Jocie's Blog

I   decided to go to Chapala on a Sunday just for the pics.   Sunday is the day that so many families come to spend time on the water’s edge.   I wasn’t in the mood to shop, and most of the shops are closed anyway.     A trip to Chapala is more about the sights, the food, the people, the … journey.   The photo ops.   But of course, I forgot my camera.   I was going to steal a couple of Paula’s pictures, like I did on the last blog, but those are on FB and I don't know how to save them.  You will just have to wait.  My neighbor Lilias captured this one on her phone and emailed it to me,  b ut for the most part, I will have to paint the pictures with words. We drove along the six kilometers of Carretera, which just means highway but we use a different word because the road is, well, different.   It is fifteen minutes of speed bumps (topes), patched bitumen, old buses rattling and spewing exhaust behind them, pe...

So I am living in Mexico, and it all looks very peaceful.    But life is noisy here.  I woke up this morning to the sound of roosters crowing.   There are birds too, but mostly roosters.   Otherwise, it is all quiet.  It is early though... people are just starting to wake up.   This is a land of sounds.   The gas company rumbles about town in an old dilapidated truck with the tanks clanking in the back, playing some sort of music over bad speakers, calling out in a very bored voice, let every one know they have ‘gas’.   The fruit vendor does the same.   His truck is older, and rattles incessantly over the cobblestones.  The young couple yell out prices and product to let people know he is there.   When I venture out, motorbikes are almost invisible, flying by me on either side.. but I know when they are coming by the Mexican Mariachi music blasting from specially installed speakers.    Gu...

After a three day weekend, where I mostly cleaned my house: fans, aircon, freezer, the lot, I am ready for a new week: one which I have already began.   The travel permission web site was up and running after not letting me connect on the weekend.     I had asked our admin officer to get it up for me, being new and all I wasn’t on the system.  But, I didn't really expect it to be hooked up so soon.. but,  there it was.   The Admin officer  had even put in my name and some of the basic information.   I filled in the rest of it… this time actually finding my ABN number because I knew what that was. As well as the vehicle Rego (which actually means the license plate number) so all good.   Paperwork is so much easier when you understand the language and know what needs to be done.   It was a 'go'. I was on the road in a troopy again:  Woohoo! But it was a bit of a slow start. I went into the office and admitted to the t...

Each decade, it seems, life throws new stuff at you.   You can take it as a challenge, an opportunity, or just as it comes.   But, you do have to take it.     That first decade of life is all about your family or the people around you.   They have total responsibility for you.. and ya, a lot of times it gets pretty messed up.   The second decade is all about breaking away and taking on responsibility for your own life.   At least that was how I looked at it.   Maybe it is different today.. although there are still a few ‘back in the day’ folks that for one reason or another are stuck in   their teens. But, for those that did move on, the 20’s were mostly about finding your way back to family anyway: discovering your place in the world.. getting an education, a job and someone to share a life with. Your thirties.. well, it’s all about the family again, only this time, you are sort of stuck .. the job, the mortgage.. life is b...