Looking Up In Sayulita

It turns out I like it a hell of a lot more here in Sayulita than in San Juan. Here are some reasons why.

1. Where we are living here doesn’t eternally smell like the raw sewage that runs past the house in San Juan.
2. Instead of the cockroach army pooping all over me baby’s toys, we have adorable geckos, which he goes in search of every evening, to snap at and call “ee-oooo!”
3. We don’t have to live according to the schedule and needs of my husband’s family, who we were living with before. What I do here is not subject to scrutiny and commentary. I can eat whatever I want whenever I want, which is why I enjoyed nachos for dinner, straight out of the nacho pot I made them in. With beer.
4. Hernan has time for me again. It’s nice to remember why the fuck I’m living in Mexico - oh yeah, because of this guy.
5. And he has time for Hanix. He has spent more time caring for Hanix in the last few weeks than in the last six months.
6. The beach. The ocean. There are places to walk that don’t smell like sewer. When I leave the house people don’t stare at me, like in San Juan. I CAN leave the house. I enjoy it again.
7. We no longer live on a dusty highway across from the beer store. We no longer go to sleep lulled by the sound of alcoholics telling stories, breaking bottles, and getting into fights. We no longer awake to the sound of trucks breaking with their motors as they enter town. We don’t have neighbors with a garbage heap and rats and dogs that never stop barking because they’re tied up 24 hours a day in one spot. We don’t get interrupted at 11:30 at night because someone wants my husband to cut his hair, or lend him tools, or fix his car, or whatever, even though we had just told everyone downstairs that we were going to bed and we wanted to be alone, so good night already, thank you very much.
8. It’s green everywhere and jungly, and the town has many trees.
9. We regularly see men and women socializing together.
10. We haven’t seen a single fight or heard a single gunshot.

Things I miss:
1. My in-laws. I love having our own house, but it would be fun to be able to visit. Actually, they all came out a week ago to visit. It was fun. I wish they lived a little closer. Just, you know, not that close.
2. Avocados, that my father-in-law brought home by the bag-full from the ranch where he works.
3. It’s far more expensive here. I miss being able to stretch 50 pesos over a few days.

Also, we went to four places before we found somewhere that would change money with a Mexican passport. All the banks down here wanted a foreign passport. Hernan about flipped out on them, repeating that he IS Mexican, but they wouldn’t accept his passport.

Also, also, I got a really painful ear infection + deafness, and after five days of sweating it out hoping it would heal on it own so we wouldn’t have to spend any more money, which I have been made to understand is not the correct course of action to take with these kinds of matters, I caved. We don’t have insurance, but have been going to private consultorios when the need has arisen. Visits usually cost us 200 to 400 pesos. This guy, after TEN minutes, charged me 900 (NINE HUNDRED!) pesos, plus another 100 for some ear drops. I nearly broke down crying, because that was, really, all the money we had just changed and what we were planning on using for food and everything for the next few weeks. So now, we’ll be eating beans with beans, and I’ll be washing our laundry by hand on the scrub board sink thing because we don’t have a machine and can’t afford the laundromat anymore. Boo.

Cool about the visit, though, was that he “cleaned” my ears by shooting water into them and out came, like, Amelia Earhart and ten kilos of earwax. It was so cool. Apparently I have small ear canals and they become clogged quite easily. Now you know.

When I got swimmer’s ear (also in Mexico) five years ago, the doctor in Jocotepec told me to dig the wax out myself using a hair pin. Really. Yeah, that’s what he wanted me to do. Quack.

The bad thing is that after three days of not-so-magic ear drops, my ear still hurts and now I’m going to have to go back and beg him to fix me for a blow job or something, because we have no more money. Mom, totally just kidding about that, by the way.

Also, also, also, we went to Puerto Vallarta today, just to see what it’s like. And it kind of sucks. Big hotels, pushy vendors. Not so great. Sayulita has better beaches and a lot more trees.

And finally, I’d like to report that things are good.

Party on.