Another unique aspect of expat life lakeside is the availability of the fine arts. In addition to numerous musical performers, we have several playhouses, all providing quality entertainment in English. Among the most well-known locally is the Lakeside Little Theatre (LLT), which just completed season 53.
Entrance & the box office
When we were just visiting the area, we managed to attend a performance, and once we settled here, we committed to getting season tickets, which run about $70 USD for six shows. While we were both working, we almost never went out for shows: too busy, too tired, and many of the hottest tickets were expensive, while the topical content was not our cup of tea. Ever notice how many storylines seem literally or metaphorically set on the Upper East Side of “the City” as they say in New York?
Since we are rested, retired and the tickets are cheap, we take that last complaint in stride and enjoy the live entertainment. This season the LLT put on Agnes of God and Fiddler on theRoof, among others.With about 12 showings per play, it is a major commitment by our friends and neighbors, and it is great fun watching them perform. We go opening night: I agonize watching the performances, as I can identify with the performers as performers, hoping everything goes well. The casts are, well, mature, as are most of the expats in the audience, although they occasionally find some younger performers for key roles. Some performers are retired professionals, some were artists back in college, some just got the theater-bug in retirement: all seem to take the craft very seriously.
The LLT is tucked away mountainside on a side street in San Antonio Tlacayapan, a little village between Ajijic and Chapala. They have a very fashionable lobby and a nice bar area for intermission; I would estimate the theater itself holds a little more than one hundred seats, so there are no bad ones. In addition to live plays, they also broadcast performances by National Theatre Live (we have not attended those, yet).
Bar at IntermissionInside the threater
Growing up, I never would have imagined being a season ticket holder for a theater, but then again, I never imagined being an expat, either.
Back in the day when I was institutionalized at the United States Military Academy, we took a heavy load of science, mathematics, and engineering courses, regardless of whatever we thought our major was. One of the more detested classes was Electrical Engineering, or “Juice”as we called it. Juice was a very simple course: learn a series of standard formulas relating to how electricity works and apply them to a series of problems. The challenge was that electricity is, frankly, perverse. We often use analogies to water (electricity “flows” for example), but these are really wrong, for electricity behaves in ways counter-intuitive to the water-in-pipes model, in that it flows both ways, or doesn’t flow at all, or pulses, or…well, you get it. Except that some cadets did not get it, which meant they never knew which formula to use in what situation, and they struggled. The Juice professors were also in on the gag: they always provided a set of meaningless data points so you could not tell which formula to use just by what data was in the problem.
What we all knew was that we would never need this information again. The only thing I can remember for sure from Juice was the phrase “Volts don’t kill; amps do.” This in fact is also a gross simplification, since the two are related, and both can do harm. Which I re-learned recently.
It hit 90 degrees a few days last week, and we decided to turn on our mini-split air conditioners. Regular readers will recall the sad tale of the installation, complete with extra holes and severed water lines, but that is all in the past. Now, we get to reap the benefits of cool, fresh air as we sit in our living room and watch the television. Except when I click the remote, nothing happens. Maybe old batteries? We have not used the air conditioner since it was installed in December (when we watched the installers turn it on); maybe the remote was not mated to the unit? Nope, I checked and both remotes worked with our bedroom a/c, but nada with the living room unit.
We got a hold of the folks who installed the units. They had me double check the breakers in our fuse box, which were all working. So they came out. They double checked all the connections but saw nothing amiss. They opened up the unit and showed me the computer chip circuit board, which was clearly “fried.” Bad news. This led to a quick trip back to our fuse box, where the installer showed me with his voltmeter that the power coming into my casa was running at 244 volts.
Now voltage varies whenever electricity is delivered, but it is supposed to be regulated so it varies within an acceptable range. In the States and down here, voltage should be around 110/120 or 220/240, depending on the type of power supply. At my house, it should be 220. So 244 is too high, especially since that was a one-time reading and the voltage may spike even higher. That is what happened to my new a/c: a spike cooked the chip circuit. It could affect any electronic device I have.
