Spanish Learning Chapter Six

This article is about language learning methods. I know what you are thinking,

"Why isn't he talking about motivation first?"

The reason I am starting with methodology first is that the wrong method of learning a second language is often the biggest deterrent of motivation.

I hear this all the time from potential expatriate wannebees who tell me they would love to do what my wife and I did-move to Mexico. Many are highly attracted to Guanajuato because it is a beautiful colonial town in central Mexico with a small American population. The few expats who do live here have chosen to learn the language, in varying degrees of proficiency, in order to assimilate into the culture. To live in Guanajuato, you have to learn the language to some degree and this frightens many Americans who could live here if they would learn Spanish.

Those Americans who are attracted to Guanajuato instinctively "get that." They know they have to become at least marginally proficient in Spanish but the thought scares them to death.

Let me ask you something: For the sake of argument, let's pretend you researched the place to which you want to retire and Guanajuato is your number-one choice. You just have to move here. No other place will do. Why on earth, you reason, would you want to take the time and expense to move to Mexico if you are not willing to try to learn at least some of the language? Why be doomed to living in one of the "Little America" enclaves where linguistically challenged expatriates move? "Ridiculous," you reason. "I want a genuine Mexican town."

So you know you want to learn at least some of the language and want to start long before making the move. You have two or three years before retirement so you have some time to engage in a good stretch of studying the language before actually taking the plunge.

What is the first thing that will pop into your mind or might be suggested by family and friends as to how you should start your Spanish learning adventure?

"You should take the Spanish courses at a University or Junior College."

This is exactly what you are going to think of or be told your course of action should be if you want to learn Spanish. You will think of enrolling in the Spanish sequence of courses at a college-level institution.

Traditional Spanish courses, at either the high school or college level, are usually a sequence of four courses. You have Spanish level I, II, III, and IV. You enroll in Spanish I and get a textbook, a workbook, and some CD's or Cassettes tapes. You show up for class where, in most cases, you will not have a native speaker but rather someone with a Spanish degree or who studied for a number of years in a Spanish-speaking country. Rarely will you be lucky enough to get a native speaker as an instructor.

On the first day of class, you will be given a class syllabus where your course of study will be outlined for that semester. You will be required to memorize a certain number of vocabulary words and dialogues, you will have to do textbook and workbook exercises, listen to the CD's or tapes, and be tested on it all.

If this doesn't scare you into running out the door screaming for a refund on textbooks and tuition, and you manage to make it to levels III and IV, this will: the classes will most likely be conducted entirely in Spanish. Not one word of English will be allowed to be uttered or even thought.

How does this sound to you? You will spend a fortune on books and tuition. You will spend a great deal of time and energy to participate in a traditional method of learning a second language that by design will not equip you to speak Spanish. You heard me correctly. This traditional language learning methodology is NOT designed to teach you how to speak Spanish.


"The American system of foreign language instruction has not taken advantage of the more than 40 years of modern linguistic, psycholinguistic, and neurolinguistic research on language learning and development. The approach used in most American schools and universities is called the grammar-translation method which has been codified by professional teachers." - Harris Winitz, Ph.D. Language Development, K.C., Mo.

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Spanish Learning Chapter Five

Why should an American learn a foreign language in the 21st century? What and where is the need? If we are not connected in close proximity to our International Neighbors, as are Europeans, then why should Americans learn another language? Why should Americans learn Spanish?

Spanish is the most commonly spoken foreign language by America's largest immigrant group. It is the dominant language of our closest foreign language neighbor-Mexico.

It is the primary language spoken in more than 21 countries.

It is spoken by more than 300,000,000 people.

More than 52,000,000 people will speak Spanish in America by the year 2010.

Los Angeles is the fifth largest Spanish-speaking city in the WORLD.

There are 24 U.S. Banks in Mexico City. Many American companies are conducting business in Spanish-speaking countries.

Cognitive Benefits - Children in foreign language programs have tended to demonstrate greater cognitive development, creativity, and divergent thinking than monolingual children. Several studies show that people who are competent in more than one language outscore those who are speakers of only one language on tests of verbal and nonverbal intelligence (Bruck, Lambert, and Tucker, 1974; Hakuta, 1986; Weatherford, 1986). (A Rationale For Foreign Language Education - A Position Paper of The National Council of State Supervisors of Foreign Languages (NCSSFL)

Academic Benefits - Studies also show that learning another language enhances the academic skills of students by increasing their abilities in reading, writing, and mathematics. A 1994 report on the impact of magnet schools in the Kansas City Public Schools showed that students in the foreign language magnet schools had boosted achievement significantly (Eaton, 1994). It reported that students in the language magnet's first kindergarten, starting in the program in 1988, had surpassed national averages in all subjects by the time they reached fifth grade. And the foreign language students performed especially well in mathematics. Similar studies with students in intensive second language programs show these students scoring as well as or better than their monolingual peers on standardized achievement tests in basic skills. (Ibid)

Societal Benefits - People who communicate in at least two languages are an asset to the communities in which they live and work. Increasing numbers of jobs now require people who are capable of interacting with people who speak languages other than English and can adapt to a wide range of cultural backgrounds. In addition, the ability to communicate in a foreign language contributes to a student's overall achievement of personal and professional career goals. (Ibid)

The main reason I think people who would really like to learn Spanish, but who don't, are those who suffer from Xenoglossophobia. They are just plainly and simply afraid. I think that fear works out in some of the following ways:

They think they will not be able to master the thousands of vocabulary words required for communicating in the language. They are terrified at the thought of having to learn grammar rules. I mean, who wouldn't be? Can you imagine anything more boring? They are afraid they are too old. They are convinced that had they started as children they would have had a fair shot at mastering Spanish.

Here is the BIG ONE: They are scared to death of making fools of themselves.

Not living in as close proximity to another foreign country, as people do in Europe, they do not perceive the need to learn a foreign language.I talk to people all the time who voice these concerns. They are genuine. They would love to live in Mexico and to take advantage of all its benefits of retirement or expatriation, but these five objections loom so largely in their brains that they cannot move past them.

