Some Things are a Little Different

Wanted to drop a blog to let everyone know that we are doing well. We are in the teacher prep week of school so we spend our days at school learning the ropes, praying and setting vision, as well as preparing classrooms and lesson plans. Each day we are told we are getting closer to home phone and internet so hopefully we will be sharing more regularly very soon. Today I actually wanted to post a little blog about some of the small things that are very different. These are just a couple of things, there will be more to come. This is just reflective of our community I don’t know how Mexico as a whole operates.

Let’s start with mail first! No one in our neighborhood has a mail box. When the postman does come (I am not sure when that is yet) they just stuff the mail into your fence or through a slot in your gate. This generally means that half the mail falls out of the fence by the time you get home and is scattered. If they are kind (ours is) when they see a bill or something important they actually set it on your front step. We have been told that the mail is not trustworthy at all here. That is why the school has all mail for the teachers sent to them as they have something special set up to assure delivery. If you do want to try to send something to us we can give you our exact address, but you may want to send it in triplicate to make sure we get one of them!

Utilities! Every house in the city (as far as I can see) has a big black tank on top called a RotoPlus. This holds your water. Every house then has a boiler, that along with the sun, heats the water. When we shower, we turn the water on and come back about 5 minutes later once it’s hot. Everyone then has a large gas tank on top of their house. There is no gas lines. When your tank runs out (we have been told 3-4 weeks) you actually call the gas company and a truck comes and fills your tank. There is no heating or air conditioning in most houses. You go to bed hot with a fan on you and you wake up cold as the night as cooled the house.

Lawn care! People take raking the leaves very seriously here. You are expected to sweep your sidewalk everyday or people think badly. This does not mean you cut your grass. They try to tend that to, but it is not nearly as important as sweeping your sidewalk. The school in the past has actually had residents come and complain that some of the Americans don’t sweep everyday. It seems like such a small thing, but they take sweeping very seriously. Other then that public lawn care is minimal as everyone either has a high fenced in yard so you can’t see your neighbors grass or like us has a 6x6 plot of grass. With that being said, some of the fenced in yards are immaculately designed.