Homesickness for Mexico comes in waves, and for the past few weeks the tide has been high. As a remedy, I tried to list the things I don’t miss. The list is pretty short.
Making do with a makeshift kitchen. We bought some kitchen goods when we got there, and even brought a couple of items along that we didn’t think we’d be able to find (we may be the only people ever to carry a mushroom brush across an international border for purposes other than import), but it was still a pretty bare-necessity kitchen, which gets old when you love to cook and you’re there for six months.
Small gas tank / water tank. Neither gas nor hot water flowed in great quantities, so that it was hard to get the oven up to baking temperatures, and our gorgeous big bathtub filled to only 4 inches of depth before the hot water ran out.
Lack of good Chinese food. We made our own, but once in a while you just want a real Chinese dumpling made by an real Chinese person. There was good Chinese in Mexico City, but not in San Miguel. We went to dim sum several times in the week before we left for Mexico, and again in the week after our return.
The heat. Even in San Miguel, which is at about 6000′ and has weather not dissimilar to San Francisco’s, it can get pretty hot. May and June would have been more comfortable for me if I’d adjusted to the idea that I should just hunker down and stay inside for a few hours each midday.
Limited reading material. I didn’t come close to running through the English language collection at San Miguel’s impressive biblioteca, but still, I sometimes missed having easy access to books that, in the U.S., would have been no farther away than the main library.
Having a child under stress. There’s no question that living in Mexico was great for the munchkin, and she adjusted admirably to being uprooted from the places, people, and cats she knew for what must have seemed to her 3-year-old’s perceptions to be close to forever. Nevertheless, she showed signs of the strain. After all, as much as she liked school, she had no friends there or anywhere who spoke her language. Looking back, we realize that the high incidence of tantrums during those six months was probably not due purely to her developmental stage.
Being far from friends and family. We got a fair number of visitors from home, but there’s no substitute for seeing your mom every couple of months and your closest friends every week.
I can’t help noticing that most of these are not only trivial, but could be mitigated quite easily. Not to mention that they don’t outweigh the many things I do miss (see any entry from July 2010). I guess I’ll just have to wait for this particular wave of Mexico-missing to recede.
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December 31, 2011 at 10:48 pm
Joy
Dog shit in the streets, all sorts of unsafe stuff like makeshift wiring, decrepit machinery and lack of seat belts, the thin air that goes along with 6000′, and, er, I’ve been wracking my brain for 15 minutes and I can’t think of anything else.
I’d move back there in a minute if I could.
January 1, 2012 at 10:03 am
Bridgesburning Chris King
Amy its nice sometimes to remember even the don’t likes!
January 12, 2012 at 6:16 am
Amy Zucker Morgenstern
This is true! I can be nostalgic about almost all of it. Maybe not the dog shit.
January 2, 2012 at 1:16 pm
Beth Williamson
San Miguel de Allende is wonderful!
I first went to San Miguel de Allende in 1965 and it was love at first sight.
For years I didn’t go back because I thought I would stay forever.
I have been in love with Mexico since I went to south Texas to teach in 1962.
When I lived in Brownsville, I would take the evening bus to Mexico City and be there by 9 AM. I went solo or with friends at every vacation time and have visited almost every state in Mexico.
In 1973, I spent the whole summer in Cuernavaca going to intensive language school– returning to Brownsville on Labor Day weekend and looking at the door of my apartment and wondering if I really lived there!
I returned to SMA with a group of friends from our UU church and my sister in 2007 and some of us have been back every year since. We already have tentative plans for the summer of 2012. After 2007, when we stayed in a hotel, we have stayed in a wonderful bed and breakfast. Since home is Texas, we are happy to be there because no matter how hot it is in SMA, it is always cooler than Texas.
My sister asked to go back in 2008 to go to language school. In 2009, two friends joined in the language school experience and they all continued each summer through 2010. I suggested a trip to Spain for 2012 and at the beginning of the summer they agreed. At the end, they said they wanted to return to SMA and go to a different language school after attending the Warren Hardy school previously.
Since I am fluent in Spanish, I spend my time reading in Spanish and sometimes English and writing, first a series of dragon stories for a great- nephew and then the beginnings of a couple of novels. We have been there for the crazy parade and twice for the chamber music concerts.
My sister says she would like to live there 6 months at a time after she retires.
I
January 12, 2012 at 6:15 am
Amy Zucker Morgenstern
Great hearing your reminiscences! Of all the places you’ve been in Mexico, which do you love the most?
I highly recommend the Academia Hispanoamericana to anyone studying Spanish in SMA.
We’d like to retire to Mexico. Another reason for me to get fluent in Spanish. I’m reading Harry Potter en español right now: slow going, but fun.