Unbelievably, this Xenoglossophobia is such a real disorder that some people cannot get past it without professional help. Sometimes all the knowledge in the world will not convince someone so afflicted so that they can get past their fears and start to acquire a second language. If you are afflicted with this and yet it is a life goal to master Spanish, get the help you need.

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Spanish Learning Chapter Four

"Foreign language learning is not something that happens overnight; it takes a commitment of time and money. U.S. schools compound the problem by waiting too long to start foreign language instruction. According to ACTFL Professional Programs Director Elvira Swender, U.S. students often start learning foreign languages at puberty, "an age at which their brains are least receptive to language learning." Swender also notes the relative unimportance that schools assign to languages. "It doesn't occur to anyone that we should wait to teach students math," she points out, "so why do we wait with foreign languages?"

Why has America always had this love-hate relationship with learning a second language? What is it that Americans seem to fear in the acquisition of a second language-a fear so great that they will resort to English Only legislative efforts to assure that their children are not brutalized by the introduction of a foreign language in their schools.

"Why pass laws to repress "bilingualism," a resource that competitors are trying to conserve and exploit?" ("...brutalize our schools with their language..."-Frosty Wooldridge, an anti-Mexican xenophobe and Minuteman Project supporter)

There is a real and unacknowledged fear of foreigners in the American culture. I see this all the time in the people I talk to. I am a syndicated columnist and book author who is constantly deluged with readers' comments--some not so nice. I get a sense from the hundreds of column readers' responses I receive that not only is Xenoglossophobia (The Fear of Foreign Languages) a real problem but Xenophobia in general is alive and well in America.

At the writing of this story, the Minuteman Project movement is growing by leaps and bounds. This will, in my view, cause an even large isolationism from Mexico. Maybe America will even go back to the days when learning a foreign language will be outlawed or at least dropped from every school's curriculum all together. Anything is possible. Stranger things have happened.

In Europe, there is a bilingual rate of about 52% compared to America's 9% rate. The reason for this is, in Europe, one has to learn foreign languages just to survive. Where I live, in Guanajuato, Mexico, I constantly meet Europeans who are fluent, to some degree, in multiple languages. They are multilingual because they live in such close proximity to other countries that have a language different than their own.

If Nebraska had one language and Kansas another, there would be many Nebraskans and Kansans who would speak one another's languages. Their close proximity would necessitate the learning of one another's languages.

Americans simply have never had to learn another language, unlike their European counterparts. Language inability deprives one of the opportunities to learn of another culture. That is the breeding ground for ignorance and fear-Xenoglossophia. Nor do American school systems start teaching other languages to children in the very earliest years of their formal education, as do their European cousins. One, however, should not underestimate the issue of need. Americans have simply never had to learn another language to conduct their affairs in life, as have other citizens of the world.

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Spanish Learning Chapter Three

It is not an exaggeration to declare that the United States of America could be the only country in the world where one can graduate from high school and even college without taking one course of foreign language study. Of those few schools which still require their students to take a foreign language to graduate, the one or two years of foreign language study is woefully inadequate for developing a high degree of spoken fluency. As America crossed into the 21st century, a bilingual rate of less than 9% prevailed. That rate is still true in 2005.

As early as 1979, a Presidential Commission on Foreign Languages revealed that,

"American's incompetence in foreign language is nothing short of scandalous..."

Some 26 years later, that "scandal" is still raging in America.

Second language acquisition in the public school system has always suffered from the prevailing political and educational ideology of the times. During the first 100 years of America's history, America was a multilingual society-a fact almost too hard to believe in light of today's bilingual deficit. Although xenophobic tendencies were always hiding in a bush somewhere ready to jump out, there were no legislative efforts to control the teaching and practice of foreign language education.

In the infancy of our country, immigrants, and their offspring managed to maintain their native tongue while learning English. Americans and those with English as their first language hired private tutors to learn a foreign language. Many Americans could make this effort today but do not. To develop proficiency in a foreign language was seen by our early fellow-Americans as a valuable skill and indicative of an educated person. Sadly, this is not so in modern times.

In the 1800's, due to the large immigrant influx into the United States, private foreign language study began to be replaced by public schools in order to meet the needs of the immigrant groups.

By the beginning of the 1900´s, there was a major effort to establish foreign language instruction in all levels of public education and to establish standards governing these programs. This effort, an amazing and outstanding thing considering modern "English Only" movements in America, was to be sadly short-circuited.

By the beginning of the 20th century, a high level of xenophobia was reigning in America. World War I was primarily responsible for outlawing the speaking of any language other than English. Foreign language newspapers and foreign language programs in the public schools were abolished.

A new nationalism-a kind of populism-emerged for the sake of national unity. Foreign language instruction was irrationally seen as a threat to national unity--a condition not unlike what we are seeing in 2006 in the English Only movements.

Before 1923, twenty-two states in America had laws prohibiting the teaching of foreign languages. The Supreme Court overturned this silliness in 1923. However, by 1954, 56% of U.S. high schools did not even have foreign language courses available to their students. Of those that did, only 14.2% of the students were enrolled in foreign language study. This was due to America's abnormal fear (xenophobia) of the strange or foreign as applied to foreign languages. By World War II, America was ill prepared linguistically to conduct the war. America's military had to play catch-up with the rest of the world by developing effective language learning methods almost overnight.

By the early 1970's, the slight improvement in public schools' offerings of foreign language programs once again suffered a decline. This was probably due to reduced funding for the programs. Second-language illiterate parents and school administrations made ill-informed decisions to cut funding thinking that foreign language learning did not benefit the students.

Elementary school foreign language acquisition programs disappeared. Foreign language entrance requirements were abolished at some universities.

When the early 1980´s rolled around, a small resurgence in second language learning occurred but progress was limited. Though studies and reports abounded on why America needed to become competent in foreign languages, only a small number of states had programs in the elementary levels. Most of those were spearheaded locally.

Any modern improvements today are constantly in danger of elimination by nationalist neo-populist, English Only groups. They view Mexican immigrants as brutalizing your children's public school's English education with their native Spanish.


In a 2002 story by Patrik Jonsson, published in The Christian Science Monitor, he reported that the states of Georgia, New Jersey, and the school district in Denver, Colorado, either had waived or were in the process of eliminating the foreign language requirement for high school graduation. I contacted all of these school districts. Only Denver responded. The representative said,

"I have checked with several counselors. At this time, we cannot think of any district in Colorado that requires Foreign Language (particularly in the Metro area). That's not to say there isn't a small district somewhere that requires it."

