Lost in Translation

Working in Mexico has been a challenge, mostly because I disagree with their discriminatory laws, 18-25 is the hiring bracket, they only want "solteros".  I was appalled when I was told by my Mexican friend that you have to put a picture, your marital status and your age on your resume, she said she only looks at the picture, if they are not attractive, the resume goes into the garbage right away!  I was 30 when I started to look for work in Mexico, so I had definitely missed the career train.  I even told one interviewer that I was getting married so that they would know I was stable and going to stay in Mexico, well his eyebrows went up and he said, "Oh no, we don't hire any married people here".  The thing is, most Mexican women stop working after they get married, very few will keep their jobs because their primary duty is to stay home and take care of the man.  

At another interview, the guy said to me, "I am going to be frank with you, because I want a really stable department and I don't want to go through hirings over and over, how long do you expect to stay with us?"  I told him that I was planning to get married, so I would be staying long term.  Then he asked me if I got married, would I stop working right away, I told him no, that it's not my culture to do that.  Then he asked me when I was planning to have kids.  I was really annoyed at these questions.  From that point on, I decided I was going to lie at every job interview and say I lived with my parents and that they are retired here and that I don't have a boyfriend!  I decided I would not get married until I had a job here, it's a real liability for anyone in a job search, if you're not 20-25, single and good-looking, forget it!  Even one newspaper ad for a waitress read: "Must be good-looking - Gordas (fat women) need not apply", and ads for live-in maids read: "una salida cada 15 dias" which means they would be allowed to leave the house every 15 days. 

I was afraid to even say my age because they would think, "She's 30 and too old, she probably will have kids soon".  In Mexico you get nowhere by being honest.  What ever happened to people being selected for their intelligence and ability to do the job and not focusing on their marital status?   I thought, If they don't give me the job, I am going to send him an email and give him a little shit, so I prepared an email about how married people have goals and dreams too and that we are intelligent people who work to be fulfilled and to challenge ourselves and that not all married women want to stay home and to think of that next time when considering hiring someone!  Of course as soon as I went to the office to type it out, sure enough there was an email from the HR manager offering me the job!  I couldn't believe it - I was in shock!  They offered me 10,000 pesos a month, medical and even vacation pay, which was a really good offer for a foreigner!  It was really so exciting that finally I was getting what I had hoped for - a full-time job in an international textile company!

In short, I hated it, I didn't like the operation of things - we were always short on the shirt orders or we sent the wrong shirts and I had to deal with angry customers from the USA.  The language barrier was tough, I didn't know how to talk about buttons, zippers, collars and different types of thread finishings in Spanish, and I would have to go to the production area and relay information from them back to the customer and sometimes I didn't understand and then I would ask over and over and finally pretend I understood the procedure as I didn't want them to think I was a total idiot.  I was worried I would relay the wrong info, misunderstand or something bad would happen.  I would promise the customers their order and then the production line would fail me, people were always quitting without notice and they had some serious communication problems with the production line.  

I also hated that in my contract my office hours were from 7:36 am to 5:36 pm but the production hours of the company were until 6:30pm so if you left before 6:30 pm you had to have a permission slip signed from your boss and they looked down on you if you left at your normal time.  But as a Canadian, I always showed up on time, was productive in my hours, and wanted to leave at 5:30!  The people I worked beside rarely left at 5:30, they would arrive at 8 or 8:30 am, putter around all day and stay until 6:30 or later.  I know some people might say I'm spoiled and what's one extra hour? But when you've already been there for 10 long hours, another hour seems like an eternity.  My friend told me, "Here in Mexico, if you leave on your time, people will think, 'oh that lazy girl, she won't move up in the company'".  I explained to her that in my corporate jobs in Canada, pencils were down and computers were off at 5pm sharp, no one stayed late.  She said no one will ever leave on time, they would rather doodle around at work and stay later than just be productive.  

