10) Winter, what winter? You mean those two weeks when it was cloudy and I had to wear a light sweater...oh, I think I sneezed and I missed it.
9) Everything tastes better with chile and limon on it! Thank goodness because everything, I mean everything, comes in those flavors...there's no such thing as plain cheetohs even, Mexican cheetohs have their obligatory orange powdered cheese and then they are coated in a layer of chile powder for a nice little kick. They even put chile on fruit...mangos con chile, limon, y sal, oh my goodness, words can not even describe how that is just the most perfect snack ever...sweet, salty, spicy, and either crunchy (the green mango variety) or soft and juicy (during the summer months).
8) I can keep putting off being an adult because I can afford to pay people to be my "mom" while at the same time helping support my neighbors and local economy, so it's WIN/WIN...when I don't want to cook, Dona Socorrito's cocina economica across the street will cook me up a full home-cooked meal for 30 pesos (less than $3), the guy 3 houses down across the street has washing machines in the front room of his house and will wash, dry, and fold all my laundry for 80 pesos (less than $7), and my landlord's wife encouraged me to hire this sweet woman named Angela who will clean my house (including straigtening my closet and making my bed, god bless her) for 100 pesos, which is what she asked for, but I always give her at least 150-200 pesos because I just appreciate her too much to pay her less than $10 for all that work.
7) You don't have to rush anywhere because as long as you arrive within an hour and half to two hours of your agreed upon time, you're still on time. I affectionately refer to this as Mexican-Standard time.
6) I have a better tan than many of my Mexican friends because I still enjoy the sun whereas they've had this endless summer their whole lives, so it's totally old news to them and the air-conditioned indoors is more appealing. Plus the beach is just 30 minutes away, what excuse do I have not to have a tan?!
5) Sleeping in a "hamaca" (or hammock) is like being back in the womb, so comfy!
4) Beer is cheaper than water...if I liked beer more this would be closer to #1, but when I am in the mood for a nice cold one, it sure is nice to know the coins in the bottom of your pocket will foot the bill.
3) Mexicans love their two-for-one promotions. And since two is always better than one, this makes my best of list.
2) Someone always knows someone...you need a mechanic, someone's uncle is a mechanic, you need a dress dry cleaned, someone's brother owns a dry cleaner, you need a recipe for mole, everyone's mother has the "best mole recipe ever".
1) Healthcare is affordable and accessible to everyone. There are quick walk-in clinics where someone can see a real doctor for 30 pesos (less than $3) for common ailments, and even the full cost to see a specialist usually runs you only about the cost of a standard insurance co-pay in the US. As an American fully in favor of Obama's healthcare reform efforts, I find the Mexican healthcare system refreshing!
And now the worst...
10) Topes! Mexicans love to keep drivers cautious and on their toes by putting speedbumps called "topes" it seems like every other block within in their cities and small towns. And while they generally have a sign alerting you that there is one approaching and a sign designating their location, occasionally there will be an unmarked one and your car's shocks and your neck will want to kill you after you drive over that unmarked one too quickly because you didn't see it fast enough.
9) There are no standardized street-labeling systems that are city-wide. Most cities, like Merida, developed out of small villages that expanded and ended up joining together into larger cities. You can literally be driving on a street that is labeled Calle 117 on the left-hand side of the road and 49 on the right-hand side of the road and that same street will change to Calle 102 without any notice or turning and then back to 117 again a few minutes later. Giving directions is next to impossible.
8) While Mexican standard-time was on my best of list, I have to put it on my worst of list too because while I have free reign to be late where ever I'm going, so does everyone else, so it means that no one ever shows up on time including service people. I had to wait almost a full week for someone to come install my cable, and I'm told that's pretty standard. My landlord actually had to hire a guy to sit and wait for this supposed cable-installation guy all week on the off-chance that he might show up sometime between 9am and 5pm Monday through Friday.
7) Seemingly exotic sounding ailments like Dengue Fever are common-place; 3 people in my office got Dengue within a month of each other. Before living here, I'd never met one person who'd gotten it. The symptoms didn't sound pleasant at all (high fever, chills, body aches, etc.) and I thanked my lucky stars that I didn't get it.
6) Bugs...this item has two subsections, starting first with the small variety (aka MOSQUITOS, MOSQUITOS, MOSQUITOS!!). I have been the victim of numerous mosquito attacks, even in my own apartment here, and I hate, HATE, itching. I have no self-control against scratching. It took me 2 months to figure out they were getting in through my shower drain so I was being bitten all night long. I spent a small fortune on any insect spray that said "Rapido, se ven morir!" on the can, meaning, "It works so fast you can see them DIE!" I finally fixed this problem by putting a plastic dinner plate over the drain...but someone how a few little buggers still keep getting in.
Now, moving on to the large bug variety, let's discuss how a scorpion showed up in my house one day a few weeks ago. This did not make me very happy. I called my landlord like a scared child and screeched and hopped on top of a chair as he shooed it out of my house with a broom as his wife laughed at me by his side. They told me "oh, it's just an alacran, it won't kill you." That was supposed to make me feel better. I promptly googled alacran and found out that's just the name of the local SCORPION, and while the internet confirmed that the Yucatan variety would not in fact kill me, it's sting still would have made my tongue go numb and it would have hurt like a MOTHER! I feel justified in my distaste in its presence in the same edifice that I sleep in, NOT OK. period.5) Everything is handled in cash and hand-written receipts. Let me just tell you, buying a used car was quite the ordeal. I've never showed up with a plastic sandwhich baggie filled with money before for any purchase, but $3000 works out to 45000 Pesos, and that was a lot of bills. Took me 3 days to pull that much out of various ATMs because the ATMs all had 5000 peso limits. The hand-written note that I received confirming my purchase didn't make me feel all that secure either, but hey, my rent is paid every month in cash too and I get a nice little hand-written note from my landlord's wife confirming that payment. I'll never feel 100% comfortable with this way of doing business, but I'm dealing.
4) Humidity. I have never acclimated to humidity no matter how much I experienced growing up in Maryland when there were times that if felt like a "pea soup" we used to say back in the good ole MD. It can be close to 100% humidity here in the Yucatan, and let's just say for a girl who sweats for all the people on earth who don't sweat, that humidity factor isn't the most pleasant thing.
3) Machismo. Enough said...I think, it's just stupid. Men need to get over themselves and let a woman be independent without feeling threatened.
2) Drinking and driving...this is very prevalent here and it makes me sad. No matter where you are, getting behind the wheel after consuming alcohol is just not safe and it risks lives. And no one is going to convince me that it's ok because its a cultural norm.
1) Money not being safe in Mexican banks. This is on behalf of a few of my Mexican friends who experienced fraudulent transactions on their debit cards and their banks basically saying "tough tooties" and claiming there was no evidence that they didn't make the charges (even though the charges were "international" and they had passport records that they were in the country at the time of the transactions) and thus refused over and over again to reimburse them. My two friends were lucky because the head of our office was able to negotiate reimbursement for them because he was using the same bank for some business needs and he was able to ask that they be reimbursed as a pre-cursor to using that bank. The whole process took close to 5 months for them to get their money back and while their story worked out happily there are several other people in our office who said this happened to them and they NEVER got their money back. So this makes my #1 worst thing about living in Mexico because everyone deserves to feel their money is safe no matter where they live!
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