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Spanish Learning Chapter Two

The way in which adult Africans, and I believe many of the adults I've met in the resort areas of Mexico, have developed a high degree of spoken fluency is the same way in which we learned our native tongue as children-Passive Listening. If ever there was a "natural way" to learn a second language, this is it. If ever there was a way that one should use as the primary step to second language acquisition, this is it.

Passive listening would be the direct opposite of how we are taught to approach the learning of math, history, or science. It is not the cramming, drilling, cold memorizing of facts, or mindless repetition of vocabulary words. It is, rather, the silent assimilation and consequent registering of sights, noises, smells, and action pictures within the new language. It is something that goes on even when a conscious effort is not being made to pay attention to things within the language. I know of one language school in the States that uses the Learnables products with children and suggests playing the tapes while the kids play and sleep.

During the period of silence in which children say little in the new language and play a lot, passive listening is happening. There is no classroom in which a teacher is instructing the child in the language. The need to fit into play with the foreign children whose language must sound like gibberish at first is so great that lots of passive listening is happening.

As adults, we have to engage in purposeful activity, one that is designed for massive exposure in the new language (acquisition first, learning second), as well as passive activity. I not only use home study courses that offer me "comprehensible input" in the language, but I watch lots and lots of television in Spanish. This can be done in the States as well as in Mexico where I live. The Simpson's is an ideal program for this. It used to be available on Univision television as well as other Spanish cable networks.

Exactly how the brain stores language, spoken and understood speech, has not exactly been known. Recently, however, there have been more clues to what goes on in the brain when spoken fluency in the primary and secondary language is acquired. Our brains, when exposed to hundreds of thousands of repetitions in the target language (First, second, third, etc...), organize and store the visual and auditory impressions. But, what is absolutely amazing is that with regard to speech, these impressions are not being stored in long or short-term memory.

When your child reached the point where he or she could say, "Mommy, I have to make pee-pee," the words in that spoken sentence were not "learned" but "acquired." Your child didn't have to engage in the memorization of the vocabulary within that sentence. The process in which your child acquired these words in order to tell you he had to go to the bathroom is the identical process in which you, the adult learner of a second language, have to engage in order to say that sentence without thinking.

To develop fluency in a second language you must develop a SPEECH CENTER in your brain for the new language.

A study, done by two major research centers in the United States, was reported in the 1997 issue of Nature scientific magazine. In a study entitled, Distinct Cortial Areas Associated with Native and Second Languages, a major discovery was made in the understanding of memory and speech acquisition. This study and its results have been replicated in Germany, reported by Nature in 2002.

The study revealed the amazing fact that autonomous speech centers, located in different points in the brain, exist. If someone spoke French, English, and Spanish, there would be a SPEECH CENTER for each language. When you speak in English, there is an English Speech Center that fires in your brain. If you are bilingual and speak in both English and Spanish, then you have a SPEECH CENTER for each of those languages. If you speak in Spanish, your Spanish Speech Center fires off. These points, or Speech Centers, are distinct and separate for each language and are not connected. But here is the most amazing item this study revealed.

Not only is each Speech Center for each language you know separate and distinct, THESE SPEECH CENTERS HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO CONNECTION TO MEMORY.

If you react like I did when I read this, you are now picking yourself up off the floor. But this study, done at two research centers in America, has been replicated in Germany-we need to pay attention. What this is saying is when we speak in our native tongue there is a point or center for that language that fires off. This enables us to speak without defining words or wondering about grammar. When you learn-ACQUIRE-a foreign language, your brain has developed a separate and distinct point, or center, for that language. When you speak in that new language, you are speaking from that speech center and NOT from your memory.

Stories abound about people who took five years of Spanish at the University level but cannot string two words of Spanish together when speaking. They can read or exegete a written text but cannot speak the language or comprehend speech. The reason is that there is no speech center for that language in their brains. There is a lot of long- and short-term memory work that has taken place for translating in the language but they have no speech center for speaking the language. They have tried to learn the new language by associating it to their native language-the results speak for themselves. You will fail if you try to associate your native language with the new targeted language you are trying to "learn."

The way every one of us began the Acquisition process of learning our native tongue as well as any additional language in which we are fluent is through the development of speech centers in our brains.

What traditional language-learning methods do is try to program the short-term memory in hopes that it will land somewhere in the long-term memory and "stick." They try to force you to learn something about the language. What is needed is to resort to something as closely related as possible to how you learned your native language. You must develop a speech center. You need a method that approximates, as closely as possible, the same method that produced your native speech center.

The most promising thing is that there are commercially available products you can obtain that closely approximate this Natural Language Learning Order!

Aptitude never enters the equation until we try engaging in "learning" something "about" the language.

Acquisition always comes first and learning second.

Acquiring language is as instinctual as any of our basic human needs.

Spanish Learning Chapter One

I remain convinced the primary reason why so many Americans are attracted to Mexico is in the Gringolandias, or Gringo Expat Enclaves, they will never be faced with what seems to be the overwhelming task of learning Spanish. The British, I am told, do the same thing in the south of France. An intricate and well-organized expat infrastructure awaits the would-be retiree and alleviates the fear of having to master the language. Everything is organized around the monolingual Gringo and negates any need whatsoever to learn Spanish.

Whether this is a good or bad thing is not within the scope of this series, "Begin By Listening." I think the point is, and most of my readers would agree, if I am going to gripe and complain why something called a "Gringolandia" should even exist, then I should provide an answer or solution instead of criticizing all the time. I have been writing for years about how to go about overcoming the fear of learning Spanish. However, it wouldn't hurt to go over it again, perhaps in a new and different light.

Two important advantages of learning Spanish, if you plan to retire to Mexico, are:

You could significantly increase your social standing and sense of community if you were able to socialize with more than the other gringos in the Gringolandias. In Southeast Asia, the locals used to call this phenomenon "Social Incest." The Americans, mostly those in the Foreign Service, would live in American enclaves and only socialize with one another. Their ability to mix with the locals was non-existent because they didn't know the languages. Unlike their then cold-war counterparts, the Russians, the American Foreign Service workers were then, as they are today, not required to have any language fluency nor develop it on site. The Russians arrived on site with bilingual and bicultural fluency. Fluency before arriving in the country-imagine!