I felt like I was in a prison - there was no escaping, security wouldn't let me out without a slip, and a lot of times my boss wasn't there to sign the slip, he was always in meetings.  If he was there and I asked him to sign, he would say to me, "You're leaving already, so early??!"  My second week there I was asked to sign a three month contract, I didn't go back!

Cockroaches Want to be Managers Too!

I decided after 4 years of travelling all over Mexico, learning Spanish, studying photography, taking dance classes, volunteering at orphanages, teaching English (anything to distract me from my life as an unhappy domestic goddess) that I wanted to work full time at an international company, get back to my roots as the career woman I was in Canada.  I had been living in Mexico on a tourist visa and flying home every six months.  I felt confident in my Spanish by then so it was time to search for jobs.  

Someone told me about a lead for a job at an international food company, but I lost the opportunity because they required someone who already had their papers, so I asked my fiancé to take me to the nearest immigration office.  Off we went, it was an hour's drive to another town, I was expecting a large office with lines and "take a number" type of place, much like our passport offices in Canada.  When we arrived, it was a tiny office with a glass door and one little metal desk in the middle of the room, I don't even think there was a phone on the desk, it was 9am and the door was still locked, all of a sudden a huge red cockroach came out behind the desk and my fiancé said to me, "Oh, here comes the manager", we had a good laugh!  

When the officer finally came out, he told me I needed an job offer letter from a company first before I could get approved for a working visa…so how was I going to do this if the company required a work visa first?  I tried every way possible to do it the honest way and nothing worked, I came home each time from the immigration office with frustration and in tears, finally my fiance's company gave me an offer letter to get the ball rolling, but still, it took another 3 months to get it approved.  One time I went and the officer was trying to pick me up, asking me if I wanted a Mexican boyfriend!?  I had to go back many times and face rejection, I would take everything they asked for, and they would tell me it had to be notarized or that I was missing something else that wasn't on the list.  I finally switched to another immigration office 2 hours away from my town, because they had more experience with foreigners and when they saw that I had each and every one of the 26 pages notarized, they said, "This isn't necessary", but they approved me the first time and then it took about one month to get my little green FM3 booklet/visa.  Now I was ready to start the job search...

A Word About Dating Mexican Men and Their Mothers...

Mexican men will maintain you financially but in this exchange, you must cook, clean, feed them, do their laundry and wait on them hand and foot like a servant (basically take the place of their mother) and you'd better know how to iron and starch, and cook his favorite meal of his mama - if you decide to go this route, you can hire a muchacha to help clean your house, do laundry and iron for a very reasonable fee, about 150 pesos a day.

When you marry a Mexican you really must be willing to marry his mother also as they will be attached to the hip and when you are with them, you will be the odd one out.  Mexican men are very attached to their mothers and will usually chose them over you.  Mother's Day is the most celebrated holiday in Mexico, if you are a mother, you do not work on that day.  People spend more money on flowers, gifts and restaurants on Mother's Day than any other holiday of the year.  But I do have to give thanks to those mamas, because Mexican men are raised to be very educated, polite and respectful. 

Mexican men can be possessive and jealous, but are also the most passionate, loving, touchy and caring people you will ever date, they will always pull the chair out for you at restaurants, or open doors for you, they will never let you pay for anything, and they will always act as your protector, traditional men will always walk on the outside of the sidewalk so that they are shielding you from any danger from cars, thieves, etc.  When I went on my first date with a Mexican to a restaurant, he went around the table to pull out the chair for me and me being Canadian, thought, Oh, I guess he wants to sit on this side, so I went around and sat down on the other side of the table, he was standing there, stunned, and said, "I was pulling the chair out for you", I explained to him that in my culture, men were pretty redneck and didn't do those sorts of gestures for women.  After that date, I told my Canadian friends, "Once you date a Mexican, you will never go back".

Most Mexicans live on "family money" that has been passed down to them over the generations, so it's very common to hear "family business" or "trust fund baby".

Traditional Mexican men usually have other families apart from their wives, it's sort of an accepted cultural thing.  