So now we have to notify CFE, the power authority, because the high voltage is coming in to at least my entire neighborhood, and it should not be . Meanwhile, we’re scrambling to find a whole-house voltage regulator to protect our appliances and electronics from spikes (or drops: such brown-outs can be just as damaging!) in the future. I recall reading about high and low voltage problems locally, but I had the (false) impression that our newer development had a community voltage regulator. No one seems to know if we do (still checking), but even if we do, it failed, so we’ll get one for ourselves regardless.
Back in the States, we had surge protectors for some of our personal electronics, but since the problem here is both too much or too little voltage, we’ll need to get regulators, especially to protect the fridge and TV. The entire episode was just a reminder that you can’t take anything for granted as an expat: if someone else has a problem with infrastructure, you likely do too…you just don’t know it yet!
A friend recently mused about whether I was still in touch with the goings on in the States, and it reminded me how different things are today, communications-wise.
Back in 1983, I was assigned to a US Army unit in what was then called West Germany. We had access to German television stations and one or two British channels over-the-air. If you lived in Army housing, you had access to the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service, a unique cable system which provided a smattering of shows from any of the major US networks, minus the commercials. Some shows were a season or so “late.” Others were series which had never made it, so they were provided free to the military. News was the national edition of one network (NBC, as I remember it) recorded and shipped over, then shown a day late. AFRTS got their first satellite access in 1984, which meant we started receiving actual channels and news in real time, which was a major change. We got the morning shows late in the afternoon, due to the time differential: one of my strongest memories from those days was watching the Challenger disaster live as we sat down to dinner.
Phone service was provided by the BundesPost: think MaBell without the charm, and it was ridiculously expensive (as all long distance phone service was). Many times, you had to call an operator and schedule an overseas call; alternatively, family back home could call you collect, in effect notifying you they were at home and wanted to talk. You would deny the charges, then return the call to save them some money.
Mail took an extra week or so to arrive. The only papers available were the International Herald-Tribune, a weekly compilation run jointly (at that time) by the Washington Post and New York Times, or the daily Stars & Stripes.
And of course there was no Internet.
The net effect was to to be somewhat distanced from the news and the culture. I have always had trouble placing music from The Clash into any timeline, because right as they became famous back in the States, we were out of touch in Europe (which is an excellent excuse to embed one of their songs).
What’s different today? In place of the government-provided infrastructure described above, we have an organic, commercial one in Mexico. Because of the demands of primarily American and Canadian expats, we have access to several cable, streaming, and satellite TV services. I have Dish network, ostensibly in Cincinnati, Ohio, so I get some fifty channels, including all the major networks, local affiliates, PBS, CNN, Fox, HBO, Disney, ESPN, etc. For television news, I watch one major network (usually ABC), BBC America/International, and Special Report on Fox.
Using web applications, I listen every morning to WTOP, the DC-area news and traffic radio station, but now I get to smirk when the traffic or weather is bad. My favorite magazine subscriptions (The Economist, First Things) have gone digital, delivered to my tablet. Online I use GoogleNews to aggregate several feeds, and I use an incognito tab on my Chrome browser to read the Washington Post and New York Times every day. When I run into something behind a paywall or subscription-only, I use the Internet archive (tip: bookmark this site and use it; it works great) to get free access.
Mail delivery is even worse in Mexico, but is improving due to the introduction of Amazon here and its delivery system for packages.
We still have T-mobile cell phone service, with free calling to the States, and we can Skype/Google-chat when we want video. Whatsapp, an app which is used all over the world but not that often in the States, gives us free text messaging and asynchronous communications.
Not to mention, with the time I have as a retiree, I can pretty much choose how much news to consume, and when. One thing I haven’t mentioned: social media. Given our internet connectivity, social media is as ubiquitous here as in the States. However, if you get any of your news from social media, I suggest you reconsider. I can tell you the biases of all the media sources I use, but as the Russian troll operation demonstrated, the online world is far more complicated. With so many people trying to spin or distort what they call news, you are better off using social media for connecting with friends, not gathering information, wherever you are.
Sorry for the pun title, here’s a little jazz to make up for it.
One of the oddities of living in a place with such a wide variety of cultures is how they mesh. Annually for the past 40 years, Ajijic has hosted a charity fundraiser called the “Mexican National Chili Cook-off.” The event looks exactly like any of the hundreds of similar Chili contests NOB, but with a Mexican flavor.