Without the language, your social involvement is severely limited to only those who speak English. That can and should change, in my view.

The other reason is that in the Gringolandias, the real estate for residential housing can cost much more than in your ordinary, run-of-the-mill Mexican neighborhoods. Not always is this true, but you will have an ability to ferret these deals out if you are bilingual.

The place most worth considering where instruction in how to learn a second language abounds just might surprise you. Africa is the place where more people are multilingual than anywhere else in the world. Thousands of her people speak multiple dialects, different languages in which they conduct all manner of business, multiple native tribal languages, and colonial languages. These Africans have done so without the availability of a classroom, textbooks, workbooks, CD's or cassette recordings, or teachers. And yet, they learn these languages with what would seem to us an almost uncanny ease.

In almost every case, it was a work situation in which these folks acquired their new languages. They left their hearth and home to go to another village or city where there was a work opportunity. They found some sort of job and began working with others who spoke another language. The newcomers did not enroll in a language course. They just worked side by side with the people who spoke the new language. They listened. That's all. They just listened. Before long, they began to understand what was being said. Little by little, the confusing chatter became clear. Then came small steps in production in the new language. They lived in the environment in which the living language thrived (immersion). Soon production in the new language emerged. It seems these people learned the new language effortlessly.

Some critics will point out that adults are not children and therefore an approach to second language acquisition should not be given such a simple example for adults as "passive listening." And yet, languages are absorbed, assimilated, or acquired by people who are unable to afford expensive language courses using the African method. We met many bilingual Mexicans in the resort areas of Mexico who learned their English in the exact same way as in the African example I've explained above.

The way in which children learn their native tongue is the same way poor, third-world people (adults) learn scores of different languages. Need drives them to do what is necessary to learn the language in which they will be more successful in making a living. They do not worry about verbs, direct object pronouns, syntax, tenses, or moods. They just listen.

They listen to the language being spoken in the context of seeing the language being acted out by the native speakers. They listen, repeat, and make visual associations with what they are hearing. Soon, they begin to mimic, produce, and put together sentences in simple, feeble, and often error-filled combinations.

The African way of second language acquisition is THE WAY in which we all learned our native tongue and still is THE WAY in which we acquire a new language.

Homemade Vegetarian "Hamburger" Helper

By

Cindi Bower

My dear wife has written this for her BLOG and has graciously allowed me to share it here. For her BLOG please click on the highlighted "BLOG"'s.

For several years, my husband and I worked as teaching family counselors in group homes for mentally ill and mentally retarded adults. We taught social skills, personal hygiene skills, and basic living skills like doing laundry, cleaning, and cooking. A few of these adults could assist with simple recipes, but the bulk of the cooking fell to the two of us.

We worked in various homes over the course of our years in the field. The smallest group was six adult women; the largest was ten adult men. Not only did we have to feed the residents as well as our weekend relief staff and ourselves, we had a strict food budget. We had to find healthy recipes that were satisfying, inexpensive, and simple enough for some of the adults to help with the preparations.

Boxed hamburger helper meals were easy to prepare and were very popular, but were not especially inexpensive since we usually had to fix three boxes per meal. Plus, packaged meals tend to be high in sodium and preservatives, so are not good choices, especially for people who have to restrict sodium in their diets.

I decided I could probably come up with a recipe that imitated packaged hamburger helper but used mainly fresh ingredients. After some experimenting, I concocted the following recipe. In the group homes, we used hamburger instead of soy simply because I was not familiar with textured soy protein. Now that I'm cooking more meals with soy, I substituted soy for the hamburger.

This recipe, the hamburger version as well as the soy version, were instant hits. The adults in the group homes requested it every week (sometimes every day!) and my husband asks for the soy version at least twice a month.

Enjoy!

Recipe:

Serves four

1 cup dehydrated textured soy protein crumbles
7/8-cup hot water
1 beef bouillon cube
Cooking oil
1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
2 carrots, cut in 1/4"-thick slices
½ of a large green pepper, seeds and veins removed, julienned
1 large tomato, coarsely chopped
2 zucchini, cut in 1/4"-thick slices
1 cup tomato sauce
Salt, pepper, basil, and oregano to taste
1 package macaroni noodles, cooked and drained
Parmesan or other grated cheese, to taste

1. Put the textured soy protein in a bowl, add the hot water and bouillon cube, and set aside for 5 to 10 minutes until the water is absorbed.
2. Cook the noodles according to package directions. Drain.

3. In a large skillet, heat cooking oil over medium heat (I use just enough to cover the bottom of the skillet and add more during cooking if necessary).

4. Sautee the onions, garlic, carrots and green pepper until the onion is slightly browned. Add the re-hydrated textured soy protein, tomato, zucchini, tomato sauce and spices. Cook over medium-low heat until the vegetables are tender. Remove from the heat.

5. Add the cooked and drained pasta and mix well.

6. Top with grated cheese and allow the cheese to melt.

7. Serve with garlic bread and a tossed salad.

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A Walk Through Mexico's Crown Jewel: A Guanajuato Travelogue

My Man-Boobies in Guanajuato, Mexico

Since moving to Guanajuato, Mexico, we've lived in four different houses. The first was in a barrio called Puquero. The other three have been in the barrio called Pastita. Without challenge, Pastita has been the best barrio in which to live because of the irrepressible noise factor endemic to Puquero. If you ever find yourself in the position to live in Guanajuato, for any reason, do not live in Puquero. It is loud enough to wake the dead, at all hours of the night, and it never stops. Ever!

Pastita has been ok as far as the noise factor goes. You can hear from here the noise they make in barrios like, well, Puquero. But, it is the canyon effect in full swing and not so much direct noise. This entire city is built in a ravine or canyon so when someone has a party using stereo speakers the size of a small SUV (this, by the way, is not an exaggeration), then you will be able to hear it from where we presently are living.

