Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Ready?

I've been thinking of my life in Mexico more and more as these past two weeks have gone on. At first I didn't think about it at all. I was busy living my life here. My life there was on hold, in another dimension.

But lately I've been thinking about what my life is back there. I think about spending time in our one room, about not being able to have those everyday conversations, about just existing in the small town. I've thought about Laura and baby Luis, Cynthia, Mario, and Luis.

It's been nice not having to think about all them for a while. It's not a reflection on the people there. It is a reflection on me. It's exhausting living in a foreign country. And getting a break from that is good every once in a while.

But my mind is wandering back there. Preparing myself, I guess.

Wrap it up

Today is Tuesday, and my time here is winding down. I suddenly feel like I'm under the gun to get stuff done. I've gotten most things done, but there are a few outstanding tasks. The biggest at this point is to get some debris out of our back yard. I had seen a pile of wood in the yard one of the first days I was here and asked Amy if it was stuff we had left behind when we remodelled the kitchen, or if it was stuff Nathan had brought home from his construction job. Turns out it is mostly stuff we left behind. I feel a bit bad since it has been in the yard for 6 months, but Nathan and Amy don't seem to mind. But now I need to get the stuff out of there in 4 days.

I have a call into our garbage company to see if I can get a drop box, but I'm not sure if they can make that quick a turn around. Luckily Nathan is going to be staying in the house for an extra week. Jillian (my new renter) has some leeway in her current lease, so she is fine with him staying. So that might give me some extra time to get those things out with Nathan's help.

Nathan and Amy have been some of the best renters I could have ever been blessed with. They are so low key and understanding of my situation. When they moved in, Luis and I were in such a rush to get to Mexico that we left garbage in the backyard, couldn't take the time to troubleshoot why the dishwasher wouldn't work (turns out it was a poorly wired outlet!), and left a bunch of furniture and various things in the house. Nathan and Amy said they would be happy to use the furniture and didn't mind cleaning up after us. While I've been here they have been so accomodating. They even let me borrow their car to go out to Home Depot and Target one day. Apparently I've been living at the foot of the cross (as my friend Cindy would say), and deserve great renters like them.

But alas, they are leaving. Otherwise I wouldn't be here.

And now I have to wrap things up. It's not that there are a lot of things left to do - I could probably take care of all of them in one day - but they are by necessity spread out over a few days. I have some spark plugs on order for Luis' motorcycle that won't be in until Wednesday. I have to exchange keys and checks with Jillian, but that won't happen until Thursday. I have to move our left-behind furniture to storage, but that won't happen until Thursday as well. Everything else is manageable in over one or two days.

So I need to just relax and not worry about getting it all done. Deep breaths, Laura..... Luckily for me it's another sunny day today. Most of the past week has been rainy and cold. So sun is a very welcome change.

1.40pm - Again, I'm living at the foot of the cross. Got a drop box to be delivered tomorrow, reserved a moving truck for Thursday, and I got myself out to and back from Beaverton!

Monday, May 29, 2006

Tuxpan Trivia

I was surfing around trying to Google some info on Tuxpan when I came across this link of photos of my adopted home town:
Tuxpan photos
So when I tell you I was walking around the Center in town, just imagine these photos. Except that last one.

I also found this photo of Subcomandante Marcos actually walking through the streets of Tuxpan:
Marcos
Alas, we were in the US when he visited.

In fact, to prove that I was in Portland, this link also came up on the search:
mmmm... brekkky

For those of you into geographic factiods:
Tuxpan coordinates: Lat: 19:30:11N (19.5031) Lon: 103:18:23W (-103.3063)
Tuxpan elevation: 4,131 ft/1,259 m
In 1990 the population was 25,895. So although Luis has told me there are about 50,000 people in the town, I seriously doubt it's doubled in population in 16 years - it's just not growing that fast. I'm guessing there are maybe 30,000 people there now. Small, small, small town!