This is the unofficial start of the charity fundraising season down here, with several different types of events aimed at the large population of temporary expats known as snowbirds.
The Chili cook off ran Friday through Sunday, with contests for Margaritas, Salsa, and of course Chili. They had a large stage with a steady stream of performers: we were there Saturday at noon for some local Mariachis. In addition to the contest tastings, there were booths for drinks, hot dogs, pizza, hamburgers, and tacos. For some reason we always end up getting in line for the taco booth; I guess I have already eaten all the hot dogs I ever should.
There were several raffle drawings each day, and a large collection of tents where local tradespeople or organizations could pitch their wares. We bought a rug and some knives, but I still couldn’t find just the right hat.
Some store owners had exotic pets on display: we saw an owl, an exotic bird, and a snake. There were roving bagpipers and Caballeros on dancing caballos. And it all seemed to fit together. Anyway, a good time was had by all, whether you ate Chili or not.
We asked a local craftsman to repair a small wooden table which has been in the entranceway of every house we owned. The piece was a gift from my mom to my wife, so it had sentimental value. The wood was damaged (let’s call it distressed-that’s much more chic) and the lock didn’t work. Still, it was one of only two pieces of furniture we brought with us to Mexico, partially with the intention to have it repaired. We told him to refinish it, add some turquoise highlighting, and build a hutch for the top of it. Voila, as they say.
At the chili cook-off (more to follow on that), we also picked up some fine local knives (very sharp and stylish) as well as a hand-made rug from Oaxaca. Again, excellent craftsmanship.
Then there was the case of some local services we employed. I previously told you the tale of our air conditioner installation and the resulting (unintended) fountain in our carport. When those workmen were done, I also noticed that the indoor portion of the air conditioner was not centered on the wall (who knew you had to request that?), and that there was an extra hole in the wall, since their first attempt at drilling did not succeed. All this from the same gentleman who offered to run a drainage hose from the air conditioner into (the top of) my wife’s bathroom sink.
“Now I know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall”
Here are some workmen cutting a metal rod to fit in our sunscreen. They best embody the local spirit to just “get it
Yes, those are sparks!
done” without regard to personal safety. If you look closely, you’ll see they are cutting the metal, on my patio, without the hindrance of any eye or flesh protection.
Lastly, we recently bought a new light for our walk-in closet. The small, recessed LED bulb was simply too weak to get dressed by, so we bought a lantern style hanging light which complemented some other lights in our bedroom. This seemed like a simple replacement operation, so I did not supervise it. Silly me. What we have now is a cable running from the old light to the new light. I hadn’t thought of that solution.
So what is the point? I relish the excellent craftsmanship we have encountered, all at a reasonable cost. I don’t blame the other craftsmen for what did not quite turn out. Again, the cost was minimal, and there are always cultural translations to consider. If anything, I have learned to be exceedingly specific, because if you say “install” it does not mean “replace” and if you don’t say “centered” it will not be so. Just a few more flavors of expat life.
So why do people walk the 500 miles from St. Jean Pied-de-Port, France, to Santiago de Compostela, Spain? There are as many reasons as there are pilgrims, but they can be organized in several logical categories.
Like pilgrims from the Middle Ages to the present, the largest category would be religious/spiritual. Originally this would have been a primarily Catholic endeavor, as Catholics were encouraged to go on pilgrimage to various shrines, including Santiago, where the bones of St James were allegedly discovered. Now there is an equal number of “spiritual, not religious” types who go on pilgrimage to re-center their minds, disconnect from the electronic chatter of modern life, or strip life to the bare essentials and engage more honestly with other people. This last point is a common refrain from peregrinos (pilgrims): on the camino, you have only what you need, so you eliminate the artifice of modern society and have more meaningful relationships with your fellow pilgrims.
Another large group is seeking simple self-improvement. They want to lose weight, quit smoking or kick some other bad habit, get in shape, or simplify one’s life. There are some similarities here to the first group, but without any specific spiritual content. Smaller sets of pilgrims are on vacation, after a personal accomplishment, or do it just because it is there.
