by Janet Blaser
But I had doubts about moving. Why couldn’t I recreate the life I experienced in San Miguel back in Portland? I thought of that scene in the movie “My Dinner with Andre” when Wally says to Andre, “Why do we require a trip to Mt. Everest in order to be able to perceive reality? Is Mt. Everest more real than New York? Isn’t New York real?” Was I simply running away from an unfulfilling life in Portland? Wouldn’t “my reality” be the same in San Miguel? The answer was no. Life in Mexico is just different because the culture is different.
It took five years of going back and forth to Mexico before I sold just about all of my possessions. A hot real estate market in Portland and the perfect, furnished house I found waiting for me in San Miguel made the decision feel “just right.” It wasn’t easy, but I’ve never looked back.
My life in Mexico has forced me to change, all for the better. Who knew I had control issues?! I’ve become more patient, I’m calmer and more spontaneous and creative. And more importantly, I’ve found my “tribe” of kindred spirits, people who make time for each other, people who check in when they haven’t heard from or seen me in a few days. And I do the same with them. This leads me to say that my expat experience wouldn’t be the same if I’d moved to some random town in Mexico or Morocco or Argentina. For me, it’s important to be in an expat community because of its tendency to attract out-of-the ordinary people. San Miguel de Allende draws a lot of mild eccentrics, like me. I love that.
But, as Jon Kabat-Zinn titled his book, “Wherever You Go, There You Are,” I have the same personal issues I’ve struggled with throughout my life. Moving to Mexico didn’t magically make those disappear. But the lifestyle here is providing the space and lots of opportunities to grow.
San Miguel isn’t perfect. Like in a relationship, the reasons for falling in love with the city often irritate me. Part of the joy felt in San Miguel is because its inhabitants love to celebrate. A wedding, a birth, a funeral or a particular Saint’s Day will warrant dozens of cherry bombs, or shall I say watermelon bombs, all day long. I love the fact that almost all my shopping is done within a few blocks from my house, at family-owned businesses. But show up at any given hour and the shop might be closed. I admire and learn from the laid-back manner of most locals, but that attitude can be frustrating when tasks take longer to accomplish. And I do miss the lush Pacific Northwest environment and grocery store aisles filled with chocolate.
But for the moment, San Miguel de Allende is where I’m supposed to be. I feel lucky to live here. And if I move on one day, I doubt it will be back to the U.S. because now I know how it feels to be connected.
Jan Davis hails from the U.S. West Coast and now lives in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. She loves to hang out in her home reading, painting and rummaging through her bins of fabric. Meeting up with good friends in cafés and rooftop bars ranks high on her list of favorite things to do. For more than 20 years, Jan has made a living by providing research and writing services to business professionals in the U.S. She admits to being a crazy cat lady and is devoted to a group of eight street cats near her home.
17. “You’re Moving WHERE?!”
Gayla Jones
Jocotepec, Lake Chapala, Jalisco
It all really started in March of 2017. I was working a temporary job as an executive administrative assistant at a major university hospital.
After my retirement from the Air Force as a jet engine mechanic in 1996, I did many things for employment. I wound up as secretary at lots of different types of businesses, including a district attorney’s office, a tribal council and for the director at a Veteran’s Administration hospital.
But let’s back up a little to get some history. In 2015, my husband decided we needed to open our own business. Long story short: The business failed. I lost all of my savings, money that I’d carefully put away for more than 25 years. In the latter half of 2016 and early 2017, I was alone, divorced and without the money I’d counted on for my senior years. I felt desperate.
I was without a job and needed to get back into the job market to survive. I worked several temporary positions for about a year and a half. During this time, I was in my early 60s, and even with all my experience, I couldn’t get an interview anywhere. No one wanted to hire an older woman. I was finally hired by the University of Kentucky working for the vice president of the hospital. It was only a short-term position, but they ended up keeping me on longer than was originally planned to help me out.
I’d researched becoming an expat a year earlier but knew my husband at the time would not go for it. Now, in March of 2017, my husband was gone and I was looking at losing my temp job. I was single with three dogs, a house and a car, and nothing in the future to keep me working.
A magazine I’d found in February talked about becoming an expat. The bug bit me again and I started doing more research on locations and housing. I narrowed down the places I was looking at to Mexico, Costa Rica and Belize. I ordered books from Amazon about these places and the expat life in those areas. I subscribed to YouTube videos that had a lot of practical, on-the-ground information about shopping, housing, etc. And some of the videos were interviews with single women who had made the move on their own.
And so it began. I’d already contacted a realtor about selling my house, and the housing market in the Lexington, Kentucky area was exploding. I upgraded some things in my home and put it on the market the first week of May. By this time, I already had all my plans laid out. I would fly down to Guadalajara and visit the Ajijic/Lakeside area to find a place to live, and then come back, sell the house and anything I couldn’t move with me, pack my car and be on my way around the first of July.
In May, I decided to go to an expat conference in Atlanta that answered a lot of my questions about moving outside of the U.S. and it got me even more excited. There were speakers that talked about medical coverage, visas and just a lot of information about becoming an expat in multiple South American countries. I then spoke with the gentleman that put on the conference, who at the time was residing in Ajijic, Mexico. I was able to get some great information about that area from him, and my decision was made. I was moving to the Ajijic area, or Lakeside as we call it.