The first house in Pastita was very nice. This lady, the bruja of Guanajuato, put a lot of money into a series of duplexes and houses that come with almost any convenience you can imagine. They had phones and some even had washers. The problem with this location is that it was on top of a small mountain, making it necessary to have climbing gear to traverse it if you resorted to walking to and from downtown. I didn't mind this so much but there was no oxygen station halfway up the monster climb, making it hard on me because of my asthma.

Another "treat" in these houses was the landlady's dog (it lived on the properties). This animal, which we loved, loved coming into our house to express his affection by making like a water sprinkler over everything in the place. He also could conceivably mistake your leg for a fire hydrant. He was very charming.

Also, this landlady thought it appropriate to come into your house, when you weren't there, and have a little look around. She would also help herself to spare money you might have lying around the house. She would charge gringos, and I mean by that AMERICANS, two to three times what she would charge a Mexican for her houses. We found this out because we can speak Spanish and we asked her Mexican tenants what they were paying for a house. One Mexican lady was paying $400.00 USD for a studio apartment and the lady turned around and charged some American friends of ours $800.00 for the same place. The woman had no scruples.

A pair of rare Mexican gems owns the new place we live in now. Not only are they trustworthy but also, to get us into one of their places, they actually lowered the rent for us since we are reliable gringos. She even arranged to have a phone put into the house so we would rent it. We needed it for an Internet connection, something we need for our writing, which pays the rent. I love this woman and her husband and would love for them to adopt us so we could come to their house for birthdays, holidays, and maybe Sunday dinner.

The only kink in this new house is this: The landlady's husband, a university-educated man, used to operate his international insurance agency in this house more than fifteen years ago. Once he built his new facility, which is just one door down from us and clearly marked as his insurance agency with a huge sign, they had this old place converted into a small casita. We have all we need here and personally I love it though I think my wife could do with another location.

This little abode of ours sits on a dead-end street and I mean literally on the street. All the other houses on the block are elevated from the street level and hidden behind locked gates. Ours, however, since it was an office, sits on the street, no gate, no elevation, just street level.

We can't be in the house with our windows open because of its location. With a dentist's office and an insurance agency on the same street, the cars come by and idle right in front of our house, filling it with exhaust fumes. Though this can actually be dealt with (I reach out the living room or bedroom window and knock on the car window and we all have a chat. They then move the cars or turn off the engine.). What cannot be dealt with is that no one who apparently has business with the dentist, who is right across the alley from our house, or the former occupant of our house, the landlady's insurance-selling husband, seems to be able to read the signs that clearly and decidedly delineate where their offices are located.

If we sit with the windows open, people will actually lean into our screen-less windows, yank back the curtains, and ask to speak with the insurance man. Or, they will, as happened to my wife, yank back the curtain to discover her sprawled over a chair reading, and ask to have a toothache attended to. Now, if it's not the dentist (one guy came at 11:00 p.m. one evening asking me to pull his tooth) or the insurance agency they are seeking, they will yank back the curtain and ask to use our bathroom and even if they could have a bite of what we are eating at our dining room table. (Rarely does anyone in Guanajuato have windows with screens.)

I swear the following is true:

Once at 8:30 a.m., while still in bed, someone came pounding at the door rather frantically. I stumbled to the door in my nightclothes. I threw on a pair of shorts but was wearing one of my favorite, partially destroyed pocket tee shirts. The pocket had long ago torn off, revealing a huge gap directly over my left hairy and pendulous man-booby. I love that shirt but it has mysteriously disappeared.

Anyway, I opened the curtain over the door to see two young, well-dressed Mexican college boys with folders in their hands. I unlocked and opened the door, quite out of my mind, and stood in front of them with half of my naked chest showing, in dirty shorts, and in my stocking feet. They promptly thrust their folders, which contained their resumes, and announced they were here to apply for the job. Before I could respond in my just awake-from-the-dead stupor, some young lady pranced up to me, dressed to kill, and also thrust her resume into my face and unloaded the same I-am-here-for-the-job proclamation.

I was speechless.

Surely, I was still in bed and was dreaming this!

Did they really think I was a businessman or professional of any sort standing there with my wooly man-breast swaying in the wind, my grease-laden hair standing straight up like Don King's, and unable to speak Spanish much less English, in my sleepy torpor? I think all I could do was growl at them. I know I must have looked like a drooling stroke victim or, at the very least, someone who had really bad personal hygiene issues, and yet-mark this-they handed me their resumes and announced their intentions.

What were they thinking? I had to have looked liked someone who slept under bridges and went to work each day picking through trash cans in bus stations and there they were standing there making their purpose clear they wanted to come to work for me. Only in Mexico!

To this day I do not recall exactly what I said to them, all three of them, nor what came of them. When I relayed this to my landlady, and after she regained consciousness from passing out from hysterical laughter (I can be funny at times, even in Spanish), told me that her hubby was holding interviews for some position in the insurance agency that used to be in the house I live in and which is right around the corner from us.

Maybe the wife is correct and another location is in order.

But, would it be as much fun?

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A Walk Through Mexico's Crown Jewel: A Guanajuato Travelogue

Crime and Security in Guanajuato, Mexico

Asesinan a taxista

(Cabbie murder)

Por: Redacción , Domingo, 12 de Abril de 2009

Su cadáver fue hallado envuelto en una bolsa de plástico, en estado de descomposición, presentaba dos disparos y varias puñaladas

SAN FELIPE

Tras cuatro días de haber desaparecido en circunstancias no aclaradas, un taxista silaoense fue encontrado asesinado y envuelto en bolsas de plástico en el interior de una finca ubicada en la comunidad de El Jaralillo; tras los hechos, decenas de ruleteros de Silao organizaron una marcha para exigir seguridad.

El lunes pasado, Pedro Pacheco Cano, alias "El Peri", de 24 años de edad, a bordo del taxi que conducía, fue asignado por el servicio de operadora del Sitio Victoria a realizar un viaje soli-citado presuntamente por hombres no identificados para que los trasladara del Centro Histórico de Silao hacia la central camionera.................Read Entire Article

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`Narco-juniors' are now problem for authorities

BY MICA ROSENBERG

Reuters



Shunning the gem-studded pistols and gold chains flaunted by their fathers, a savvy new generation of drug smugglers is moving up the ranks of Mexico's cartels wielding college degrees and keeping low profiles to outsmart police.

