Our Third Christmas in Mexico

I have struggled with the blog this year as I do not want to bore my readers with things said in other years.

But Christmas is so different here and I thought I would do a little comparrison for you, and for me.

I have mused before that life in this part of Mexico is simple and tranquil. We all enjoy the simple pleasures of life once again. So Christmas comes along and nothing much changes. The Mexicans treat this holiday with their traditions, like the "posadas" (processions reinacting Mary and Joseph's search for a place for Mary to give birth) So one by one groups are turned away at doorways until finally one family lets them enter and the singing and eating begin! Charming. On Christmas eve, not before, extensive nativity scenes, with live animals will be set up in the church yard. Gift giving usually happens on the Day of The Three Kings January 6th.

Mexicans seem to really "live in the moment" while we struggle to do this. They seem to enjoy the process of the festivities, content to let it unfold as it will, making the best of whatever is available. many families here can't afford gifts, decorations or feasts but they still seem to be filled with the joy of being together.

A lovely lady, Judy King, who lives here in this village put it right. "The best contrast between the holidays north and south of the border is that while gifts are anticipated and appreciated here, they are not the focus of the holiday. Children often accompany parents to the store and receive their new toy on the spot!" Most village families don't plan special feasts for Christmas. They enjoy an everyday supper of tamales or tacos with a fruit drink, or one made with hot milk, sweetened condensed milk and flavoured with cinnamon. Delicious! A little rum added might be nice too.....

Most of the village houses are decorated with a string of lights. But bonfires are lit in the streets and people sit around chatting and drinking and enjoying each other. A little music and some simple food complete the party. Mothers are not exhausted and frazzled by the preparations to make the holiday "Perfect". Our wise Mexican neighbours keep a great Christmas truth..."enjoy every day of the season and keep their focus on those they love", says Judy King. She is so right. Maybe we can learn from these loving people.

So we wish you all a peaceful, happy, loving Christmas with your dear families and friends. We will be thinking of you all.

Sunday Brunch

I am just now editing some pix from Mexico.
This one of Barb, Wally , Cathy and Gary is a happy
remembrance of Sunday Brunch under the trees while
enjoying the Peacocks! Yes. Really!


KATE AND JACK IN AJIJIC, MEXICO.

Meeting an Old Friend

This is a picture of Carol Dunphy and me. We worked together at Canadian Airlines in Toronto in 1995-1996. She has turned up here in Ajijic! A member of my Book Club in Halifax, Madeline Comeau is here too. It seems Carol is married (43yrs.yesterday!) to Madeline's brother! I met Madeline many years ago at this Book Club not knowing the connection , of course. Small world! Another lovely lady, who we met here is Sonia Breeze from Dartmouth. I suggested Madeline get in touch with her before coming , which they did and so now we include her in our festivities too! Friendly place. Of course Barb and Wally needed to meet these folks too and that is how they all ended up here on our terrace for dinner last night! What fun.

Jack has finally bought a barbeque. It is a charcoal one.....and he is not happy about that. However, now after two Scotches dinner will be ready. Hurrah.

It is spring here in the mountains now. We have orchid trees in bloom as well as the Jacaranda trees. The horizon seems to be a blaze of colour. The mornings are still a little cool (60 degrees)so we have to get our chores done early to be out of the sun mid afternoon. Once the sun sets it is cool again. What a delightful climate. We love it.

We have joined a gym. Two blocks away. We have been very good about going.....yeah, it seems you must not only pay...but you must attend as well. How unfair. However, my bones are thinning and as well as the calcium, that I am not good at remembering three times a day, this may keep me mobile for a few years more. Jack is trying to strengthen his legs which are weakening . Oh my, this getting old SUCKS !!

We were in Guadalajara this week to see the opthalmologist again. The "bump" on my eyelid has not grown in three months and this is good news. He is not sure this is basal cell carcinoma, but the only way to tell is to remove it and do a biopsy. I will follow up in Canada. He thinks it should be looked at every six months. I will do that.

We were enthralled with the CBC coverage of the American president's visit to Ottawa yesterday. Maybe it is a new dawn.....!

Earlier this week we went to a wonderful concert. A Canadian family of Russian decent. Both Mom and Dad played the piano, doing four-hand arrangements of Mozart Symphonies, some Beethoven and arias from Mozart, Handel .Their beautiful daughter sang Massenet amoung other arias in this most magnificent soprano voice. They are the Zarankin family from Toronto. They played to a full house and gave their very best to entertain. Sonia, Barb and Wally joined us and we loved every minute of it.