For whatever reasons pilgrims have, the numbers have been consistently increasing. Last year over 300,000 walked the Camino Frances, with the frequency diagram displaying a familiar normal distribution (I promised no math, but this is statistics) centered on the Summer months.
The trend continued to >300,000 in 2017This counts “completions” with most taking 30-45 days
To receive the official completion certificate, or Compostela, you need only complete the last 100 kilometers of the Camino Frances. When you arrive in Santiago, they ask whether you walked for religious/spiritual reasons or for other reasons. If the former, you receive a Latin script Compostela attesting to your accomplishment; if the latter, your certificado is in Spanish. If you wish, for a few Euros you can also receive a certificate of distance which attests to the actual time and distance hiked.
Whatever one’s motivation, one theme among peregrinos is consistent: how well pilgrims treat one another, and how well pilgrims are treated by their Spanish hosts. Out on the camino, people share with and care for each other. The small towns, some of which only survive by association with the camino, provide a warm welcome. Stories abound of services provided or help rendered by anonymous pilgrims to those in need. Likewise, there are numerous tales of pilgrims finding “no room at the inn” and being taken to stay in local’s homes. There are exceptions, but crime or simple boorish behavior stand out mostly as exceptions to the rule of good behavior.
This is the magic of the camino, and what really brings many pilgrims to come back and walk the camino over and over.
As for me, I am walking in thanksgiving. From early on when my wife Judy and I considered walking the camino, I saw it as a way of saying “thank you” to God for good health, a great family, a satisfying career, and all the other blessings I have received. We’ll spend time every day giving thanks, looking to help others (or maybe accepting help from others–that’s a blessing too) and praying. If you have a prayer request, let me know!
As I pass the first anniversary of life as an expat, I am tempted to review the good and bad aspects of it. If you read my blog, you already know I find the balance tilted to the positive side. However, I have noted several times that expat life is not for everyone. So what are the reasons that would make expat life–especially expat life in Mexico–disagreeable for the average American?
The top reason on my list would be healthcare. It is at the top not because one cannot find quality doctors and hospitals: in Mexico, you can. Rather, it tops the list because healthcare is so critically important to one’s physical and financial well-being that if you have any doubt about your situation in either case (financial- or health-wise), you must question whether you’re expat material. If you don’t have portable health insurance, won’t qualify for another nation’s healthcare, don’t have money to buy insurance locally or in reserve to cover health emergencies, expat life may not be for you.
Likewise, if you have serious health problems, you want to think twice about expat life. Medical culture, like all culture, varies in every country. Figuring out what your doctor really means, regardless of whatever he or she says (and in what language), is difficult enough when you are familiar with the culture. Levels of care vary, not because one system is more or less caring, but because different systems have different views on what is appropriate. Any friction in healthcare is major friction, because it is literally a matter of life or death. Failing health (coupled with an inability to cover escalating costs) is the leading reason expats return home.
Second on the list is family matters. How close and frequent are your relationships with your immediate or extended family? If you live in the same town as your extended family, and you get together several times a week and are always available to one another, you may find expat life to be too disconnecting. One must be very honest about this issue. If I was still working (which would have been necessary were I not an expat), I would be limited in the time I could spend with my grandchildren. Expat life freed up my time, which enables more and better time with them. However, my family has always been all over the map (literally), and even my closest grandchild was a solid hour away from my last home near DC. Here in Mexico, I am a four hour plane ride away from them, but my calendar is clear, so I can drop by pretty easily (like we did over the MLK holiday this year). In the meantime, we skype on a regular basis. I am blessed that my immediate family has few (almost none, really) health or personal issues. If you need that close daily family interaction, or have family members who need your personal attention, expat life may be a bridge too far.
Next would be your flexibility. There are a few hardy souls who thrive in the absence of any routine; you usually see them on adventure TV shows. Most of us need some level of routine, or certainty, to be comfortable. As an expat, you are inherently out of your comfort zone. Can you adapt to it? It comes in all shapes and sizes: when I go the local Walmart (familiar), they may be no potato chip brands or flavors I recognize. A left turn signal can mean almost anything. Russet potatoes are difficult to find. You should say “buenos dias” to people you pass on the street, and that changes to “buenos tardes” at noon and “buenas noches” after dark. Shrimp cocktail is a form of cold, spicy soup. Asking for directions is asking for trouble. Butter contains no salt, and there is no caramel. Mañana means sometime.