And, last but not least, a representation of the town's crest. It translates to "City of the Eternal Party".

Saturday, May 27, 2006

Time Stands Still

I'm realizing on this trip that I have a perception of the world that needs some adjustment. I think it's because I'm staying at my mom's apartment. Here everything has a place, a semblance of order. Books are on the bookshelf, work papers are in the office, tools are all grouped together with like tools. And I think that is the way I think the world should be - ordered. This is the environment I grew up in. Not that our apartments when I was a kid were spotless and organized. But things had their places. There was a sense of order, of things belonging where they were.

Now, dating Luis and living in Mexico, I see things differently. For 39 years now I've been trying to instill order on my life. I've been trying to find the right spot for everything in my life. As if once things were in order, all would be well in my world, and things wouldn't change. Like I could find a spot in the world where I could live forever, in an unchanging environment.

But the only constant in the world is change. And like it or not, I need to learn how to appreciate change. Just because I am in the spot I am in today doesn't mean I will always be there. That applies to the good times as well as the bad times. So I should appreciate the good times when I have them, and learn from the bad times. All the time realizing that things will change, I will not remain static in the world.

And I need to learn to enjoy what I am going through at the time I'm going through it. So many times I have been in a situation that is good and all I can do is worry about when it will change and what will come after it. I can't control that, so there is no point in worrying. Besides, if I'm thinking about the future, I'm ignoring the present.

This is a hard lesson to put into practice.

I walked by a guy on the street the other day who just had the best energy. He seemed happy and interested in the world around him, and very open to whatever came his way. Maybe I was just projecting this onto him - I didn't talk to him, I just walked by him - but there are some people out there who just ooze whatever emotions they have in them. You all know people who can kill a good vibe just by walking into a room, and people who can lift your mood just by sitting next to you. This guy was one of those. I thought to myself, "why can't I be more like that?" I imagined what my face looked like at that moment - lips pursed, forehead furrowed in thought - and realized that I quite often have that look on my face. Granted, at the moment I was deep in thought, but I was thinking about stuff in the future, stuff I couldn't control. So I decided to work on keeping a smile on my face while I'm here.

My assignment for this next week: stop trying to force order on your life, enjoy what you are doing while you are doing it, and smile!

Friday, May 26, 2006

Girls are a girl's best friend

I miss my friends. The friends I have here in Portland are all married and/or pregnant, which is such a different lifestyle. And as for friends in Tuxpan - um, yeah, I don't have those there yet. I miss Charlotte, Anne, Angela, Cindy and April. They are my gal-pals, my posse, my soul mates. And we all live in different corners of the continent, even across the pond - San Diego, NYC, Los Angeles, Atlanta, London, and Mexico. So the best we can have is a long-distance phone call, and that is even difficult because it's international with me in Mexico. I think my next trip to the states will be to visit one of them. If any of you are reading this, email me and tell me when to visit you.

Feels Like Monday

I woke up in a crappy mood today. I'm not sure why. I've been very productive while I've been here in Portland. I rented our house, fixed a number of issues in the kitchen, got a Spanish language CD program (I have yet to actually start studying with it, however), returned a car part to Napa, saw my old boss, celebrated my birthday, run a ton of little errands, went out on the town one night, and eaten as much non-Mexican food as I can.

But something is off today. It's rainy, but that's normal for Portland. I'm not sleeping very well. I'm sleeping on the couch, which is very comfortable, but the sun seems to come up here earlier than it does in Tuxpan. Or maybe it's just that there are more windows here than in my room in Mexico. So I end up waking up earlier, and I seem to be staying up later. But I have sleeping problems in Tuxpan as well, so this is nothing new.

I think there are too many things brewing in my brain. Things tend to swim around in my brain for a while before I can actually make sense of them. Sometimes it helps to write about those things while they are still swimming around, but sometimes I just need to let them sit. While I was here in Portland, I wanted to spend a lot of time writing - in my journal and on this site - just to get things out of my head, but I've not written much so far. I'm not sure if I'm afraid of tackling some of the thoughts in my head or if they just need more time. Guess I'll try writing some and then just wait.