Barb is a member of the Garden Club here and so each month she invites me along to view some of the most delightful gardens in the area. This week was no exception. This house was perched high on the mountainside and the garden was on many levels. The Gardener, an America woman from California gave full credit to her Mexican gardener. She had a whole stone wall with niches for pots of Bonsaii. They were incredibly tiny and perfect. The meandering footpaths through this garden were spectacular with a blaze of colour everywhere. Most enjoyable. Then Barb and I headed back here for lunch at our favorite hotel, under the trees.

And so another week passes here on the shores of Lake chapala. Gracias mi Mexico.

I must share this. I read this recently and it resonates with me.
Mahatma Gandhi said: "The things that will destroy us are:
politics without conscience
wealth without work
knowledge without character
business without morality
science without humanity
worship without sacrifice."

What do you think?

Jack is back........again !

It is my turn to bore you with our ongoing adventures of life here in Mexico !
We have kept reasonably well since arriving here in November, although last week I was kept awake one night with a toothache,so next morning I made a visit to one of the local dentists who took an x-ray of the tooth in question and informed me that I had previously had had a root canal performed on that tooth many years ago,and which was now absessed at its base.
The dentist started to drill out the old filling ,but had to stop because the filling used at that time many years ago was metal and I would have to see a specialist who had the proper equipment to remove this and let it drain and clean out before filling it again. I met with the specialist who assured me that she would remove it using laser, meanwhile ,I was given a supply of antibiotics to be taken for the next five days.........I hate the thought of dentists !
I had a bad experience last week, I play bridge every Monday afternoon with my partner Wally,
there are usually 10 or 12 tables at play and half way through one of the gents just slumped in his chair and died on the spot....it was very upsetting to say the least.
Tomorrow morning, Sunday which will be the first of February, we will attend open circle followed by brunch at one of our many favorite restaurants, and for the rest of the after noon we will play bridge, and booze it up with a couple of our other good friends who also hail from Halifax, and then we will go out for dinner and booze it up some more...what a life!
Jack

Jack's Latest Artwork.

I am trying to work with the pictures I've downloaded from my camera. You see a couple of weeks ago I lost my camera. I was heartbroken. I figured I was not to capture anymore images of Mexico, since our camera was stolen last year! So it was quite a shock when Jack gave me an early birthday present.....and it was a new Sony camera identical to the old one! He and Maggie conspired and she brought this one with her from Halifax. I am so touched that Jack did this. I don't deserve another camera.....but I promise to take extra special care of this one!!

We were thrilled when Maggie announced she was coming for a week's visit. Brian couldn't get away as he was planning a huge conference. But Maggie brought a virus with her and was ill almost the whole week. So disappointing for all of us. Anyway, she is a trooper and we did have fun anyway. She left yesterday and we miss her so.....

As you can see from these pictures Jack is continuing to improve with his art work. These are Pastels. He is fascinated with faces isn't he??

It is hard to believe half our stay is over. We have three more months here. We miss our Halifax friends and I particularly miss my 98 year old Dad. But we don't miss the cold winter in Canada. Even Vancouver, where Jacquie and Mars live has been cold. My pal, Doreen who lives in Richmond, B.C. is looking forward to going to the beach in Mexico in a couple of weeks. Usually winters in B.C. are mild....but not this year. We had a couple of cold nights here but it is Spring now. Our nights are down to about 10C and the days warm up to 25C so it is quite pleasant.

We are off to a couple of concerts this month. On Tuesday we will see and hear a Duo playing Latin-American music for two guitars. They will do "Four Seasons" by the great Argentine composer Astor Piazolla and a new arrangement for two guitars of Bizet's "Carmen Suite". We have season tickets with Barb and Wally so we will have dinner out first, no doubt, and then go to the concert. Always a pleasant evening.....

On Monday Sonia Breeze, from Dartmouth arrives and then a few days later Madeline, from Halifax and Carol from Toronto arrive. So a busy social scene is about to begin!!

Hope I will be better at keeping up this Blog in the future. I don't want to be repetitious! I'll let Jack make the next entry. Until then we send you warm wishes from Ajijic, Mexico.





KATE AND JACK IN AJIJIC, MEXICO.

Concert....

Where does the time go? I dunno. But the winter is flying by. I know the winter "up north" is c-c-o-l-d so I won't go on about the rain we had late yesterday afternoon and through this is the first time we have seen rain here! Our wonderful friends, Wally and Barb came to our rescue so that we might attend a dinner party given by our other Nova Scotia friends, Kay and Paul Fraser from Kentville. They had invited us for dinner, which is only a 10 minute walk from our place but it was poring when it was time to go. We were unable to get any taxi company to answer their phones so Barb, Wally and Bijou(their darling dog) came to drive us. I mean.....are these wonderful friends....or what!!!