My decision was based on several factors, including that it had a great base of expats which would make it a good place to begin my new life and become familiar with the language and lifestyle. I figured I could always change my mind after I got my feet wet. I was receiving a retirement check from the Air Force and knew that since I would turn 62 in May, I could go ahead and apply for my Social Security retirement, too. Between these two checks, I could live comfortably in Mexico, according to what I’d learned.
Everything went as planned. I flew down in June and found a rental casita in Jocotepec that would accept my three dogs. The landlords were from Kentucky also, so we had a lot in common. I signed a lease and told them I’d be back by the middle of July. I returned home and found that my house had sold. We closed on the house on June 30 and I stayed with a friend for a couple of days getting everything packed into my small Kia Soul. On Wednesday, the Fourth of July, I loaded my three little dogs in the car and we headed for the border. Happy Independence Day for me!
The drive through the States wasn’t too bad. I’d researched pet-friendly hotels and made reservations before I left. The trip from Kentucky to the border took two days. The dogs had never ridden in a car for this long of a trip, but they settled down after the first day. We made it to Laredo on Thursday evening, and on Friday morning we were at the Colombia Bridge border crossing. I was scared to death! I’d been overseas before during my military service, but they had taken care of everything then. Here, I was on my own.
It was July and it was hot. At the border crossing, I had to leave my car running with the air-conditioning on for the dogs. (At least the area they told me to park in was covered.) I had no idea how long it would take me to get through customs and get all my paperwork. I wa
s coming in on a tourist permit that was good for 180 days. They took a look at the contents of my car through the windows and said OK. Sometimes they’ll make you unload everything to search through your items. I was lucky. I think it was because I had three dogs in the car.
I went inside with my stack of papers. No one else was there at 8 a.m. I highly recommend the Columbia Bridge crossing if you’re coming across at the Laredo area. It’s hardly ever busy except on holidays. I went to the first window, which turned out to be for my vehicle. With no Spanish language experience, I was nervous. We were able to understand each other enough so that they could direct me to the visa office. It took just minutes to finish there, then back to the vehicle window. Over a course of about 20-30 minutes, we got everything done. I had my Mexico paperwork in hand, and the dogs and I began our drive to Jocotepec.
By posting on various Facebook pages, I’d found a pet-friendly hotel and we spent our first night at Las Palmas Hotel in Matehuala. Of course, the dogs needed stops along the way. There weren’t any rest stops as we know them in the States. I just stopped at gas stations and tried to find a grassy area. They were few and far between.
We made it to our new home on Saturday, July 7. I will tell you that during the drive down, I was “gringoed,” as I call it. When you stop for gas, always check the gas pump to see that it’s zeroed out. I wound up paying $1,500 pesos ($80 U.S.) for a tank of gas that should have cost no more than $700 pesos. Oh, and be ready for driving rules that are nothing like the States! You just have to keep your eyes on the roads and the other vehicles, especially motorcycles.
I’ve been living in Mexico now for more than a year, and I’m very happy here. I’ve made new friends, gotten involved with horses (since I’d owned my own in Kentucky) and taken several classes for different types of creative artwork. I’m an avid karaoke singer and I even found a place to do that. I’ve taken some Spanish classes, but I find it easier to just pick up words as I go along. I’m still working on it.
After being an executive secretary and military retiree, I was used to being on-the-go most of the time. Life here takes a little getting used to; it’s at a very slow, laid-back pace. You can just sit and relax on the patio, enjoy the wonderful weather, see historic sites or meet up with other people who’ve made the move and exchange war stories about your experiences. Really … you’re allowed to slow down! My friends and family thought I was being foolish to make this type of move alone. No one has come to visit yet. Some of them say that they won’t come to a Third World country, others just say, yeah, we’ll make it down sometime. They still doubt that I’m really happy and enjoying myself and that it’s safe here.
But I’m here to say that you can do it with all the right planning and preparation. You have to do your research! There are many Facebook groups and YouTube videos that you can check out and get questions answered about living in Mexico. I did it all in just a matter of months and I wouldn’t change a thing.
Why did I leave the United States? After working since I was 14, I wouldn’t have enough money between my Social Security and Air Force retirement to live in the States. I’d always dreamed of somewhere semi-tropical like Lakeside, and now here I am!
Gayla was born in Hamilton, Ohio and raised in nearby Middletown, where she lived for 17 years. After high school, she moved around the Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee area before joining the Air Force in 1979 as a single parent. Gayla had learned auto mechanics during her teen years and signed up as a jet engine technician. There were not many women in the maintenance field at that time. Her duty stations included Travis AFB, California; Kadena AB, Okinawa, Japan; Kunsan AB, South Korea and Hill AFB, Utah, where she worked on F-15s, F-16s, C-5s and C-141s. She stayed in Utah for 10 years until her retirement from the military as a Master Sergeant (E-7). Gayla then moved across the country to North Carolina to attend college for equine technology. In 1997, she and her husband purchased a 28-acre farm in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky and raised horses for several years. Gayla has three children, six grandchildren and now lives on her own in San Antonio, Jalisco, Mexico.