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

6 more months

My cousin Gavan posted the following in response to one of my earlier entries:

“I can only IMAGINE how you feel, being in a new country, immersing yourself in the culture, trying to adapt and fit in, while learning the language, the customs and the dynamics of your new family...you must be mentally exhausted! Give yourself a big pat on the back for sticking it out as long as you have! I think a lot of people would have bailed home a long time ago. It must be love ;^)...(or you must be crazy!!) lol...Seriously, think of this as a major cleansing of the soul...you are slowly peeling back layers upon layers of beliefs, perceptions of past experiences, expectations and ideologies, and replacing them with a new, stronger you. You don't see it now...but the fact you are still down there, and not running home to the creature comforts of American Life...already says so much about you.”

I appreciate hearing this. There have been so many times when I’ve wanted to run home, even gone so far as to plan how I would get myself and all my shit back up here. But I have stayed in Mexico, for reasons that I’m not always sure of. I don’t even know if I’m making the right choice by staying down there. Things could get better, or they could get worse. But I have just signed new renters to a 6 month lease on my house in Portland, so I am choosing to commit to another 6 months in Mexico at least.

Gavan was right, at the time she wrote this to me, I didn’t see what was happening with me, what was changing in me. Now I realize I am going through some huge changes, realizing things about myself, learning what is important to me and what I can do without. Unfortunately I’m deep in the thick of it right now. I’d rather be on the far side of it, or at least on the downward slope. But I feel like I’m still climbing up the hill.

I realize that I have a choice. I can leave Mexico, come home to “the creature comforts of American Life”, and resume life as I knew it before I headed south. But I know that the issues I’m dealing with by being down there will still remain unfinished, unresolved. I will have to face them again sometime in the future.

My other choice is to stay down in Mexico, knowing that I’m having a hard time adjusting, knowing that I feel lonely every day, knowing that it’s not going to be easy, knowing that it is the harder of the two choices. Thinking of this as being the choice I have already made, scares me. What am I doing to myself? It would be so much easier to stay here. Tear up the lease, move back into my house, find a job, get a roommate, find my comfort zone again. It seems so much more… easy.

But there is the spectre of the future, of having to deal with these same issues all over again. I don’t want to have to go back through all this shit just to return to the spot I’m in right now. So I have committed to 6 more months. I don’t know if it will tear me up or cure me of some life-long pain I’ve carried with me for years. I’m hoping for the latter, but there’s no way to know.

Only time will tell.

‘What does it take to change the essence of a man? Time.”

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Punk's not dead. It's not cheap, either.

Pioneer Square is a gathering place for the local punk kids. It's a perfect stage for them. People of all sorts gather there to watch other people, to meet up with friends, to just sit and enjoy the weather (when the weather is good). It's a wide open space where sound travels and people are easy to see. So any activity is public, hard to ignore.

I sat down to do what everyone else does - watch people - and ended up surrounded by the punk kids. In front of me were 15 teenagers, dressed to the nines in their best punk clothing. Of course, their idea of what punk clothing is, is nothing like what the true punks in the 70's wore:

http://www.phillipkerman.com/concerts/ (click on the links at the bottom of the page)

I mean, the most wild bit of clothing in these pictures is a pair of skinny suspenders. There are no bondage pants, no piercings, no multi-colored hair, not even a pair of torn fishnet stockings.

But the kids in front of me wore all of that and more. Tattoos, piercings, hairdos, torn clothing, patches hand sewn onto clothing depicting their favorite bands. I was impressed. None of them really looked like they were posers - the kind who buy their punk clothing at the local mall. None of them really looked like they had been into drugs too heavily. Their clothes were too clean, too varied. A real drug habit would have competed with their fashion habit. They weren't the homeless street punk kids, but they weren't fresh out of the suburbs either. Then again, those tattoos don't come cheap. The money had to come from somewhere and none of them looked like they were even old enough to hold a job, nor did they look or act like they were selling anything on the streets to keep themselves well clothed and tattooed.