None of these points is important, but collectively they represent a lot of turbulence. As an expat, there are times when you start to think you are building a routine, and then you’re hit with several changes all at once. If you aren’t flexible enough to change with such challenges, you may find expat life unsettling.
Someone’s villa grande is just around the bend
How do you feel when you are confronted with abject poverty? Poverty exists side-by-side with wealth in Mexico. Begging is not considered a sign of poor character: some people are just worse off, and they beg to make ends meet. If you go out where there are groups of people (like the market, a shopping center, a soccer match) you will run into people begging, children selling fruit or junk or trinkets, or perhaps a handicapped person offering to wash your car. If you say no, they leave you alone. No one gets angry about their entreaties. If you give them some money, they will be very grateful; around the corner will be more of the same. You have to pick and choose where you drop your coins, and saying no is never fun. If this scene pulls too hard on your heartstrings, maybe you’re not an expat.
Closely related to the poverty issue is, surprisingly, pets (especially in Mexico). I have heard more than one expat lament the way dogs are treated here: some folks become so upset they return home. Dogs are just a useful appliance here; they are not pets in the North American concept (I rarely even see cats here). One sees roof-dogs which live out in the hot tropical sun with the sole purpose of alerting owners if anyone approaches the property. Street dogs are common, lazing alongside the roads, many limping from a close encounter of the vehicular kind. Seeing a dog’s body in the road is not at all unusual. As long as a dog performs a useful task, they are given some minimal shelter and food; if they dont, they are set loose. Local governments wait until they get complaints about dog packs, then they set out poison to eliminate the problem. As a lifelong dog owner, it is heartbreaking, but I also realize many Mexicans do not have the resources to spend on pets as luxury items. If sad dog stories are too much for you, you’ll need to toughen up to be an expat.
These are the top five facets of expat life which make it something not everyone can embrace (in my opinion). As an expat, I can attest to the fact that many confront these situations and negotiate them successfully to become expats. Some expats choose to be snowbirds, spending colder months down here and warmer months back home. This helps address the expat challenges I mentioned, but also adds the cost of maintaining two residences.
As I said at the beginning, I think the positives outweigh the negatives. With more and more baby boomers retiring every day, we are seeing a significant increase in new arrivals lakeside. I hope they are considering the challenges I have discussed above; if not they face more than a little disappointment.
Over the past few weeks, I had the opportunity to complete some of those little administrative tasks with which we are all familiar, and which are just as important for an expat.
First, I had to renew my car’s registration. This proved fairly easy and cost only $500 MXP ($ 25 USD) since I got a 10% discount for paying right away. Such discounts are common in Mexico, including on things like speeding tickets and property taxes. One small complication with the process was that the Mexican government now demands you provide an RFC # when registering/renewing your car. RFC stands for Registro Federal de Contribuyentes. It is a way for the government to better track people for tax purposes; you need an RFC for most major transactions (buying/selling cars, houses, etc.). This is especially important in Mexico, where so much business is done “off the books” to avoid taxes. You can get an RFC number online through a fairly easy process; once you have it, it stays with you as long as you are a resident. I have one last administrative requirement for my automobile: sometime before April, I’ll need to take the car in for an emissions inspection.
Finally, I completed the transition from Residente Temporal to Residente Permanente. I paid a fee and filled out the documents attesting to my resident address and my retirement income. The last step was to get fingerprinted (again), and now I too (along with my dear wife) have an official green card issued by the Mexican government. What does it mean? I never have to update or renew my status–hence the term permanente. I use the “Mexicanos” lines when entering or leaving the country instead of using the “foreigners” lines. What else? I must pay taxes if I make any income in Mexico (which was always the case, but I won’t be making any income, so whatever). I am eligible for Mexican health care (Seguro Popular or IMSS), and I can apply for a Mexican capital gains tax exemption if I ever sell my casa. I can’t vote here, and I can no longer own a foreign-plated vehicle in Mexico. That’s the deal.