The fashionably-dressed sons of two prominent drug bosses were recently arrested in smart Mexico City neighborhoods, suspected of laundering money for the Juárez and Sinaloa cartels while moving seamlessly among the country's elite......Read Entire Article

Guanajuato, Mexico - Real Estate

Americans can be some of the most amusing people when it comes to listening to their understanding of Mexico. So many of our fellow American believe that English is widely spoken in Mexico. Some will walk into banks and scream, "I know someone here speaks English and I want to talk to them right now." This happened in a Central Mexican town not too far from us. Gringos will tell us they "just know English is spoken here but the Mexicans are pretending they don't speak it".

Here is a revelation: English is not widely spoken in Mexico. No matter what you've grown up believing, English is not a second language in Mexico. American gringos, with panic in their faces, have stopped us on the street to ask for help. They came as tourists to Guanajuato, expecting the city's population would speak the King's English.

This probably comes from Americans’ usual experiences in the resort areas of Mexico. In cities like Puerto Vallarta, there is a significant portion of the population, mainly associated with the tourism industry, which do speak English. We have friends who tell us you could live in Puerto Vallarta and never have to speak one word of Spanish. This is not so in the Central Mexican towns where there are still affordable real estate prices.

You will, in fact, have to factor that into your decision to buy property in these areas. Spanish is the language, like it or not, and the Mexicans here are not pretending they do not speak English. No matter how much you want to cling to that false American stereotype, you will have to know Spanish if you buy a house in these affordable areas. The Spanish Speaking Factor is something to consider for many reasons.

1. If you pop into Guanajuato, for example, and find a house you really love and just have to buy it, how are you going to handle the language issue when negotiating the real estate deal?

2. If you do not speak the language, how will you handle the repairs and remodeling you want to do on the house?

3. If you have absolutely no skill in the language, how will you know the person you are forced to hire to do your Spanish bidding is honest? How do you know if he is in cahoots with the contractors, the workers, the suppliers, and so on? This happens all the time, by the way.

4. If you survive the housing issues, how will you go to the doctor or dentist? To our knowledge, there may be only about half a dozen Mexican doctors in this town who are bilingual enough to help English-speaking patients.

5. How will you handle anything complicated that comes up where a fluent knowledge of the language is required?

I cannot risk overstating the importance of The Spanish Speaking Factor. Will you spend the rest of your life hiring others to speak the language for you? Is that what you want to do? The Real Estate Consultancy person I mentioned earlier in this report will do it for you, right now, for $15.00 an hour.

I know of some expats in Guanajuato who are so handicapped in the language they are forced to hire someone to translate and interpret every time something complicated arises. They've lived here for years and cannot string enough Spanish words together to get along.

Do you want to live like that?

And yet, in the areas where real estate is still affordable, you will have to consider The Spanish Speaking Factor in your desire to buy a house in Mexico. All the more reason for renting first and testing the waters before buying.

What’s The Big Deal with Spanish Anyway?

One of the many reasons I make a big deal about the fact that so few Americans who move here and simply will not learn Spanish is the Let’s Rip Off the Gringo Factor.

When Americans breeze into town, and buy a house on a lark, their impulsivity ends up buying them more than a house. They end up buying a “world of hurt”.

The Presta Nombre or “to borrow a name” is a real estate deal where a Mexican acts as a front man. He holds the title in his name so the gringo can avoid certain laws.

Even with what looks like legitimate documentation that seems to assure payment to the gringo if there is a loss of some sort, this is an extraordinarily risky deal. Gringos who enter something like this are breaking the law. They are trying to avoid laws governing foreign real estate investors. Therefore, if the guy whose “name you borrowed” ends up violating the terms of the “Presta Nombre” and takes your house, you have no recourse because you are a lawbreaker. This still goes on today.

How do you know, if you cannot speak two words of Spanish without choking, whether your so-called pal whose “name you borrowed” is not in cahoots with everyone involved in the real estate transaction?

If your pal turns out not to be the chum you thought he was, he could take your house. Because you entered an illegal act with him, you have no protection. What if he dies and his kids are not interested in your “name borrowing” deal with their daddy? Or, what if he turns out to be a rat to the bank in some other deal and the bank takes all properties that are in his name to cover its losses? This still happens.

This was a common scam in which gringos engaged in the early seventies. However, it still goes on. I know of a gringo who did this. And why? He could not speak Spanish.

Because of his linguistic inability, he was forced to enter a deal as I have described above. He is now beginning to question whether the guy whose “name he borrowed” is trustworthy. He had to make this deal because he could not speak the language.

Now do you see why I am so insistent on learning Spanish? Do you see why I insist you rent first before you buy?

Another issue is, thousands of gringos have invested in what they think are thirty-year property leases. They want to build houses on the land they lease. Because of Americans’ inability to understand Spanish, people enter what they think is a legal transaction. The Mexican law says residential leases are valid for no more than ten years. The only exceptions are the Ejidos (Farming Cooperatives).

But, Americans in the hundreds of thousands have entered, unknowingly, into invalid leases. Why? Because they cannot handle the language. They can neither speak it nor read it.

“Ignorance of the language may have been a partial cause of “the Punta Banda debacle, just south of Ensenada, in which numerous Americans were evicted from their luxury beach homes…”

As a foreigner buying real estate in Mexico, you are at great risk. I cannot begin to tell you of those gringos who have been ripped off when buying a house in Mexico. In the Punta Banda scandal, 200 Americans lost more than 80 million dollars.

Here are a few reasons Americans get ripped off when buying real estate in Mexico:

1. American real estate buyers cannot speak or read Spanish. They have to trust others who may be crooks.

2. Americans do not do their homework before getting to the point of thinking about buying a house in Mexico. They impulse buy—a lot.

3. A garbage man in Mexico can begin calling himself a real estate agent and hang his shingle. There are no laws regulating who can or who cannot be a real estate agent.
4. Americans trust go-betweens who don’t speak Spanish to negotiate the Mexican real estate deal—again the language issue.

5. Americans do not want to be bothered with learning the language to figure out the ins and outs of buying property in Mexico.

