More catch up

Another more recent note from Word. Until yesterday evening we had been without internet and Vonage for 6 days. We had the local phone, fortunately, so we didn't feel completely cut off, but we had begun to think we'd never have access again. We'll see how long it lasts.


Thursday, June 07, 2007

I’m going to try not to make this a screed about Telmex. I’m typing off-line and will copy to the blog when we get re-connected. Bob has gone to Telmex once again. We’ve now been without DSL for about a week—with one day’s access in the middle. Unfortunately, we’ve spent every day this week at home waiting for a technician. Each day they’ve called us and promised us someone will be here very soon. Doesn’t happen.. And this is not exactly the way we planned to spend our time. But we’re really at their mercy.

Well, Bob just got back. Must not have been a long line for waiting at Telmex. They agree: it’s shocking that we’re without service for so long! Someone will come soon. The phone just rang: “Problemas con la linea?” “Si, no hay DSL.” “Ok, Vamos a checkar (I think that’s the word he used.)” “Cuando?” “Ahora.” Ok. We’ll see.

Interruptions. I’m sitting on the covered ground floor terrace which is where we spend 99.9% of our time when we’re not sleeping. The house is on a corner so the small courtyard is hidden from the street by a lower stone wall, then an iron fence covered with blooming bougainvillea vines. But along the side of the house, there are pots of plants and the iron fence is open to the street. So every time a neighbor walks by, the dogs go rushing to bark at them, we go to hush them, and then we have a conversation. The last was our neighbor Ellie with her little poodly mutt Chico. We borrowed the dvds for Lost from her but we couldn’t finish them because either the dvds were bad or the player or something.

Weather: It’s very cool and pleasant this morning. In fact, the last couple of mornings, I’ve sat out here with a light jacket until after noon. The sky is a brilliant blue and there’s a very light breeze. Birds are singing and there are butterflies and moths in the garden. We’ve never seen hummingbirds swarming so thick or so big. They even perch on the telephone or electric wires like real normal-sized birds. There are swallows that fly under the tile roof on the terrace. We think they’re looking to build a nest. Lots of colorful birds that we don’t recognize, too. We finally had rain. One afternoon there was a shower that lasted for about 20 minutes—not a downpour, just a steady rain. Then, the next evening just as we were getting ready for bed, there was an honest-to-goodness thunderstorm with lots of thunder and flashes of lightning. This time there was a downpour. So, I think that means the rainy season has officially begun. I keep checking but the hills haven’t turned green yet. Meanwhile, the streets are still dusty and almost every morning we wake up to the smell of burning underbrush. It’s still hazy, too, without a clear unimpeded view across the lake.

Our house and neighborhood: Our house is very comfortable by any standards. The first floor has a U-shaped kitchen with tile countertops and backsplash, window over the stainless steel double sink, gas range and oven, full-sized refrigerator. No ice-maker or dishwasher. The whole neighborhood allegedly has pure water that you can drink from the taps. There’s also a UV purification system under the kitchen sink. In addition to that, we have several garafones (humongous water bottles on stands). Some people just drink from the tap and don’t worry about it; others—even oldtimers—still say they’ll stick with bottled drinking water just the same. So we brush our teeth and bathe in the tap water, use bottled water for drinking and for ice and the dogs’ bowls. We use the kitchen tap for coffee, cooking, and so on. We soak the raw fruits and veggies in a solution of water and purification drops. I’m taking some of these drops back to the US. I wish I’d had them last year when we had the spinach and romaine e.coli outbreaks. There’s no flavor from the drops. Anything you cook hot enough you don’t have to soak anyway. The kitchen is well-equipped with most everything except—would you believe—no measuring cups and spoons. And I haven’t been able to find them. It’s a mystery. But a friend had an extra set and gave them to me as a house-warming gift!

The first floor has a breakfast area overlooking the terrace with a glass-topped table and four chairs. Except for a pantry area in the middle, the whole living area is open to the kitchen. Good-sized living room with sofa, love seat, and chair; nice rustic cabinet with the TV and related stuff. That also is adjacent to the terrace. Behind the sofa are a huge round marble table and several chairs kind of squeezed in there and a corner fireplace. We’re not really sure why a house this size needs two tables inside as well as one on each terrace. The guest bedroom is off the entrance—queen bed, skylight, separate bath just redone with new tile, sink, and bathtub, and more skylights. (Note about skylights: Because so many houses have common walls with other houses, some of the interior rooms can be quite dark, so if there are no rooms built above, the skylights provide lots of light in rooms that would otherwise have none.) There’s also a new half-bath off the entrance but we never use it.

Upstairs is a huge master bedroom with a king-sized bed and built-in closets with mirrored doors. There’s also a desk tucked away in a corner. Sliding doors all along the south side of the bedroom open to the upstairs terrace which has a view of the lake. We’ve only sat out there a few times—couple of mornings and evenings. It’s not covered so it’s too hot during the day. Another full bath upstairs (shower, no tub), huge linen closet.