The biggest advantage with Resident Permanente is not having to renew your status or pay anything ever again. While the Mexican federal government sometimes changes the rules and charges for tourists and temporary residents, it leaves permanentes alone. Some expats go all the way to getting Mexican citizenship, but as far as I can see that only lets you vote. I’m sick enough of politics in my home country to not want to engage in it here!
Anybody who has known me for even a short time knows I don’t like surprises. In fact, I really don’t like surprises. There is a reason I have never had a surprise party, and why I spent so much of my career doing strategic planning or scenarios exercises, all to eliminate or mitigate the effects of surprise.
Our LR mini-split sits serenely
So the past few weeks have been a lesson in patience as I deal with some surprises. The first came when we contracted to have two mini-split style air conditioning units installed in our casa: one in the living room, one in the bedroom. As I previously posted, the a/c is only necessary for a few weeks in May and June, but we figured why endure even that if it’s not necessary? The vendor came from Guadalajara; he told us it would take a little more than a day to complete. Today we are on day three, stretching over the weekend, because they ran out of cable on Friday, but that is no longer surprising after a year in Mexico. What was a surprise was late on day one, when I heard the vendor yelling “Señor, señor! El Agua!” I ran outside, where they were installing the condenser unit on top of my bodega. There was the youngest member of the team, valiantly sitting on top of the ledge and pushing with all his strength on a power drill, while water gushed straight up at him from the water pipe he had just drilled through.
Picture a young man kneeling on that ledge…The blue pipe was agua
Did I mention it was a power drill? As in an electrical device, still plugged in? Surrounded by gushing water? Visions of lawsuits danced in my head, but then I remembered this is Mexico, and a lawyer is not the first resort in every case. We got the young man and the drill out of harm’s way, then went to turn off the water. Now I had been told that the water shutoff was built into the carport floor, clearly marked agua. But when we opened it, (surprise!) there was a customized handle which we did not have the right key to turn off the water. It seems this is a municipal shut-off, not my home water shut-off. The water kept pouring out, luckily only in my carport and down the drain. We went searching for someone who might know where the shut-off was, and finally found the community groundskeeper, who calmly walked up to my exterior wall hedge, reached in, and turned off the water. Of course!
Not this one!This one!
I never would have imagined a water line in the roof of my bodega (or a shut-off valve in my hedge), but it turns out that was where the builders ran the line to get water to my rooftop mirador. When all your utility lines are built into a stucco and brick structure, you can’t just tap on the wall or use a stud finder to see what’s underneath. So the vendor just drilled and hoped for the best; it worked well on the other three holes they drilled. We had a plumber come out and cap the line (for the moment). As I was typing this, the vendor just came to tell me my fuze box is configured differently than he expected, so now we have an electrician coming to address that. I am betting on day four.
Meanwhile, we are preparing for a possible visit back to the States to see our kids and grandkids. I say possible because while I have airline tickets, I don’t yet have authorization from the Mexican government to leave. See I was on a one year temporary visa, set to expire February 1st, but I wanted to apply for a permanent resident visa (same as my dear wife already has). I knew we were planning a January visit, so I started the paperwork early in September: thus I would have my Permanente all done well beforehand. When we hit early December with no final status, I knew I was in trouble: Mexico goes on holiday from early December through January 6th, and I was flying January 11th!
Luckily, the Mexican government faces this issue all the time, so they have a procedure set up for gringos to apply for a special exception which lets us leave the country (and return) while we are still in process for our visa. I started my paper work the second week of December, and it usually take a week to complete, but I ran into the same holiday problem: no one at work to process my exception. Now, someone in my situation can always just get up and go and ignore the paperwork; no one is keeping me here. But if I leave without a visa or an exception, my status upon returning to Mexico is Tourist and I get to start the process all over again!
Final Update: sorry to those who saw this post earlier this week, before I finished it. I thought I was previewing it for editing, and I hit the publish button instead. So, the air conditioning team did finish on day three, despite my prediction. And today I got my special exception permit, so I can legally leave and return. I said many prayers this past week for patience, trusting it would all work out, and it did. I still have a lot of room to grow in terms of patience, but then again, can you ever have too much?
Closing out the series on utilities, let’s talk television, telephone, and internet.