If you tell a Mexican man you have a boyfriend, he will still want to date you somehow, but if you tell him that you are married, he will respect that.

Most Mexican men will date a woman at least 10 years younger, don't even think of dating anyone your age!  It is not uncommon to see old, bald men with young trophy wives.

Beware of dating any Mexican over the age of 40, they are most likely married and just looking for a "mamacita".

Mexican men find it a challenge to be reliable and on time.  When a Mexican says they will arrive in one hour, you need to add 1 hour to whatever they say.  This goes for parties too, I learned this on my first invitation to a birthday party, I arrived at 8:00pm on the dot, the host greeted me at the door in her bathrobe and asked me why I showed up so early, then told me that you don't ever show up at the time they tell you, usually it's about one hour after.

Living in Mexico...For Dummies

My journey began in August of 2002, I left my corporate lifestyle, a great career, my beloved family, my home, my beautiful country Canada, packed up my little apartment and moved with the love of my life (and my collection of InStyle magazines, which I thought I couldn't live without) to his hometown, a little town in Central Mexico, where I would call home for the next 9 years.  Nothing here really worked out as I expected, but I've realized, most things don't, but sometimes what happens instead is the good stuff...

Initially I was overwhelmed, but gradually (after about four years!) I realized it's like a wave, resist and you will be knocked over, dive into it and you will swim out the other side!  Mexico was a completely new and different world, the challenge was to cope with it, and not just cope, but thrive.  It wasn't easy for an independent, career-oriented woman to adjust to the idea of being taken care of by a man and staying home to cook and clean.  Old habits died easier than I thought, and new ones formed.  I had to get used to the chaos that started at 7am, the noise, the heat, the language, the extreme cultural differences - Mexico has such an invasion on the senses, those who know the country well just go about their business, they don't complain much, but nothing could prepare MO and I for this chaos and we had some trouble in the beginning...

I have to mention my good friend and confidant, MO, from California, who without her input and hilarious stories, this blog would not have come to fruition.  I owe tribute to MO for coming up with the name for my blog, we originally wanted to write a book called Living in Mexico for Dummies, because as MO said, "You'd have to be a dummy to want to live in Mexico!"  We wished that someone had warned us how hard it was going to be.  MO and I were neighbours, expats living and struggling to survive in a third world country, trying to communicate with our broken Spanish and the many frustrations of dealing with the local doctors, plumbers, landlords, telephone companies, banks, immigration office, maids and fumigators.  We learned how to be frugal in Mexico, how to live on nothing, except love.  Well, I had love, MO had a series of creepy doctors who used to want to come to her house to check her blood pressure...


Survival Skills for Living in Mexico for Dummies


Must be willing to go without water for up to 3 days, as well as live without electricity, phone, and gas periodically.  If you call them and they can't find you, it's because they either are coming mañana or because your street address is "Calle 6 entré Avenida 20 y 25" and they are lost!

Must have extra patience when dealing with immigration offices, government offices like CFE, banks or any telephone company, Telmex or cell phone company.  Must be willing and prepared to bring original and copy of every document you own - birth certificate, passport, FM3 or FM2 immigration document, comprobante de domicilio.  If you have been standing in line for awhile and you finally get to the window/counter at 2:15 pm and they are about to close, they will not have empathy and they will tell you to come back - you guessed it - "mañana" to start the process all over again!  In smaller towns, most businesses close between 2 and 4 for lunch, banks close around 3:30 or 4:30 and government offices can close as early as 2:30 pm, immigration offices close at 1:00 pm.  

