Part 1: Everyone is having more fun in Mexico…
I wake on the four-week anniversary of our move in a grand hotel in Puerto Vallarta. My toothbrush tastes of tequila and there are mosquito bites running down my leg. Last night I was trying to herd geckos from the terrace into our room. How do you bate a lizard to eat bugs without luring the same bugs into the room? Tequila logic. This evening I’ll just use the $2 bugspray… but still, it proves a point, everyone is having more fun in Mexico. Me, the mosquitoes, the salamanders; everyone.
The observation first hit me in Polanco, the area where Annemarie’s new bosses have stationed us in temporary accommodation. On our first full day in country, we decided to take a stroll around the place to get our bearings. I noticed on the cross-walks, the little red man who tell pedestrians to wait is tapping his feet impatiently. Huh, I thought to myself as he lifted his arm and checked his watch, this guy’s a serious hombre. The lights changed and our red fella is replaced by the green. This guy is walking. He’s been animated like his red counterpart in the dot-matrix. And boy is he walking. He’s got serious swagger, this green guy. He’s swinging his shoulders and arms like a gun-slinger from an old Western. A real vaquero. Instinctively, I began mimicking his walk as I crossed. In fact, I’ve mimicked his walk at every road crossing since. I wonder why I’ve not been crossing roads like this my whole life.
As we explore more of Mexico City, it turns out that each neighbourhood has different red man and green man animations for their cross walks. Some start jogging when time is running out. Bicycle lanes have their own too. Frantic racers and relaxed cruisers all represented in green and red. It’s an illuminance of city-wide swagger. Can you imagine the council meetings when this was decided?
-Sure, it’ll cost more money but it’ll be fun.
-Yeah, you’re right, what’s a few extra pesos? Go for it. Sounds good.
Then imagine the same conversation in an English council.
- Sure, it’ll cost more money but it’ll be fun.
-But it’ll cost more?
-Yeah but…
-No. They can just be static, okay? They don’t need to walk like gangsters or tap their feet. That’s just unnecessary brightness and we won’t be paying for that.
Everyone is having more fun in Mexico.
Our temporary accommodation is decent. It’s a spacious one-bed in a nice, Jewish part of town. We even have a mezuzah on the door, something I’ve always wanted but am now reluctant to use correctly. Kissing, fingers and face touching being a no-no under Covid. I try and nod at it, best I can. The kitchen is lousy. It’s as if someone who has never used a kitchen has described one to an interior designer who doesn’t know what one is. We later find out this is probably the case. Over dinner with some Mexican friends, they hypothesise the architect has never cooked for himself. The culture here among the middle-classes dictating a maid or housekeeper would have prepared the family meals so yes, it’s likely they knew what one was and what it was for but never used one first-hand. There is no oven. The hob is in the wrong place leaving no worktop. The sole plug socket is behind the sink and cupboards either require the loan of the fire-department’s ladder or give you a black eye, hanging over the postage-stamp area for prep. The fridge is good for keeping one pepper fresh for anything up to three hours.
We were provided utensils and kitchenware but again, they seem to have been purchased by someone who has never cooked beyond a bowl of cereal. They seem to be constructed from a very light plastic-ish substance with an incredibly low heat resistance. The spatula hasn’t the tensile strength to flip an egg but that doesn’t matter, as it’s half melted by the time it’s hit the pan. We’ve already broken half of this stuff. What hillbillies we must look to the people managing this building.
We arrived in the middle of the night with a dozen over-stuffed suitcases, Annemarie sat atop the pile playing her banjo with a straw hanging out her mouth. Every other afternoon, we roll though the lobby carrying bales of groceries, so wowed are we that fruit and vegetables out here actually taste of anything, “Say honey! You gotta try is mango! It tastes of MANGO! Golly!” The sound of country music leaking from our rooms, accompanied by the crashing of another glass or panhandle… Five glasses we smashed so far. Five. Often two at a time (the drying rack is necessarily positioned in front of a swinging cupboard handle). We’re going to end up drinking out of a hose like a dog.
The other curiosity in our half-way house is the position of the television. Not in the living area as you might expect, the sofa and chairs are tastefully arranged facing a blank wall, but in the bedroom. This, like the psychedelic kitchen arrangements, seems to be common in Mexico. Our first ten days were spent solidly house-hunting and the common themes of each of the twenty-odd flats we looked at were kitchens unsuitable for any meal more advanced than microwave popcorn and televisions in the bedroom. This is a country then, where you eat out and stay out until bedtime, come home, microwave some popcorn and stick something on that is only bed-sheet appropriate.
Everyone is having more fun in Mexico.