First, you have to understand that every country has rules and regulations (i.e., laws) on who can broadcast what within their borders. These rules go back to the dawn of the broadcast radio era, then were broadened and reinforced when television was invented. Cable television was a challenge to these rules, but could be accomodated. Satellite and streaming blow the national rules apart. So while it may be illegal for a US firm to broadcast its signals into Mexico, it is not your fault if you receive them. And if someone else receives a signal and resells it to you, they may be liable, but you probably are not. Perfectly clear? No, of course not, but this is useful background to understand the details I will cover now.
In Mexico, you can sign up for Mexican cable and satellite services as well as receive signals over-the-air. What you will get are channels in packages designed for the Mexican mass market, with some English language channels thrown in. If that does not satisfy your needs, you can buy a satellite dish from a US or Canadian provider and install it in Mexico; there are experts here waiting to assist you. The service provider is not supposed to provide service in Mexico, but they cannot control where you pick up their signal. If you let them know you are in Mexico, they will cancel your service, but if you don’t, you just pay them as you would if your home was in Toronto or Tampa. Sometimes the geography can pose complications. I hear that Shaw (a major Canadian satellite provider) is switching to a new satellite which is difficult to target from Mexico. Likewise, some packages available in the States may not be available in Mexico (I still don’t know exactly why). You can get a basic channel package for less than $100 dollars a month, which gets you the major networks, sports, and entertainment channels.
If you have a decent internet connection, you can watch television with devices such as Roku, Amazon Firestick, or Kodi, etc. These are vehicles to access content on the internet, which may require additional costs for the actual service provider (think Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, etc.). In some cases you just buy these services, but in some cases those pesky national laws interfere and you need a IP masker which fools the internet into thinking you are in whatever country you choose. Some enterprising individuals will also sell unlimited pay services which they are accessing and retransmitting. These deals are usually “too good to be true” in that they are violations of the copy- and broadcast-rights of the original service provider. Service providers and access devices makers work together to shut down such pirate resellers, resulting in spotty service. Costs for streaming are very a la carte, meaning prices are all over the map and depend on what level of quality and access you desire.
Speaking of the interwebs, rural Mexico is where the US was 10 years ago. The main provider is TelMex, the phone system, in competition with Mexican cable providers like IZZI and Telecable. Most access is shared, meaning high-usage periods result in slow service, which is generally neither particularly high-speed nor consistent. We have 10 MBs download with about .5 MB upload via TelMex, sufficient to watch TV/streaming. There is a high-speed, fiber-optic cable system considering running direct service to our area this year, which would be a significant leap forward (say 50-75 MBs in a basic package). Some satellite internet service is available, but very expensive. Despite this, many expats who work on the internet find ways to obtain sufficient bandwidth to work from lakeside.
The phone system in Mexico was only deregulated recently, so change is underway. Previously Telmex was a subsidiary (and a near monopoly) under América Móvil, which belongs to Carlos Slim; depending on his holdings and the value of the Peso, he is either the richest or one of the richest people on the planet on any given day. A basic landline or simple cell plan is very cheap, and often includes free calls to the US. Some expats keep their US cell plans, although if you use all your data continuously outside the States, they might cancel on you. Many expats use free or low-cost VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) systems such as Vonage or MagicJack. Different from the States, many Mexicans use WhatsApp, an asynchronous messaging application which permits voice, text, photo or video sharing either over cell data or wifi.
Phew! That is a lot to digest, and more importantly, it is changing all the time, so consider this a snapshot at best. The short version is: like most things, basic communications service in Mexico is inexpensive. As an expat, you can access most anything communications-wise you want to in Mexico, but it may not be easy or cheap.
property. Street dogs are common, lazing alongside the roads, many limping from a close encounter of the vehicular kind. Seeing a dog’s body in the road is not at all unusual. As long as a dog performs a useful task, they are given some minimal shelter and food; if they dont, they are set loose. Local governments wait until they get complaints about dog packs, then they set out poison to eliminate the problem. As a lifelong dog owner, it is heartbreaking, but I also realize many Mexicans do not have the resources to spend on pets as luxury items. If sad dog stories are too much for you, you’ll need to toughen up to be an expat.