But they had the attitude. They yelled at each other, calling each other out, gave each other shit, trying to one-up each other, to prove how cool they were, how little they cared if other people in the area stared at them or thought they were weird. Or rather, they did these things so that people would stare at them.

Later I saw some of the homeless punks. They were strung out or high, scruffy and dirty. Maybe they had started hanging out in Pioneer Square, slowly making their way to the streets. Maybe they had started out on the streets and adopted the punk clothing of those around them. Although I had a lot of disdain for the high school punks, at least they were still clean.

Androgynous Angel

I saw the most beautiful androgynous boy yesterday. I was sitting in Pioneer Square, watching people. He suddenly appeared, talking to a trio of older women, asking them if he could take their picture. He had a blond shag cut, tight t-shirt, tighter jeans. By the way he was charming the women I could tell he had a glowing personality. He was luminous. I was entranced.

I looked away for a moment, and he was gone.

Sunday, May 21, 2006

Reality Bites

I think I need to change my response to the question, “How do you like living in Mexico?”

I’m back in Portland (again) to rent out the house (again). My tenants’ situation has changed, so I’m here finding new tenants. Luckily for me, I’ve already found a good tenant, so now I’m here waiting for the end of the month so I can do the key and check exchange. I’m spending my spare time seeing friends. Inevitably the question comes up about my time in Mexico.

When I started this blog, I posted a lot of my fun stories up. I got a good response to them and figured that was what people wanted to hear about. No one ever wants to hear how hard living in a different culture is. They want to hear about the funny things that happen and the odd experiences. The bad experiences are ok as long as they are presented in a humorous way and end up with a good ending.

But reality isn’t like that. Or maybe I’m not the type of writer who can flip things around and see the funny side of everything. I’m not completely “the glass is half full” type, but sometimes I just need to bitch about things. I’ve been feeling like I’m glossing over the rough parts of my time in Mexico, so I decided to be more honest.

So when people have been asking me how my time in Mexico is, I tell them this: “I’d love to tell people that it’s so exciting, so cool, so great to be down there. But I just don’t lie that well. It is good, but it’s also difficult. There’s the language barrier to deal with and the small town attitude, both of which are no fun.”

But I’m starting to think that’s not what people want to hear. In their eyes I’m living a dream life – living in Mexico where it’s warm, cheap, and stress-free. Other people are living the American life – constantly working, dealing with early-Spring weather, paying too much for gasoline and everything else. I don’t think they want me to rain on their dream parade.

So I think I’ll be telling people this in the future: “Mexico is great! I’m learning Spanish and people are also learning how to speak to me – slowly and clearly. Living in a small town has its challenges, but I’m adjusting. And now we’re going to start building furniture so I’m going to be doing something I love again!”

Now, all of this is true, but it isn’t the whole truth. I think I’ll reserve the full truth for my blog.

Monday, May 08, 2006

Felipe’s Bar

When Luis and I started talking about giving up the bar, a lot of people told us otherwise. May is a good month because there is the annual Tuxpan Fair going on. And June is good too because that’s the month of the World Cup. You’ll have lots of people at the bar, we all believe that! You shouldn’t give up the bar! Laura said this, Felipe said this, Luis (Laura’s husband) said this. Cynthia, Sergio and Pati didn’t weigh in on the subject.

I wondered if they were right. Maybe we could make up the money we’d put into the bar. Maybe we could even come out ahead. But I’ve learned to take other people’s advice with a pound of salt here. Maybe they have ulterior motives. Maybe they want to see us lose more money. Besides, if we kept the bar, that would mean more over-priced rent, more time at the bar, more stress. That’s not the lifestyle we came here to live.