In many ways, ours is the classic immigrant story. We arrived in rags, carrying everything we owned, hoping for happiness and prosperity in a new country full of promises. The only wrinkle we would add to this common story of our ancestors is that we flew business, Annemarie has a directorship at one of the world’s largest brands waiting for her and we were met at the airport by our own private security detail. This was all very hush-hush. Its forever been a dream of mine to alight at the airport and be met by a man in a suit and dark glasses, holding a sign with my name on it. The reality had a little more of the international espionage feel to it. We had to follow a map to the secret meeting point of the security team. Our man would be holding a sign with a code word on it. We found him, subtly draped from head to toe in the brand Annemarie now works for. He then led us to a very muted and discreet armour-plated tank the size of a Channel Island. After arriving in the apartment, we unpacked to the capacity our new wardrobes, made a taco by standing on our hands and juggling avocados, then immediately went clothes shopping. While packing up in London, we came to the conclusion that we both hated everything we owned. I’d say we dumped at least 70% of our clothes on friends or charity shops. If you see someone wandering around Finsbury Park dressed exactly like me from three years ago, now you know why.
We hit the shops of Roma and Condesa, the hipster district of Mexico City that will be our new neighbourhood. This is a beautiful part of the world; lush, green, art-deco avenues peppered with boutique coffee, taco and clothes shops. My plan was to buy a whole new and exciting wardrobe. Me plus fifteen percent. That’s the plan. I know, the guy with the Hawaiian shirts and the fez hats wants to go up another fifteen percent… but I really mean in style and sophistication. Mexico City offers this. The streets are lined with exciting designers, working in traditional styles with contemporary modifications. Beautiful shirts cut from glorious textiles are turning me off the path of middle-aged “dad” fashion I was walking. Annemarie, always fifteen percent more stylish than me anyway, is turning with me. In Puerto Vallarta, she found a shop where a small team of young designers were cutting and stitching one-of-a-kind pieces there and then. Elegant and stylish garments hot off the sewing machines. These threads plus a tan? We look fabulous…
Walking the shops also encourages me to use my minimal Spanish. I’ve been on the Duolingo app which, despite its hatred of a man named “José” (“We don’t Speak with Jose”, “We don’t want to study with José”, “José, you have a lot of boring books”) is actually quite a useful teacher, or maestro if you will. So, I’ve been wandering into tiendas de ropa, over confidently telling the everyone I meet, ‘Yo abrigo Español!’ which roughly translates as, “I am a Spanish overcoat”. The word “I learn” is aprendo and my internal rolodex of Spanish vocab is usually off by a word or two. Similarly, the word for “but” is pero and the word for “dog” is perro. So to the casual listener, it would appear most conversations revolve around canines in some way. Considering most conversations I’m listening to are half Annemarie’s, this wouldn’t be beyond expectation. Annemarie’s Spanish, like everything Annemarie does, is nothing short of spectacular. Once she’d shaken the rust off her long-term dormant language wheels, she was flying. She also misses the dog. So you can understand, “Yes, but dog!”
There are dogs everywhere, to be fair. From mongrels to thoroughbreds, through chihuahua and Great Danes. Everyone in Mexico seems to own at least a half dozen dogs. And they’re so well behaved to the point of refinement. I’ve felt like trash in front of some of these dogs, even in my hip new shirts. There was a dog on our plane home from Puerto Vallarta that had its own seat in Premium. If the notice came over the intercom that both the pilot and co-pilot had fallen ill, I wouldn’t have been surprised for a second if this pug hadn’t casually slipped on a captain’s hat and sauntered up to the cockpit. “He was first in his class at pilot school” his owner leans over and whispers to us.
Entering any building in Mexico, be it prospective apartment, café, taqueria, tienda or grocery store requires a temperature check, hand sanitizer and a face mask. The latter is compulsory everywhere. Coming from England, you’d think this would take some getting used it, which is does after about three minutes. Coming from England, you’d think this would cause riots, people decrying a fascist state, deep state conspiracies or anti-vaxer protests. It does not. Covid is a black eye on Mexico City, as it is on Puerto Vallarta as it is on London as it is on every city across the globe. We’ve been told CDMX is running at about twenty percent capacity. Puerto Vallarta, a tourist hotspot, is on even less. They can feel deserted at times. However, the people we have spoken to, the communities we have been in, the places we’ve explored, they all understand something that parts of England don’t. There is a plague going on and these very simple measures are clear and obvious ways to stop the spread. The difference in attitude is staggering. When the history of these times are told, the politicization of mask-wearing will stand as among the most insane moments. People will be wondering how such ignorance, in such educated countries, could have taken root for decades.
After two weeks of house hunting, clothes shopping and immigration admin, we decided to take a holiday. The latter of which was particularly stressful, as I was told I would not get my residence card unless I could replicate the signature in my passport EXACTLY. The signature in my passport is ten years old and has a printing error. I essentially had to learn a new signature, complete with mistake, in about five minutes. The legal team dealing with our relocation had me fill in the forms four times. FOUR TIMES. Imagine the look on the lawyer’s face. This guy can’t even write his own name! What a hayseed… Finally, on the day we had to register ourselves with immigration, we queued up for two hours at six in the morning (dressed to the nines), to have our photos taken, our fingerprints scanned and sign my faulty signature. I told the official I was a Spanish overcoat, he stamped the forms and BONGO! I am a Mexican resident, complete with card!
From there, temperatures checked, masks on, hands sanitized, we boarded a plane for the coast.
Everyone is having more fun in Mexico.
