Life in the bubble. This is a lot like Nebraska in the 50’s, not all that bad, just very different. Things are very manual here, the average wage ranges from $4 to $8 per day depending on the type of work so it’s easy to see why the migration NOB. Building, is mostly all concrete and mostly all mixed by hand, rarely do you see a cement truck.

Then there’s the car wash, you pull in and get out, about 6-8 guys are using the spray wands like the local Uwash. They let it soak, hand wash and rinse. Then move it around the back of the building and up the other side where it goes through the blow drying process, but instead of a giant blower there are another 6 guys hand drying and using individual air hoses to blow the water out of the cracks etc. Then a couple more do windows and finally vacuum – yes, that’s the last part of the process, don’t know why. No one’s in a hurry and all that costs $5 plus $1 tip.

I’m having a computer desk made and again, totally manual individual labor and it will take about a week. But, one of the oddest things is that the local “nice” furniture store imports leather recliners from Canada? – the cloth models built here use imported LazyBoy mechanisms, but no leather, you’d think leather here would be the only thing you could find.

The mail is good news, not so good news. They email you when you have mail in your box, so you don’t have to go unless necessary. Now, the not as good, I forgot my PIN for my Compass account and so they’ll send me another by snail mail – so, I should have it in a couple of weeks depending on whether it gets into my Laredo box next week, or the week after.

There are many dangerous things in MX, for instance the toilet seats are made of incredibly thin plastic, they work, but a bit disconcerting, not instilling much confidence or solidarity. And then there’s wiring, I think they see it as a mark of progress, if you got it, show it and if it works, it’s code! If you don’t want to lay awake at night worrying, don’t take off a switch plate and look at the wiring, they don’t use wire nuts, wires are just twisted together and taped. Now, that’s not all that bad for speaker wires, but lights? – that’s why you have big regulators on all radios, TV’s, computers etc.

The absolutely most amazing technology I own, not necessarily most useful but truly most amazing is the CD player in the Jeep. This thing does not skip under any conditions and trust me, the streets and one back road I took today are 4 wheeling though the outback at it’s best. I cannot imagine trying to drive a regular car down here.

Much of the system here is cash driven, I have a system, I carry pesos in the left pocket and place receipts in the right and it’s amazing how each day I start out with a full left pocket and it’s empty when I get home and the right is full. A few stores do accept credit cards, I used one at the Soriana today.

The Lord looks out for fools like me, I’ve known and accepted this for years. I was sure I wanted to live on the west end, preferably the Raquet Club. Right before I was ready to come down and rent a mud and rock – BIG ROCKS – slide came down through the RC. I explored it yesterday and found the house I wanted to rent, it’s ok, but right now you need a mountain goat, either real or mechanical to get up into the development. I can’t imagine things being anywhere close to normal for at least a year, the amount of rocks that came down the mountain is amazing and have undermined the streets and in some cases washed out whole areas, so the place I ended up is much much better in nearly every way.

I wanted to buy some baked goods at the Soriana and couldn’t see any bags to put them in so watched to see how it’s done. There are some large metal trays and tongs and you pick and place the goods on the tray and then hand it to a lady at the counter, she inputs the number and costs on a ticket and places them in a paper sack and staples on the ticket. And you do tip the person who sacks your groceries. Then, if you’re pushing a cart you have to run a gauntlet of kids wanting to “help you” get to your car plus at least one guy who wants to wash your car so it’s an experience.

So, life goes on, but at a more moderate pace.