By
JOHN SCHERBER
AN EXPATRIATE’S TALE
Earlier this
year, a woman said to me at a cocktail party, “So you hate the United States?”
“What?” I’m sure my eyebrows leaped
nearly to my hairline with surprise. I wondered whether she’d been lying in
wait for me.
“You call yourself an expatriate. You even
admit it right here.” Her left hand raised my own book as an indictment, and
her extended right forefinger stopped an inch from my sternum, already scarred
from previous encounters of this kind. You never know what to expect at a book
event. I knew she owned a number of my mysteries, set mostly in México, where I
live, because I’d autographed three of them for her at a book signing earlier.
She’d also picked up my nonfiction book on the life-changing experience of many
Americans and Canadians who also live in San Miguel de Allende.
“I am an expatriate,” I said, calmly,
trying to smile.
“See! I read that
on the cover.”
“But being an
expatriate has nothing to do with a lack of patriotism, it merely means a
person who lives in a country he wasn’t born in. You must be thinking of
ex-patriot; someone who’s turned against his country. It’s a different
spelling, like here and hear. If you’d been born in Minnesota, where would you choose to live?”
“I think I would’ve
declined to be born in Minnesota. My family’s all here.” As if making a point I
couldn’t refute, she walked away. I didn’t know whether she’d gotten my message
or not, but I still appreciated her as a reader. They come with all different
points of view.
In that book in
her left hand, which I’d titled San
Miguel de Allende: A Place in the Heart, I investigated what it meant for
32 different people to leave home, often at an age well past youth. To leave
the familiar behind and encounter––usually with some discomfort––a new country
and a new set of friends, a new way of life. Usually the reasons are about experiencing
a new culture and a different kind of weather, as they were for me. And they’re
always about reinventing yourself against a background that in México I think
of as simpático. It welcomes people
in a mood for a lifestyle change.
But how does it
work, really? What is the detail? On the Internet you can easily see the
colonial architecture, which reminds you of Europe. After all, San Miguel was
founded in 1542, a date when the founding of the Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts
was still 78 years away. It’s old in its bones. You already know in your joints
that winters are starting to tell you in unpleasant detail what it means to
continue in the climate where you live now. You know that real Méxican food is
great, because you subscribe to Bon
Appetite magazine, and you also know you can’t get the real thing in the
States without a lot of research. It doesn’t hurt that México is also top heavy
with charm and character, and the people are warm and inviting.
But you can’t get
by on great food alone; you need Internet, golf, a top-notch dentist, good
health care, a trained mechanic to maintain your car, and a sense of community
and security––a challenging word,
since you’ve read about the drug wars. You know what all the commentators are
saying. And even though you realize that it’s all because they are competing
for your drug dollar, you don’t use drugs other than Lipitor and Viagra, so it’s
definitely not reassuring. Amen.
It turns out
that it’s not about Lipitor. It’s about heroin and cocaine. If that’s your
reason to come to México, stop reading right here and stay in San Francisco or
Austin. But if you have other reasons to check out this lifestyle, you will do
so in a greater degree of safety than you could in the States, contrary to what
the media there would have you believe.
What is the solution
to this ugly dilemma? Well, it turns out that staying safe requires nothing
different than the method you already use––and it’s been working for you quite well
all your life. It’s called savvy. You
know the trouble spots in the United States or Canada. That’s easy, and you
respond by avoiding them as you lead a perfectly normal life. But you do not
shun Pensacola because the thought of visiting Detroit makes you queasy.
It will be no
surprise that the same approach works well in México, where there are 2,500
municipalities. The drug battles are focused in between twelve and fifteen of
them. The safety level in the other 99½% is about the same as living in rural
Iowa. Naturally, it still pays to avoid cows with horns.
Once over this
hump you will discover a lifestyle blooming with options. Do you have a
fondness for horses? Equestrian sports are everywhere in México, from cow
sorting to dressage and jumping. Are you a fan of the arts? Art galleries and
studios abound. Lessons in painting and sculpture are offered around every
corner. Like to dig in and serve your community? San Miguel can supply more
than a hundred ways to improve the environment and the status of local people.
Or would you just like to kick back and relax after a demanding career? The jardin, our local plaza, is San Miguel’s
living room, like others throughout México, where expats and locals mix and
trade stories from the weather to life in general, to sports and culture. All
this with 340 days of sunshine a year. Don’t miss the chamber music and jazz
festivals, the annual writer’s conference, the opera scene, and the dozens of
active art galleries.
Tired of
tortillas? Try the two world-class supermarkets at the edge of town, or the
Office Depot, the Liverpool department store, and the other big box stores in
close-in neighboring towns. How about a Sassoon-trained hair stylist?
Many of these
points focus on San Miguel de Allende, my own town, but similar resources
flourish all over México, as do expat communities where others who’ve been
there a while can show you the ropes. The communities are supportive of newcomers and the Internet can readily tell you what’s
going on almost anywhere.
México is an
opportunity not to be missed, so don’t let yourself be stopped by the border––if
it’s anything like mine, your future has
no borders.
Please visit my website for more ideas:
No comments:
Post a Comment