18. “We’re Not in Kansas Anymore”
Dianne Hofner Saphiere
Mazatlán, Sinaloa
Growing up in northern Arizona among the Hopi and Diné instilled in me a passion for justice and a disdain for the abuse of power. Most of my native friends spoke three languages but were forced to live in BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs) dormitories away from their families on the reservation during the week, and as students they found it really tough to get a part-time job due to prejudice. The situation infuriated and baffled me.
As a teenager, I was fortunate to spend summers in Mexico City with a homestay family. This instilled in me a desire to work internationally and a commitment to helping people understand and respect one another. After living and working in Japan and Spain, in the mid-2000s I was married with a son and living in Kansas. I’d begun to feel the U.S.A. was becoming more insular and protectionist, less humane, more rule-driven and authoritarian. I didn’t want our son taking on such mindsets, and I especially didn’t want him growing up blind to the privilege he had been born into as a middle-class white kid in a world superpower. Most of his elementary school friends didn’t think farther than K-State or KU; I wanted Danny to be a citizen of the world. I began dreaming of living overseas again, so our son could experience life as a minority and develop the skillset to succeed in that dynamic, and so he could be raised with a second language and culture.
My partner, Greg, had a wonderful job that paid great. He worked hard, very long hours, but there were incredible benefits; he loved the job and they loved him. Moving would mean giving all that up. My career, in contrast, was more portable; as a consultant, as long as I was near an airport and had internet, I could work. After heartfelt discussions and lots of soul searching, we made the decision to move. It was one of the most difficult decisions we’ve ever had to make and involved us listening deeply to one another’s hopes and fears, clarifying our values individually and as a family and exploring various strategies for achieving our goal.
Where to move, on the other hand, was an easy decision for us. We owned a vacation home in Mazatlán and had good friends there as well—locals that Greg had worked with decades ago. We loved that it’s a real city with a diversified economy, not just a tourist town. We loved that it has a vibrant arts and culture scene and numerous universities. Greg was all for the move, but he was uncomfortable leaving without having a base in the U.S. as well. We weren’t sure where it would be, but we agreed we’d buy a condo somewhere in the U.S., “just in case.” Since I’d inherited a bunch of my Mom’s antique furniture and wasn’t yet ready to get rid of it, that base would become a glorified storage unit.
We made our decision a year prior to our move, because we wanted to give ourselves time to clean out and downsize our huge home, and we wanted to give our son (and ourselves) time to learn Spanish and get used to the idea. He was in fifth grade and vehemently opposed to leaving his friends. We hired a young woman to come in twice a week to tutor him in Spanish. Learning was slow and at times painful. He wasn’t motivated. The tutor was great and has become a lifelong friend.
We worked that full year to strategically clean out our home, as we’d be living in a condo one-third its size. We gave furniture away to family members, had several garage sales and made monthly donations to charities. We looked at possible sites for our U.S. base, and settled on getting a condo close to my birthplace in Wisconsin. Since Danny is an only child and we’d always lived far from family, we thought it might give us a chance to get him more connected to his extended family. I studied Spanish with a tutor also, another woman that I became dear friends with. We looked into visa requirements, finding a new home for our beloved dog (we didn’t want to subject her to life in a condo after she’d grown used to running free) and banking.
We spent loads of time and a trip to Mazatlán to visit and assess school
s—at the time there were several bilingual but no international schools, and we looked at a couple of public schools, too. We wanted to be sure Danny picked up the language and culture, but we wanted to ease his transition as much as we could, and a bilingual environment would help with that. We got his school transcripts and apostille documents prior to leaving Kansas, as we knew we’d need them to enroll in school in Mexico.
Nine months prior to our planned move, Greg gave notice at work. He wanted to give them plenty of time to find a replacement. Leaving a terrific job at the height of one’s career struck everyone as foolhardy. “You’ve worked your whole life to reach this point; enjoy it a while. Put in just another five or 10 years and your nest egg will be that much bigger,” we were told repeatedly. “Most people would kill for your job. You’ll never find another fit that’s so very perfect. Be grateful and enjoy it.”
We were very grateful. And we knew that moving was the best choice. Greg worked weekends, evenings and holidays; family time was a rare event. Moving would change that. He’d take a six-month sabbatical, and then look for a job that would allow him more time with us as a family. The decision appeared foolish to many, but over the previous four years we had both lost our parents, my sister and her son, and a couple of good friends. We knew life was short, and we should seize the day. We knew it was time.
Several weeks after Greg gave notice, I was diagnosed with cancer. Everything happened fast, as you can imagine: two surgeries, advice to get our affairs in order, lots of tears and angst. His employer very kindly offered to rescind his resignation. They knew we wouldn’t have health insurance once he quit, and with a cancer diagnosis we surely needed health insurance. We appreciated the offer, we discussed it, but we had faith. We knew in our hearts we were doing the right thing, and we hoped and trusted that things would work out.