So the decision was made to drop the bar.

Then Felipe asked Luis if he thought Juan-Carlos would rent the bar to him and his dad. Luis told Felipe to ask Juan-Carlos, we wanted nothing to do with it.

This morning Felipe came to the house and told us that Juan-Carlos said he would rent the bar to Felipe. Great, replied Luis. But I know he doesn’t really feel that way, and I certainly don’t feel that way either. I hope he fails. I hope he fails big. Maybe that’s bitterness talking. Maybe it’s bitchiness. Maybe that’s unfair. Maybe that’s not being a good, loving human being. Maybe by putting these feelings out into the universe they will someday catch up with me. Maybe I will change my tune later. But that’s how I feel right now. Felipe helped screw us over with the bar, I hope karma catches up to him quickly.

Sunday, May 07, 2006

The Soup Nazi of Tuxpan

There is a restaurant on the entrance to the town which Luis has wanted to take me to for a long time. One night we were driving around, trying to decide which version of meat, cheese and tortillas we wanted for dinner that night (tostadas, tacos, quesadillas – they are all different versions of the same ingredients). Suddenly we thought “pozole”. Pozole is a wonderful soup made with hominy, pork, and cuero (skin). You can add cabbage, hot sauce, jalapeno peppers, lime juice to it to flavor it as you like. For gringas like me, you can even request it without the cuero. It’s kind of a Mexican version of Vietnamese Pho.

Luis said that restaurant had great pozole, so we should try them if they were open. We arrived and sat ourselves. They still had pozole, so we ordered two bowls. Luis started to tell our waitress what he wanted in his, but she cut him off and told him that the soup comes with everything included, regardless. Ok, that’s fine.

As we sat waiting for our pozole, other customers came in with buckets, hoping to buy pozole to take home. (It’s a common thing here to bring your own plates and containers when you go to buy food to go. Want a tostada? Where is your plate? Need some salsa with that? Where’s your Tupperware container?) Apparently we were the lucky last pozole eaters that night. Each customer who walked half way into the restaurant with a bucker was immediately told, “ya no hay” – there isn’t any left. And each customer who heard those words turned around with a disappointed look on their face and walked out to look for another source of food for dinner.

Not many people sell pozole in their restaurants here. I’m a little surprised, especially after seeing how many people were in search of it that one night. But apparently it’s a difficult thing to make, especially to make it well. And our current restaurant chef knew how to make a good pozole.

I commented on this and Luis told me, “the owner is an asshole. If you come in with an attitude, or if you annoy him in any way, he’ll kick you out and won’t serve you.” “Kind of like the Soup Nazi?” I asked. Luis laughed and said yes.

Someday we plan on bringing a tape of that Seinfeld episode in to the restaurant. We figure we’ll either have pozole for the rest of our lives, or we’ll hear those fateful words: “No pozole for you!”

Monday, May 01, 2006

Truth & Consequences

[Editor’s Note: The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author, and are based on her experiences in a specific small town in Mexico. They are not representative of the author’s feelings towards all of Mexico, or all Mexicans. They are not even representative of her feelings towards all people in the particular town in Mexico where she resides. Also, the author is not legally married to Luis, but as far as the town is concerned, she is his wife.]

It seems to me that there is a large lack of honesty in Tuxpan. When we first arrived, we had five waiters at the bar. They all seemed decent, although not all hard-workers. We eventually fired them due to bad attitudes and a lack of desire to do all the work we asked of them (cleaning the bar at the end of a shift or the beginning of one was apparently too much for them). Then the bar was robbed. And we found out at least one of them had assisted the perpetrator, although they had not actually broken in and stolen things with him. (We got our stolen property back, btw.) [Thieves.]

As time went by, Luis gave more and more responsibility for the bar over to Felipe. This was fine as he was family and therefore trusted. But when we returned from a month-long trip back to the states, we found out bills hadn’t been paid, we were low on liquor and we had no money at the bar. Felipe made himself scarce. It seemed we had been duped by our own nephew. [Scam artist.]