The-all-too-typical history of American gringos who go into a Mexican city and begin converting it into an American colony is they refuse to learn the language. They will find bilingual Mexicans to do their bidding for them. In this process, they never know if someone is ripping them off or not.

When someone does rip them off, they go back to the U.S. and tell everyone how evil Mexicans are. They never will acknowledge their own responsibility in the fiasco. This is the American way.

The truth is there are unsavory types in Mexico just like there are in America. But it is the “it’s-not-my-fault” Americans, you know, the “I-am-not-responsible” Gringo Americans, who will not take any of the blame.

If they had learned the language, then they could have possibly figured the scam before losing their shirts.
Americans so typically want to have their cake and eat it too, but never want to learn how to bake the cake.

The Climate and Topography Factor

You come into one of the cities that still has affordable housing, like Guanajuato, and fall head-over-heels in love with a house. You have to have it, so you buy it on impulse. How will you know if you will like the climate and the actual physical layout of the city?

If ever there was a factor to consider when deciding whether to rent before you buy, this one is it. The climate and topography in Mexico is as diverse as anywhere on earth. You have to consider whether you will love, for the long haul, the climate and topography you will have to endure daily.

For example, if you popped into Puerto Vallarta in December for a Christmas vacation on the beach, you might fall in love with it. You might really get off on the warm weather and your ability to go into the water to watch the dolphins frolicking close to shore. You might love the great weather so much you buy a house in December—while on vacation.

Then summer comes. You never have felt such heat and humidity in your life. Little did you know in your house- buying frenzy that it is so insufferably hot during the summers, many of Puerto Vallarta's expats come to San Miguel or Guanajuato to escape the heat. Or, they go back to the U.S. for the summer.

But, there you would be with a house and be forced to leave it during the summers because of the heat you knew nothing about. Renting first, trying out the lay of the land, would have prevented that mistake.

In Guanajuato, the weather is so lovely year-round you do not have to worry about vacating during any cold or hot season. You can live here year-round in wonderful Eternal Spring. This is one of the major attractions of living in Guanajuato. However, the weather is so dry most of the year you might want to think twice. Also, the topography is a consideration.

An antinomy of living in Guanajuato is that it is a place where you never need a car. You could live here the rest of your life and never have to have a car. And yet, there are cars everywhere you walk. Mexicans have cars and lots of them. Why, I do not know. I strongly suspect it is the effect of Americanization. You are not a "real" person if you do not own an automobile. Yet, we see cars parked on the street that haven't been moved in years.

This insane desire to own an automobile has caused an insane problem with traffic congestion. There is an inappropriate number of Guanajuatenses who own and drive cars in a city that simply wasn't built to accommodate so many cars. Therefore, the streets are congested (unnecessarily so), the pollution is getting terrible (people are always sick), and there is no place to park all the cars.

Perhaps another reason so many Guanajuatenses own and drive cars is the topography is rugged. It is one sloping hill or mountain after another around here. We used to live on top of a street that was really a small mountain. Walking down was a cinch. However, when we walked up, we felt we needed oxygen tanks and climbing gear. The streets are ancient cobblestones, which makes walking a bit of a chore.

Living in Guanajuato is not for the faint of heart or the infirm. It is hard going and you have to be able to hike, hike, and then hike some more.

When you first see Guanajuato, you might fall in love with it. However, when you have to walk the streets to pop off to store, to the symphony, or to church, you might begin wondering just what you were thinking when you impulsively bought your house.

The Climate and Topography might be just right for you but how will you know unless you rent first, for a considerable time, before buying?

The Recreation Factor

We have some good friends, Alan and Mickey, who are running around in Argentina and Chile even as I type these words. Before they went there, they were here in Guanajuato. They came to Guanajuato about two years after we did and did one of the smartest things any expat could do. They did exactly as we suggest in our book, The Plain Truth about Living in Mexico (available on Amazon.com). THEY RENTED FIRST.

During their year in Guanajuato, they rented and resisted buying a house. They tried out the city. They tested the waters. They made no sudden rush to own real estate. They tried it and DID NOT like living here.

Now, can you begin to imagine if they had purchased a house "right off the bat"? Right now, they would be a couple of very unhappy people. But, they were smart. They were VERY smart and rented first.

Alan and Mickey did not like Guanajuato because there "was nothing to do", at least according to them. They could not find enough Recreational Activities to meet their need for fun. They are very healthy and active retirees who enjoy engaging in water and snow skiing, boating, camping, golfing, tennis, and all manner of outdoor sports.

Though housing was most certainly affordable for them in Guanajuato, because they rented first, they were able to learn this region of Mexico did not meet an important need in their lives.

So, Alan and Mickey went off in search of somewhere else to spend the rest of their days. Good for them. I commend them for their choice. I use them as an example of why The Recreation Factor is something you should think about before buying property in Mexico.

If you rent first, you can do as Alan and Mickey did. You can see if the area where you have landed in Mexico is going to be stimulating enough for you. If you are like my friends and need something more than the area of Mexico you are considering can offer in terms of recreation, do not buy.

Let The Recreation Factor guide you. Do not make the mistake of impulsively buying a place in an area where you cannot have fun.

Our Final Advice

When the charm and enchantment of Guanajuato, or any area of Mexico, possess you, get yourself down here. However, resist, for all you are worth, the impulse to buy a house. Rent first. Learn a lot of Spanish. Establish ties and contacts with the community. Find out whom you can and whom you cannot trust. See if you can have fun here. Then, look into buying a house, if you ever decide to buy, here in Mexico's Colonial Gem—Guanajuato.

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A Walk Through Mexico's Crown Jewel: A Guanajuato Travelogue

Textured Soy Protein – A Cheap, Delicious Alternative to Meat

Though the US Dollar to Mexican Peso ratio has been fairly good in recent months, we aren't living a more luxurious lifestyle than we have in years past. Nor do we find we have lots of money left over at the end of the month. That's because inflation has increased rapidly and has kept pace, or even exceeded, the favorable increase in the exchange rate.

Fortunately, our landlady has not increased our rent…yet. The utilities have increased a little, but not enough to make much difference in our monthly budget. Our other expenses…transportation, medication, entertainment…have remained fairly constant for the past couple of years. The expense that has hit our monthly budget the hardest is food.