TODAY....another exciting day in Ajijic. Jack went off to his art class. I attended a lecture at LCS which was directed at new comers. How to avoid the pitfalls whether you are renting or buying. The moderator was a very funny Canadian lass who was as amusing as informative. There is such an interesting bunch of people here.....

Tomorrow, we have several folks getting together here first for cocktails and then we shall head next door for a program of music and magic, and gawd knows what....this is Jack's idea!! I'll report later.

We have tickets for several concerts this season and last Tuesday it was two Mexican Pianists of
Russian decent. I thought they were terrific. They preform in the U.S., Asia and Europe. One of my least favorite composers is Claude Debussy (1862-1918) but at their capable hands I even enjoyed this part of the program. After intermission they performed the suite from the ballet Icarus.....I love this. They obliged with two encores......all in all a very pleasant evening spent
with Barb and Wally.

It is easy to get caught up in the social scene here. It is more difficult to focus on the wonderful Mexicans with their sometimes bizarre customs. This month we are trying to find a balance. Jack promises to make an entry tomorrow.......We await our dear friend Maggie's visit next Thursday. A full report will follow!!!
kate.

Christmas Day in Ajijic, Mexico

Feliz Navidad from sunny Mexico.

A few days ago we helped the Pikes (a wonderful N.S.couple) give 22 kids a Posada (party) for Christmas. These are some of the kids we sponsor...the pix of the little girl with Jack and me is Daniella, the kid Meggie, our Grand daughter sponsors. (We do this instead of a Christmas present.....she agreed to this last year) Jack's daughter also sponsors a little boy but he was not able to come to this party.

The kids had a wonderful time. They played games, like musical chairs and balloons around their ankles.....ya know....kid stuff...but the favorite were the three pinatas. More about these later. We had the neighbourhood Mom's make Mexican rice, cole slaw and tortillas. Then we picked up b-b-que chickens and roasted potatoes. These are the BEST. Don't know what they do to the chickens here but ya know what? They taste like chicken. Like chicken used to taste when we were kids! Really. So after we fed 'em we sent them home with bags of gifts. All were happy. Especially us!

Now about those pinatas. I used to think they represented violence and greed....not what we want our children to learn. I was wrong. Here is the real deal:
The pinatas originated in China but travelled along to Europe and gained popularity in Spain just in time for the Spanish Franciscan missionaries to bring this simple clay jar to the new world (Mexico) . OK, OK enough of the history lesson!! But, here is what everything represents:
The clay jar represents Satan who often wears a disguise to attract us and to mask his intentions. Typical male!
The seven points of the star-shaped Christmas pinata represent the seven deadly sins.
The candy in the pinata"s inner clay " represents the pleasures Satan offers man to attract him to the underworld.
The blindfolded person represents blind faith, which is guided only by the voices of others to destroy evil.
The stick used to break the pinata is a symbol of Christian goodness.
The breaking of the pinata symbolizes the triumph of good over evil.
The shower of candy and fruit is indicative of the unknown joys and rewards which the good and faithful will receive in heaven.
So there!!
Every home here has an seven sided pinata hanging outside their front door. The plaza is full of 'em too.
Since one pinata is never enough for any event, we had three at the Posada! The larger kids waited until the smallest kids had broken the first pinata. Next were the "middle kids" followed by the older children. There was no fighting. Just joy as each group had fun.

OK enough of pinatas.....more than you ever wanted to know huh?

last night we wandered over to the square and in the church yard there were many nativity scenes set up. This one was different though. Live people, mostly kids, babies and teens AND live animals. Sheep, goats. Really! This country continues to amaze me. The only thing funny about this was the "baby in the manger" was sucking on a pacifier! Don't think Jesus did that!

There is no Santa, so today is a family and religious holiday. Nice. The kids will receive gifts on January 5th. symbolizing the three wise men bringing gifts to the new born king.

Like nearly everything about life in Mexico, the traditions are very different from the caroling,yule logs, stockings hung by the chimney with care and the arrival of old St.Nick.

We have spent the day chatting with family and friends by Skype (VOIP) eating our meals outside, walking little Bijou , Jack doing his art on the terrace and now it is time to think about preparing Christmas dinner. Broiled salmon and tomatoes. Guacamole (which is served as a side dish here as well as a dip) and margaritas to begin. Fresh veggies bought at the street market yesterday along with fresh exotic flowers. (Birds of Paradise....3 for $2.00CAD...yeah really!)
So one set of traditions is not more right than the other-they are just different! What a joy to be able to experience both.
Feliz Navidad everyone. We miss you!