Everything is complicated in Mexico, they don't like to make things easy for people and customer service is lacking, except in restaurants, where they are usually very attentive and will be at your beck and call, I think it's because they get a wage of 65 pesos a day and work primarily for tips, other workers don't, they get a very low salary and that's it.  Many companies will have extra staff just to motion you through to the next person, passing you on but not really helping you in any way.  Nextel is a prime example of this, the front receptionist will sit behind a desk that has a sign saying "Customer Service Representative" but they won't actually do anything for you, except tell you that you need to go stand in the next line for a representative to help you with your problem, you go to that line and after waiting for a long time, they will tell you, "We can't do that at this sucursal, you have to call the 1-800 number to arrange that".  I'm not sure why they even employ people at Nextel sucursales, they have never actually been able to help me with anything.  Fabric stores are the same - there will be one salesperson to cut it, one person who folds it and sends it to the packaging area, one cashier to charge you, and then you have to take your paid receipt to the packaging area to pick it up where another person bags it for you.  Banks will have a lot of employees with their windows closed, managers don't jump in to help out when the lines get long.  When you line up at the local OXXO convenience stores there will be 2 or 3 cashiers but only one will be working.  OK my blood pressure just went up writing that.  

We don't pay bills online here or send cheques in the mail, we go and stand in line and pay in cash for electricity bills, cell phone bills, water bills, etc.  You can't send anything of value in the mail, it will get stolen.  Even MO sent me some dollar store dish cloths from USA and only half of them showed up!

Every police whether it be motorcycle or patrol pickup, will have a built-in whistle, and will use it periodically when they see a hot woman walking down the street.  My friends were visiting from Canada in the winter months and as Mexico's winter was still tanning weather to them, they went to the local park to suntan in their bikinis, they got a lot of rounds from the patrol cars with their built-in whistles and all the conservative locals in their sweaters and jackets just stared.  If you are going to smaller towns, the people dress very conservative and short-shorts are not appropriate.  Save your short-shorts for the beach.

Beware when asking for directions as Mexicans tend to think short distances are really far, and they are not accustomed to walk, once I was looking for a store and I asked a man on the street, "Is it close, can I walk there?", to which he replied, "Ooooh noooooo, señora, it's very far, you have to take a taxi", so I get into a taxi and it's only 4 blocks!  

Mexicans are famous for not having "no" in their vocabulary, they will usually say yes to any of your requests, regardless if they can help you or not, and then they will delay with as many "mañanas" as they can until they will just disappear or never call you back again.  You may periodically ask the produce workers in Soriana grocery store for something that isn't out on display, and while they may appear to want to help you, you may never see them again once they go behind those double-swinging doors.

If you go to a nightclub and want to have a table for the night, usually you have to purchase a bottle of tequila or rum and they will come with ice buckets and pop and serve your table drinks all night long, but don't worry, they let you take the bottle home with you if you don't finish it!

Mexicans don't call when they say they will, if you leave them a message, they will not get it, you must be active and keep calling if you want anything done in this country.

Must be willing to go without water pressure and/or hot water in the shower.

Must be willing to live with large flying cockroaches, mosquitoes, earwigs and scorpions year round.

This is actual scorpion found in my kitchen!  Que miedo!

Must like constant noise and be willing to be awakened early in the morning because the chaos starts at 7 am - water trucks, gas trucks blaring their signature song "servicio y calidad", bicycle street vendors with squeaky horns selling water, bread vendors who clap their hands, fruit vendors who call out "NARANJAS!", roosters in the city, frogs concert at night, or construction that can continue until 11 pm.  My neighbors recently acquired two roosters, and these roosters don't just crow once at the crack of dawn, they crow all day long, and I ask myself, "Who the heck has roosters living in the city?!"  Only in Mexico this would happen!

Don't ever go to the police for help, it's no good, they won't do anything and most likely are the bad guys.

It's useless to complain, Mexicans have no concept of Customer Service and won't care about what happened in their store, restaurant, bank, etc.

Mexican banks can hold your money and bank card for reasons like not having an updated FM3 immigration card.  This can be problematic as it takes one month to renew your immigration card.

Always carry a roll of toilet paper and anti-bacterial wipes while travelling in Mexico, many public restrooms, especially at gas stations, will not have toilet paper, nor toilet seat, nor soap and many times no water to flush or wash your hands.