The floors throughout the house are terracotta Mexican tiles—inside and out. There are screens on all the windows, but during the day we leave the screens open. Every room and the first floor terrace have ceiling fans. All the doors and windows are framed and criss-crossed with decorative iron designs. This, obviously, is for security and many people object to how they look, but this is Mexico and the ironwork is a reality. Doesn’t bother me.

Outside we have the terraces. The lower one wraps around the side of the house where it’s open to the street. In the corner, there’s a step down to a curved stone patio with flowers planted along the edges. There’s no grass, and it’s quite small—just a little courtyard really. There’s a gas grill which we haven’t used yet and lots of plants in pots—big and small.

Gardener and maid: Javier the gardener comes very early in the morning several times a week to water all the plants and do whatever tweaking he does to anything else. We rarely see him. We call him Javier the Invisible. The only way we know he’s been here is by the puddles of water underneath all the pots. He comes with the house and is paid by the owner. Ramona is a very pleasant young 20-something who comes once a week to clean the house. She was recommended by the owner but we pay her. She works for about 5-6 hours on Thursday at the rate of 30 pesos/hour. That’s a little less than $3/hour and is over the Mexican minimum wage. There are very strict labor laws in Mexico. Even part-time employees are entitled to so many paid holidays a year, and if you let someone go, you have to pay severance pay. Ramona is studying English with a private tutor but I think she’s still a beginner. We speak in Spanish except for the Good-morning-how-are-you-Fine-thank-you greeting. And every now and then she asks me how to say something. (Just now, she asked how to say “arriba” in English, pointing to the upstairs. She wanted to tell me that the upstairs is done.) She’s so thorough. She even mops the outdoor terraces. I do the laundry though. On the other side of the garage there’s a laundry area with a washer and a dryer. The dryer is gas-powered and takes sooooo long. Things dry so fast here I wouldn’t mind hanging things out to dry, but there’s really no place to do it.

Neighborhood: We live in the fraccionamiento (that word has so many syllables!) called Villa Nova which is about 1 mile from the heart of the village of Ajijic, on the north side of the carretera. Everything here is either referred to as lakeside (south of the carr.) or mountain side (north of carr.). You turn into a boulevard with an arch above the entrance. There is a little gatehouse and an arm that could sort of block the entrance, but the arm is always up and there’s never anybody in the gatehouse. Besides that, there are various ways into the frac., so it could never be a true gated community. It’s just a neighborhood. The streets, like all the streets except the carretera, are cobblestone—and we’re talking BIG cobbles. Although there are a few who will always challenge the limits, it’s next to impossible to go any more than 15-20 mph without shaking yourself and vehicle into pieces. Our house is about three blocks north of the carr. So we hear some noise from the highway, especially when a big semi goes by, picking up speed with his big blaaatt exhaust, but we can’t see the carr. from here. The houses are mostly what we would consider middle class, nicely-built and attended to. But some go well beyond that—estates that cover a block. The inhabitants are a mix of gringo and Mexican. Many people are gone now—snowbirds who go back to Canada or wherever. Many of the Mexicans use their homes here around the lake as weekend getaways from Guadalajara or other places. This past weekend, a house across the street from us appeared to have weekend guests for the first time. We could hear the children playing in the pool and people were coming and going. Because all the houses are surrounded by high walls in almost all of the neighborhoods, especially the village itself, you can’t see what the houses or gardens look like unless you catch a glimpse when the door in the wall is open. We met some new neighbors who are moving in soon. The couple are both lawyers from Guadalajara who have worked in the lakeside area for ten years with the cooperatives. Marcos speaks impeccable English, Ana Rosa none, but she speaks several other languages. They have two small children. The streets climb up the mountain becoming quite steep the higher you go. Of course, the higher up you are, the better the view. We’ve met several of our gringo neighbors when we’re walking the dogs. Everyone is very friendly—instant friendships, in fact. We walk the dogs mostly off-leash as the streets are very quiet and nobody can speed. When a car comes, we just pull the dogs over to the sidewalk. There’s a vacant lot a few houses down the street that both dogs have taken great interest in. And everybody has dogs.

We have garbage pickup at least three times a week, sometimes more often. We just put the bags on the curb and the truck comes along and picks them up. Nobody seems to have big trashcans, just bags. Every few days, a truck goes by selling propane gas to refill the tanks. They roll by with a speaker that plays a two-tone signal, then a voice that calls, “Gaazzzz,” several times. They refill the big tank that everyone has for cooking, hot water, and dryer. Not so often, the water truck comes by to trade out the big garafones. You put the empties out by the street and they pick them up and bring in the new ones. They’re about $2 for refills, I think. Every afternoon there’s a little pickup with a cover that comes along playing tinkling little melodies that sound like an ice cream vendor. But he has no signs of what he’s selling. One of these days, we’ll stop him and find out.