We took back control of the bar and I started to run numbers. Yes, this is something we should have been doing since day one. And to my credit, I had suggested this to Luis a few times. But the response was always, “we can do that later”. Unfortunately we didn’t have all the paperwork we needed – whole nights worth of tabs were missing, bills we had paid had no receipts. But the overall picture was pretty clear. Even with estimates of income and pay-outs we were running a losing business. Every other month we lost money. And the “good” months didn’t cover the bad. Maybe Felipe wasn’t to blame. [I take that “scam artist” comment back.]

Luis took a boy’s weekend to the coast with his friends, leaving me to run the bar. I started to ask questions. Marco, our bartender, who had worked at the bar previous to our administration, told me that rent in the past had been about $5000 ($500 USD), never more than $8000. We were paying $10,000. Felipe told me that the Corona distributor we bought beer from charged us higher prices because Juan-Carlos (the bar owner) had bought some equipment from them on credit. Part of our beer payment each month covered this expense for him. Now, not that it would have served Juan-Carlos to tell us either of these facts, but I certainly feel that he was on the far side of honest with us. In theory we are to get the difference in the beer tab back one way or another. But the rent is gone forever. [Rip off.]

Right before we returned from the states, the local police started to come by the bar around midnight (our official closing time) to make sure people left in a timely fashion. In the past we legally had to close our outside doors at midnight, but anyone who was in the bar at that time was free to stay until either they decided to leave or we decided to kick them out. And we tended to make a lot of money in the hours after midnight. So to have the cops showing up at closing time was a big dent in our money. [Shake down.]

Luis has a friend who is in charge of all the business permits for the town. The first time the cops came by when we were in town, he called this friend and asked for his help. The friend came by and said there was nothing he could do. The local PAN party (a political party) had come down on him and was asking him to shut everyone down earlier than normal. His hands were tied. So the cops continued to come by and shut us down around midnight. [Political games.]

One night Luis ended up talking with a few of them only to find out that the permit guy was actually the one who was making the call to shut everyone down. The political position he held was coming to an end soon and apparently he wanted to show his power somehow. But one of our nephews told me a week later that this rule wasn’t being enforced equally. One night he had come to our bar and then happened to drive by another bar around 1:30 in the morning. The other bar was still going strong, while we had been shut down an hour and a half earlier. [Unfair treatment.]

On one of our recent weekends we had a live band in from Guadalajara. One of our waitresses had arranged their visit, and part of the deal was that she was to get a cut of the cover charge. I’m not sure who made the deal (certainly not me), but somehow she was to get 80% of the door, the bar was to receive 20%. My niece Ana Laura had a friend who was to collect the cover charge at the door. I would have preferred a relative, but he was already set up at the door. I asked Ana Laura if he was an honest guy and she said she trusted him. At the end of the night, the total taken in at the door was $1600, about 110 people. That didn’t add up because the house was packed. But I had no proof that he had stolen money or had let people in for free. And he wasn’t family, so there was no pressure to put on him there. [Cashing in.]

Also that night we had a fresh stash of beer. At the end of the night we had 20 cases of empty beer bottles, roughly $6000 worth of beer. Great! But the tabs at the register only added up to $5500, and we had sold more than just beer. I ran the numbers and it seemed that we had some 90 bottles of beer unaccounted for. Either our waiters had given them away or had pocketed the money for them. [Thieves again.]

By this time I had lost all faith in the bar and our ability to make a profit. Partially this was due to our bad timing and Luis’ lack of desire to take full control. He felt that he was offering the bar to Felipe as a great opportunity to learn the business of running a business. I wonder if Felipe ever really wanted that much responsibility. The other part of our lack of success seemed to be those people around us. Juan-Carlos and the permit guy were making things difficult for us. Our waitstaff stole from us. I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone we dealt with was trying to screw us over one way or another.