Hair cuts for ladies seem to be a challenge to get good layers cut in your hair, but the right color or highlights seem to be easy for them to achieve here.  Get your haircuts done at home.

Moctezuma's Revenge (Traveller's Diarrhea) - how it got this name is because Moctezuma was an Aztec ruler who was killed in 1520 during the Spanish conquest of Mexico, so legend has it that for his revenge, any foreigner who travels to Mexico will get this awful diarrhea - this is an inevitable experience you must go through when you are in Mexico - avoid eating salads or any food sold from street vendors on carts, as soon as you land in Mexico, start eating yogurt right away, this will help get your digestive system used to the bacteria in Mexico.  I have had every sickness - Typhoid Fever, Salmonella and a lot of stomach infections, now I'm just waiting for the Dengue to hit me.  It is really true what they say, don't drink the water, drink the margaritas!

Bring books - it's hard to find books in English and there are no libraries here.  If you live in a city that has Sanborns, you can find some English books and magazines there, otherwise you will be out of luck.

There will be people that chase you down at Walmart, Mega or Soriana in the parking lot to help you with your groceries.  These people will literally take over your cart and start wiping down your windows or offer to wash your car while you shop.  Also, the people who bag your groceries are not employed by the grocery stores, so you can give them a tip if you wish.

Bring lots of your favorite toothpaste, deodorant, shampoo, conditioner, makeup from home.  What's in Mexico is crap and worse the water you have to wash with!! 

You can go into Mexicans' homes with your shoes on, they actually prefer it as most homes have tile flooring and they don't take their shoes off in the house.

"Te invito" - don't confuse this with "I'm inviting you out", in Mexico if you say this, it means the other person understands that you will pay everything for them.

"Ahorita regreso, ahorita te lo doy" - this translates into English as "I'll be back right away, I'll give this to you now" but in Spanish this can mean a broad space of time - can mean within one day but can extend to tomorrow or the next day.

Never trust the utility people that come around reading CFE meters.  One month it's cheap, the next month it's 800 pesos!  It's useless to fight this, I went on vacation for a month and came back to the highest bill ever, I wasted 2 hours of waiting in line to complain and to prove that I wasn't even there in the house, all they said was that it was maybe a "fuga" in my electricity meter, but that I would have to pay or they would cut it off.  There is a lot of corruption with this company where people can fix the meter so that someone else pays for their electricity.  I've since learned, just pay it, and save your frustration and time.  

Pedestrians don't have the right of way in Mexico - cars will speed up and run you down, even though we have a lot of speed bumps on every block!

Don't panic when you get in a taxi and there are no seatbelts, this is the norm in Mexico, some even have them cut out. 

There is a lot of corruption, but sometimes you can use it to your advantage, like when your new car doesn't pass verification (like AirCare), they hooked up my car to the exhaust pipe of an old rusted Bronco truck to get it to pass!

Everywhere you go, people will most likely try to rip you off as a foreigner, it's just the culture of Mexico, "El que no transa, no avanza".  Tell everyone when you're in Mexico that you are poor - "soy pobre" should be your two favorite words, yes always let them know you are a POOR person, they expect every foreigner to be rich and you will get ripped off every chance they get with you!!   If you get a car, buy a beat up old acid washed truck like my friend MO did, that makes you look like a poor rancher so that you blend in, that way no one will want to stop you and want to do a begging thing or act like a clown and do a juggle act for money at the stoplights!!!

Never dress up like the rich Mexicans do!!  Don't call attention to your status - leave your stilletos and fancy jewlery at home.

Never buy meat that looks like a porter house steak, I dont care how much you beat it up it will taste like the cow was eating paper bags!

Don't think that your recipes will turn out the same in Mexico - the flour is different and the altitude affects your recipes.  Also, the dials on the ovens here are just 1-2-3-4 so there is no way to tell what the temp. is!

Get used to seeing a lot of stray dogs around town, most of them are harmless.

