And Now Back to Normal

The last few months have been utter chaos in my life. 

• January:  Deciding to move to Mexico after the Election
• February: Getting our residency visas so we could move to Mexico
• March:  Literally getting rid of anything that couldn't fit in our car and DRIVING to Mexico
• April So Far:  Trying to furnish this home, get my bidet toilet seat, get settled.

And now we're settled.  We have all we need.  The washing machine isn't dancing anymore.  We over-furnished the tiny living room because 'Merica.  

I'm sitting at my computer catching up on work and I realize it happened.  I said before I left that 90% of my life is sitting at the computer working.  And I can do that anywhere.  And that's what I'm doing.

Today our new housekeeper gets started.  We met her at a tamale shop.  Not really a tamale shop...I guess you'd call it an Elote shop.  The 'tamale' was just masa covered in some white corn bread loose stuff covered in sauces.  My mom got something that was slicing open a bag of the Tostitos here (more like doritos, but they don't have doritos because the word dorito means a different kind of chip in Mexican Spanish).  There was kernal corn and other things added to the tostitos to make it some wild street food snack.  

The store was just a wooden open shed thing on a corner of bare earth among the winding streets of the area where our Air BnB had been.  We only moved two barrios over.  The same area.  The 'local' area.  We're the only gringos.  But still, we liked the area.  The Air BnB area was a bit more dirty and poor, but it was nice.  We made friends there.  We felt safe.  

This area has the same tiny footprint as the houses in the Air BnB, and the houses are connected together, so you share a wall with the house next to you.  However, it's a nicer area because the houses are two floors.  Two floors make that postage stamp sized floor plan livable.  

The streets are clean here.  The sidewalks are more stable, but you still have to watch where you're going.  My mom can walk with her walker to the Oxxo by us.

That's what I wanted to post about.  The new housekeeper is starting today.  She said, 'I need money.  I have kids.'  She was sweet and we hired her on the spot.  First job:  Clean the Air BnB for us.  Do we have to clean Air BnBs before we leave them?  I don't know.  That's the first time I ever stayed in one and we had a 'cleaning fee' added.  But I think we did, and for $30 American, I was happy to pass that job off to her.

She did a good job.  Sent us photos.  But she showed up with nothing to clean with.  We asked her how she was going to clean.  She said she'd just use our stuff.  But we'd moved out of there.  We had no stuff.  This is different from a USA housekeeper.  They bring a whole kit with them.  Here?  They just show up.

We managed to scrape together some cleaning supplies, find a broom, find a mop, find some cleaning stuff in the bathroom and kitchen that the owner had supplied.  She got it done.

For our new house we knew we had to be ready for her.  We bought cleaning supplies, but the house had random stuff here already.  

In the USA we use a Swiffer.  Hey, guess what?  Mexico doesn't do shit like Swiffers.  The floors are tile on concrete and they are made for big sloppy old-timey mops.  My mom said, 'We need to buy her a mop.'  

There were already two of these mops in various places outside.  One was threadbare.  The other looked pretty good.  My mom refused to allow the outdoor mops inside because roaches.  I'm like...put it in a bucket of fucking water.  That will get rid of them.  But we don't have a bucket.

So...I walked out my door, down a few houses, to a 'cleaning supplies store'.  Like literally right around the corner to me.  The had mops and buckets on display outside.  Like seriously.  

No getting the car out of the gate to drive to a big box store.  Just walk down a few houses, and boom.  Everything you fricking need.  Mexico.  They don't do zoning here.

I bought a mop, a bucket, and a rake because my mom said to get one for the leaves in the garden.  How much?  258 pesos.  $13.  And I went by myself.  I did this without my translator.  ;_; I did it!  (I should have taken a fricking picture.  I will next time I go out.)

So we have a bunch of cleaning supplies ready to go for her.  Everything she'll need.  She said $30 to clean our 4 bedroom (but really 5 because of a bonus room upstairs) house.  I'm going to pay her $50 because this is a shitload of work for her, and we want our windows done.  How much did I pay the USA housekeeper?  $125 per clean.  So my $250 a month housekeeper is now $100 here.

And we sold our house.  ;_;  For $15k less than asking, but with the chaos in the USA, I would have taken even less.  

There's no going back now.  We're here forever.  

Oh my God.