Sunday
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| Lucy and her little grandson |
I am so lucky to see Mexico before it changes… everything
changes so quickly. Puerto Vallarta is
full of Baby Boomers who would struggle to retire at home. The cost of living is just too high. But here, in Mexico, a condo with a view of
the ocean is the norm. And as people
from Canada and The US move here in droves, the local economy improves and more
condos go up and the infra structure improves.. and.. things change.
PV is no longer a ‘sleepy little fishing village’..
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| San Sabastian from the first sister's house on the hill |
The apartment where I am staying is a converted little
shop. The owners decided that instead of
being tied to a shop all day, where very little money is made, they could get
regular income from a couple of suites.
They are small.. but new… and new to the family as well. They are excited about their new
enterprise. They have one foot in this
new Vallarta, but still another foot in their roots. And their roots are in the mountains behind
the city. And they invited me ‘home’ one
day to meet mama and papa.
My place is the dream of ‘Lucy’.. her daughter Dani does the
business end of things, advertising, finances.. but this is Lucy’s baby. She doesn’t speak much English, although she
certainly seems to understand me just fine.
And she doesn’t drive, but her son does.
So we all (her son, his wife and
young son, her husband and a couple of friends) hopped into their new suburban
and headed out.
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| The outdoor kitchen |
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| Looking at the house from the kitchen |
It is about a two hour drive to San Sebastian, where Lucy
has two sisters. While the town itself
is quite touristy, we skipped that part, parked at the bottom of a hill, and
walked a few blocks up the mountain. The
older sister’s place was our first stop.
It seemed as though they had carved their little place right out of the
dirt. The house was adobe, with no
cement, just mud and water bricks. They
had a large room where the family slept and an outdoor kitchen. Everything has been made by hand. I thought it would be hard to get the
groceries to such a place, but then realized there wouldn’t be many.. this
place was very self sufficient.
The second sister lived even further up the mountain. This place was not so neat and clean.. this
sister not so self sufficient, and I suspect, not as content as the older
one. Life here, like everywhere else,
is what you make it I guess. But at this
time, in this place.. well, I imagine it would be very hard not to notice the
huge gap between what is on television and what is outside your door.
We visited a bit, toured town, and then headed off to see
mama in Los Pinas, a bit of nail biter away.
Lucy’s mom reminded me so much of grandma Bower. Lucy showed off how she made tortillas in her
mom’s kitchen… a long way off from her gas stove in PV. Mama had made beans and rice.. The chickens ran about the yard with their
chicks..
I have lived in Outback Australia for a number of
years. I have seen poverty. But grandma’s place wasn’t poor.. it was a
glimpse into life how it used to be. And
it used to be very much like it was in Canada.. Organized, self sufficient…
People had to be strong to be happy. 
It makes me sad that many people don’t get to see into this world. We think that if you don’t have money you can’t
be happy. But you can.. you just have to
know what you want, and do that.
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