And I started to look around me at the other people I interacted with. Luis had told me stories of his sisters taking advantage of each other. Sometimes it was business related, other times it was on a personal level. His three brothers have all taken advantage of their siblings. One sister, Felipe’s mom, also has a bad reputation in the family. So much for family values.

Mexican politics are notoriously corrupt. Luis suggested he run for mayor of Tuxpan just so he could get the large monthly salary. As his wife I would also get paid. Not that I would have to work for it. The fact that I was married to the mayor would be reason enough to pay me. Or Luis could become the head of the police, just for the asking. Why? Because he knows the right people. You scratch my back and I’ll fill your pockets with money. Right now a number of political positions are set to have elections and change hands. Lots of people in those positions are grabbing what they can while they can. Need a permit to set up your business on a busy main street? Pay the right amount and you can have it. Want to burn toxic chemicals next to the high school? For the right price, you can burn them in the high school. Tammany Hall has nothing on Mexican politics.

I considered how Luis and I must look to people from this small town. Rich, American people come to town to take advantage of the locals. I started to wonder if people were intentionally trying to fuck us up. Or was I just being paranoid? Luis told me that the people in Tuxpan will see someone rising up financially and will do their best to pull those people back down, even if they are a good friend or maybe even a relative. “How dare they try to better themselves?! Who do they think they are? Do they think they are better than us? Well, we’ll show them!”

What a fucked up attitude. But I didn’t put it beyond those around me.

So who do I trust? I trust Luis. I don’t trust anyone I do business with. Family members are also suspect. I mostly trust Cynthia and Sergio. I’m pretty sure Pati is on our side. Laura is highly questionable. Everyone else is the family is untrustworthy. Friends in town are probably looking out for themselves and won’t lose sleep if they fuck us over in the process.

I look around and wonder where this attitude comes from. Are we the same in the States? I’m sure there are bartenders and waiters who steal from their employers. But 90 bottles of beer in one night? I can’t imagine that happening. Or if it does, the bartender disappears and certainly won’t expect to have his job the next day. As far as politics - I trust our politicians about as much as I trust… well, politicians. But in general I think people in the States are more honest. There are more checks and balances in the system there. Sure, you can steal from your employer, but steal too much or too often and you will be penalized. Systems are in place to catch you.

Here in Mexico we don’t have the fancy registers that note every item sold. We don’t have security cameras that watch your every move. It’s so much easier to steal. And when your employer is a rich white American woman and her rich Mexican husband, what will they care, how much will they notice, how much does it really hurt them? You are poor, they are rich. You play Robin Hood. They won’t feel a thing.

Plus there is a built-in reason to steal – poverty. I don’t know how much the average Mexican wage makes, but it’s a lot less than the average American. Laura (Luis’ sister), for example, makes about $3000 pesos every two weeks. That’s $300 USD, or $600 USD per month. Just imagine trying to live on that in the States. Granted, there are things here that are just cheaper than they are in the states (our rent is $60 USD per month, and food is much cheaper), but most people here in Tuxpan are solidly on the poor end of the spectrum.

So in waltzes an American couple driving an expensive car, wearing nice clothes, spending money as if they have it to burn. And in a way they do. You get a job with them. You give away a few drinks here and there, you skim money off your tabs. They don’t notice (why would they?). You move into larger scams with them. What do they know? They won’t feel a thing.

I’ve become very bitter and untrusting of people here.

And the consequences of this is that we are giving up the bar. Mostly because we can’t make a profit. The people in this town are used to their lives as they’ve been led for years and years. They aren’t ready or willing or interested in trying new things. The bar is only 3 or 4 years old. It’s too new. And right now it’s being run by two Americans.

But we are partially giving up the bar because we are tired of trying to keep people honest, to deal with us fairly. We are easy marks, and I don’t think we were prepared for that.