches framed the doorways and giant bows festooned teller stations. Pre-school children were everywhere. They crawled on and under the chairs, wandered in and out of executive offices, and watched cartoons on the television suspended from the ceiling. A Mexican lady sat down next to me, explained her banking problem, and asked about my family. A Canadian man and I speculated about why the teller had refused to cash his traveler’s checks.

I had assumed customers would be taken in order, but that wasn’t the case. Except for my husband and me, hapless Americans not accustomed to Mexican banks, no one paid attention to whose name was next in the sign-in book. An hour passed. Lunch time came and went.

For awhile I diverted myself by studying the promotional materials for the checking account offer. Posters of a lady flipping pancakes with a spatula explained: Open a new account or increase your balance by $6500 pesos and you will receive a boxed set of stainless steel kitchen utensils--two cooking spoons, a spatula, a soup ladle, a masher and a stand for hanging them on. At least 20 people picked up utensil sets. We were still waiting.

When at last we were seated in the manager’s office, another customer walked in and began to explain her problem. Still typing our data into her computer, the manager responded in the manner of a kindly social worker. A half hour later the manager had processed our request, and, finally, we were done. But, she told us, we would need to return in a week to pick up our records.

Waiting for a delivery, a repair person, the house painter, the bank manager-- we spend a lot of time waiting in Mexico. I’m still not used to it, and it tries my patience. We have to see that bank manager again, and I’m not sure what I will do. Barge into her office, and risk being regarded as an arrogant American? Sit politely while other customers jump the line? I am still pondering.