Day to Day

A cup of coffee at Starbucks costs $17 pesos. $30 if you want a mocha. Both tall.
A dozen organic eggs $35.50 pesos
Half gallon organic milk $37.90

These prices are more or less the same as we pay in CA. Cheaper than we pay in Hawaii.

Our natural gas bill was $351 pesos, though I imagine it will be higher next time since the $351 represents only part of the period of service. Haven’t gotten electricity or phone yet.

So, if you want to live cheap in Mexico, don't buy organic stuff and things that are "just like at home". Duh! And don't live in San Pedro Garza Garcia.

Buy limes - 6 good ones for $2.30 and tortillas - 20 whole wheat for $9.70, avocados - 3 for $13.08, spices in plastic bags - 35grams of ground cumin for $4.70, 35 grams ground cinnamon $4.40, bananas - 4 for $5.54, rice 750 grams (1 box) for $12.50 (and that was organic brown rice), pasta - 7 oz for $2.90. You get the idea.

I also found the price of tampons to be reasonable. I lost the receipt but I bought Tampax brand, the 10 per box kind and I think I paid about $28. Not bad. I expected to pay a premium for those.

Utility bills can be paid practically anywhere here. The bank, the grocery store, the 7/11. Or online. It seems mostly people pay bills in cash. En effectivo, it is said. I am told that Mexico is still very much a cash kind of place. There is definitely evidence of this though, at least here in San Pedro Garza Garcia I have noticed that many places accept credit and debit cards and even have their own kind of "store cash" card. Of course, I haven't had much opportunity (haven't taken much opportunity?) to deal in the little tienda and the my-neighbor-sell-this kind of economy which I know is common at least in other parts.

However, today I will go to a merceria (sundries and notions store) that is up a couple blocks to buy red and green and white ribbon so that we can dress up Enid's hair for Mexican Independence Day. They are celebrating on Friday at her school. The teachers sent home a note saying that the kids could come dressed up in traditional Mexican wear (they usually wear uniforms): jeans or traditional skirts, white blouses, braids, etc. So, I think we are going to do jeans and white blouse with red bandana around the neck and ribbons in braided hair.

Last week there was a meeting of the mothers of the kids in Enid's class. The school has classes for babies, toddlers and kids that are 3-4. Each age group has their own classroom. There are about 10 kids in Enid's class. About 7 moms came. The meeting was led by the school Director and her assistant (both very nice and helpful people). Mostly they went over school rules, like don't drop your kid off early, stuff like that. I understood very little beyond the gist of things. But afterward 4 of the moms and I went to a cafe. It was nice. They are a nice group of women. I have to say that even in English I find making new friends a bit intimidating. No less so in Spanish.

My plan is to finish up a lot of the household work that needs to be taken care of (finances, bills, insurance, management of CA and Hawaii houses, plans for school in Hawaii, etc) and which is a bit discombobulated because of the move and then make some calls and see if anyone wants to get together for coffee again, or a playdate. Like anywhere, people already have their social networks in place. And of course, these are parents who have children of various ages so breaking into their lives might take some effort! ; )

It's hard to know exactly what happens at Enid’s school but Enid always has something to tell me about when I pick her up. Twice a week they have music class, once a week a computer class and daily they do things like trace different kinds of lines, paint, color and complete various craft projects. The crafts usually consist of some little bits of paper getting glued to some other paper to create some object that is pertinent to the day's (or week's, or month's) theme. One day it was the "sol de Monterrey", which the teacher explained to me comes from a poem about the sun of Monterrey being for the children. The anniversary of the founding of Monterrey is coming up. And Mexican Independence day is the 16th. Yesterday, The kids all worked together to create a giant Mexican Flag. Enid got to work with another girl on the Eagle in the middle. They crumpled up little bits of brown paper and then glued it inside of the outline of the eagle.

While she was showing me the flag, the son of one of the teachers walked in. He was very friendly so I tried to chat with him a bit. He is 4. We discussed numbers and ages and then we talked about what 3 plus 3 is. He said something to me which I thought I understood but which then led to confusion. Enid laughed and said, "mom, he said 3 plus 3 is 3 plus 3". I am pretty sure that her comprehension is improving. When I picked her up last week she told me "Mom, I know why we have to wait to get our class pet. We are going to sell candies and then we are going to use the money to buy our class pet! So we have to set up our little store and sell the candies first. Then, we will go to buy our pet!" She was very excited and was very detailed about exactly how it was going to work. The funny thing is, that she insisted that she wasn't quite sure what the teacher had said and that she still didn't understand Spanish very well. But, in fact, she told me exactly what the teachers had told us parents.

I find her saying words to herself unconsciously, same as she does in English sometimes. While putting on her tights for dance class yesterday, she was hoisting up the waistband saying "cinturon". When I told her to add the corn to our casserole last night she asked, "todo?" (all). Maybe I should start attending pre-school too. I think it might end up being the only way I improve my Spanish too.

I promise I'll start working on the photo album so that you can see some pics of this place and of us in it.