Recycling programs don't exist here yet - they say that the garbage trucks separate the recycling from the garbage but I haven't seen it yet.

Stop getting stressed and frustrated living here, you were the "dummy" who decided to live here in the first place!!

Perks of Living in Mexico for Dummies


The weather - 365 days of sun!

You can live relatively cheap here and have a great lifestyle working part-time, have a maid, have a better quality of life, take more siestas.

You will be surrounded by the happiest, most joyful and hospitable people you will ever know in your life.

It's a very social, spontaneous place, you can do the "pop-in" without your friends having to "pencil you in", people live to play, not live to work, they enjoy life!

Life is just more simple, people look you in the eye and say "Buenos dias, how's your day?"  They are not consumed by the latest gadget or Iphone, or tuned out on their headphones, they are present and take time to really acknowledge your presence and smile and say hello, I love the warmth and friendliness of the people.

It's not materialistic, most people don't spend their whole weekends at the shopping malls or in front of the TV, the great weather ensures that you will always want to be outside.

The food is pretty fabulous, especially the chicken, it's very tender and flavorful here, ceviche, tacos, tamales, chile rellenos, mole, hand-made tortillas made from blue corn, and all the exotic fruit that we don't get at home - tuna (cactus pear), dragon fruit, jicama, strawberry-papaya.  When I first moved here the hottest thing I could eat was pepperoni, now I love all kinds of chile and salsas.

You can go to the pharmacy and purchase a lot of drugs that you would normally need a prescription for at home - Retin A cream and Benzoyl Peroxide is very cheap, 1/4 of the price of what you pay at home, sometimes you can just tell them your symptoms and they will give you a remedy.  Until 2009, you didn't need a prescription for antibiotics, now you do, but I know a friend who just took the name of the antibiotic written on a sticky-note and held her belly and they gave it to her!

Buses and colectivos (small white vans that go between towns) will stop and pick you up and drop you off wherever you wish, official bus stops don't really exist here.  You just need to yell "baja" when you want to get off.  It only costs me 30 pesos to get to work and back per day, in Canada I would pay triple that for a bus fare.

Taxis are available on every corner and pass by every 2 minutes, usually they are reasonable, but make sure to negotiate the price before getting in, I've been kicked out of a few taxis halfway home for not agreeing to their crazy high fare, I must have looked like I was a tourist (LOL).  You may want to close your eyes though, as many drive very crazy.  But to be honest, I have rarely seen them crash.

Bus transportation between cities is cheap, efficient and more comfortable than an airplane, if you choose ETN, ADO or Primera Plus, you can expect a good service, A/C, movies, on time and wide reclining seats - it's like First Class, as some even have wi-fi nowadays - they will even give you a small bagged lunch with a sandwich, water and a cookie.  Some have direct service from the airports to the town you are going to, but if you decide to go on a budget with a cheaper busline or between small towns, these buses can be more challenging without A/C, and there may be chickens, musicians and other crazy things in the back of the bus.  One time I was travelling with a friend between my town and another small town and the bus had standing room only, there was an 18 litre "garrafon" of water on one of the seats behind the driver, so my friend moved it to the floor and sat down, the driver got so upset and kept giving us dirty looks all the way there, but my friend said, "I'll be damned if I'm going to stand for 1 hour while that bottle of water gets to ride comfortably!"

You can park anywhere and don't have to worry about your car getting towed or ticketed, tickets don't exist in Mexico, on a rare occasion they may take your license plate but it's a small fee to pick it up, only the corrupt police will ask for a few pesos to let you go, I heard recently that some police even say, "Can I give you my paypal account?"!!

VIP movie theatres - these are in the bigger cities but have amazing service like reclining lazy boy chairs, martinis - you have your own waiter that brings you whatever you wish.

Beauty treatments are very cheap - manicures, pedicures, massages, hair colour, waxing - you will pay 1/4 of the price you pay back home.

Only one wardrobe: You never have to wear socks or shoes again, flip flops are worn year round here.

You can be late for everything and no one notices.