Sometimes I feel overwhelmed with my life circumstances. Even when you are content and momentum has you rolling nicely, emotions can overflow.
Can you relate? Just four short months ago I decided to live in Mexico for a few months. Gave away half my stuff and headed to Alisitos, Baja California, population 53.
I thought that was a mistake, population 53. It wasn’t. I landed on a tiny strip of land, 45 minutes south of San Diego. La Fonda Beach is there and is known for great surfing.
My home was the top floor of a busy AirBnB property and I had a crash course in third world living. Right way I knew that fashion had no context. Jewelry and nice handbags draw attention to you and as a woman alone in a foreign culture, that is not such a good idea. I wanted to melt into the background.
My earrings are now art. I enjoy looking at them but don’t wear them.
After three months in the middle of beer bars and drunken men, I opted to move to near by La Mision. Now I live in a gated community and have a bit more security, by Mexican standards.
Not having a washing machine, at first I took my laundry to be done by a super friendly, toothless woman named Teresa. I had to park my car on the main road and walk down a heavily rutted road to get to her house.
It cost me 100 pesos, about five dollars, to get my one load of laundry done. Many Americans complain at the cost. “Five dollars for a load of laundry…how dare they?”
That’s not how I see it. This is true poverty. I am not in a resort area. I am in a small rural village where people make pennies per day.
Mexico will raise its minimum wage on Dec. 1 from 80.04 pesos per day to 88.36 pesos, President Enrique Pena Nieto said on Tuesday. That’s equivalent to 45-cent increase to $4.71 per day. https://www.stltoday.com/…/mexico…wage…/article_7cfbe14b-c6c1-52a0-8dcf-51c3f25…
If smart entrepreneur toothless Teresa can make good money doing my laundry for 100 pesos, good for her. I wish the Americans down here were more generous minded, just saying.
As you know, if you have followed me for long, I have been abundantly provided for by what I call “invisible money.” This is the goods and services given as gifts that save you from having to spend your own money.
The biggest treat in my Law of Attraction journey has been how little money I really need to “manifest” to live a satisfying life. Now that I am in Mexico, it is even more profound.
Where some Expat American’s are a bit stingy and close minded, the native people have opened their hearts to me in profound ways. There are real people here. In my seventeen years in San Diego, I didn’t meet many real people.
When my adorable home owner, Carmen, approached me and asked if I would like to use her washing machine, I grinned from ear to ear. She apologized for its rugged condition. I just hugged her and thanked her with all my heart.
She lives next door and we visit over my back gate and we exchange soup, bread and laughter. My life is so simple and little things make me really happy. I do have my overwhelmed moments. Life in such an impoverished culture is humbling at every level.
Living with people who have so little and yet are deeply satisfied and happy is really changing me. The roads in the village are horrible. Ruts six inches and deeper are common. I have to drive so slow everywhere I go, everyone does. Sometimes less than 5 miles an hour.
The freeways are fabulous…smooth driving. But there is no infrastructure for good roads in the small rural villages. I am beyond content living here even though it is rough and ready. No central heat is just an inconvenience. No malls, retail therapy, eating out at restaurants or anything of my former life.
My Spanish is still weak and I could be speaking more of it but my closest contacts here appreciate my English and enjoy conversing. I will be teaching English here soon, I can feel it coming.
So today is Laundry Day and I love seeing my clothes out the window, blowing in the trade winds. I hear the border may be closed again and those border issues are a problem. In my world, it doesn’t matter. I just need to add time to the trip back north.
Truthfully, I don’t have much reason to go back. Living in nature with friends that connect with me deeply, even through a language barrier, is the best human experience I have had in years. Thank you, Uni!
Just do it.