Many basic items like milk, eggs, cheese, tortillas, and rice have at least doubled in price since we moved to Guanajuato six years ago. Some cuts of meat have tripled in price. Fortunately, fruits and vegetables still are fairly inexpensive, especially in the neighborhood markets where local farmers bring their produce to sell.

Even shopping at the local market and taking advantage of sales at the supermarket were not enough to keep our food budget from soaring. I had to find a way to make healthy meals that were cheap, delicious and satisfying.

One Sunday at church, I asked a friend what kinds of meals she made for her family. She and her husband have three teenagers of their own and have adopted a brother's two preteen girls. Feeding five growing children plus two adults isn't cheap and I knew the family didn't have a great deal of money. I was sure she could give me some money-saving hints.

Part of her advice was to buy the cheaper cuts of meat, shop at the neighborhood market for produce, and incorporate lots of beans and rice into our diet. We already did all those things, except for eating lots of beans. My husband seems to be prone to gout and beans exacerbate gout.

The other part of her advice was to use textured soy protein in place of part or all the meat in many recipes. I was surprised to find that it is available in central Mexico and not just in health-food stores, but also in the neighborhood markets and even in the supermarket. It is healthy, high in fiber and protein, and low in sodium, fat and cholesterol. It contains isoflavones, which some scientists believe can prevent some cancers, as well as heart disease and osteoporosis. On top of the health benefits, textured soy protein is very inexpensive…about 50 cents a pound. A pound of soy protein is equivalent to about three pounds of ground meat.

I was skeptical about the taste and texture. I'd tried some soy products years ago while I was in college but was put off by the chemical taste, the strange smell, and the mushy texture. However, my friend gave me some dehydrated textured soy protein chunks to try and I felt that I had to give it a chance.

Since I had no idea how to use the stuff, I did a search on the Internet. I found that textured soy protein seems to be very popular as there were pages upon pages of web sites with nutritional information and recipes. One site had a recipe that sounded similar to my homemade hamburger helper, only with rehydrated textured soy protein instead of meat. I worked up my courage, bought the ingredients, and forged ahead.

It was a hit! The soy tasted like meat and the texture was like meat. My husband said if I hadn't told him I was using soy, he would have thought I'd used hamburger.

I think the secret is adding flavoring to the water used to rehydrate the soy, as it is flavorless alone. I added beef bouillon to the hot water, so the soy tasted like beef.

One cup of soy needs a little less than one cup of water, broth or other liquid to rehydrate. Hot water speeds up the process, which takes five to ten minutes. One cup of soy plus the liquid yields two cups of rehydrated soy or four servings.

The dehydrated textured soy protein crumbles can be used in any recipe calling for ground meat.

Give textured soy protein a whirl. I think you'll like it!

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A Walk Through México's Crown Jewel: A Guanajuato Travelogue

Guanajuato, Mexico Crime Rising

I thought that in case you don't read Spanish, I would explain the previous post:

On April 5th, after leaving a party, Jonathan Luna Aguilar, age 17, was gunned down. No motive is presently known but an arrest of three thugs has been made.

And so it begins in Guanajuato......

GUANAJUATO - Snakes in the Gringolandian's Garden of Eden

Detienen a ministerial

Por: Redacción, Martes, 07 de Abril de 2009

César Hugo Guadarrama Pérez es el presunto homicida de chambelán

GUANAJUATO
CÁLIDO ADIÓS

Bajo el sol del mediodía, ayer familiares y amigos acompañaron a Jonathan a su última morada. Un elemento de la Policía Ministerial del Estado (PME), adscrito al área de adolescentes en Irapuato, fue detenido por ser el presunto responsable de matar a Jonathan Luna Aguilar la madrugada de este domingo.
........Read Entire Article

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Cuidados durante Semana Santa
Por: Redacción, Martes, 07 de Abril de 2009

La Secretaría de Seguridad Pública del Estado, a través de la Coordinación Ejecutiva de Protección Civil, recomienda a toda la población tomar las siguientes medidas preventivas durante la temporada de Semana Santa.

Si va a dejar la casa sola, cerrar bien las válvulas del cilindro de gas, las llaves del agua y desconectar todos los aparatos eléctricos.

publicidad
Al acudir a eventos masivos, evitar llevar objetos valiosos y no perder de vista a los menores de edad.

Evitar nadar en presas, ríos y arroyos; en balnearios no introducirse al agua después de ingerir bebidas embriagantes o comida en abundancia.

Para prevenir accidentes carreteros, se recomienda revisar las condiciones mecánicas del vehículo al salir de vacaciones; no manejar en estado de ebriedad, cansado o desvelado o por tiempos prolongados; utilizar el cinturón de seguridad

........Read Entire Article

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Spanish -- The Road to Fluency

I read the following online on a site supposedly devoted to learning fluency in a second language:

"Language is like any other skill or aptitude: some people are proficient in languages, while others are better at math, science, or music. Everyone has the potential to learn, but the fact is that some people are just more capable of learning language than others." - About.com

Trying to acquire a second language as one would try to learn math, science, or music is so predominate, so pervasive in the minds of Americans that this sort of statement is posted on a site that purports to be an authority on second language acquisition.

If this statement is true, then just how did you become fluent in your native tongue? If "language is like any other skill like math, science, or music," then under which academic textbook, classroom, workbook, teacher, or school did you study to become fluent in your native language?

When spoken fluency is relegated to the level of learning just another academic subject, the one thing that can be guaranteed is that the seeker of spoken fluency is NOT going to become fluent in the target language. They will learn how to read text in the second language but they will not develop spoken fluency.

I mean, really, think about this statement for a while. If learning language were indeed like any other skill or aptitude, "some are better at it than others," then only those with the aptitude for their native language would be able to speak it.

The rest of us "language-skill-and-aptitude- challenged" schmucks would be plum out of luck.

Perhaps the main reason statements like the quote above are so adamantly believed is because the academic communities in almost every country in the world ignore the almost 40 years of research in Language Acquisition and fail to make the distinction between the Acquiring and the Learning of language. One refers to learning speech, an instinctual thing in all humans (even the deaf and blind), while the other refers to learning about the language in which one has already mastered speech.

Making the distinction between the acquiring of the language and the learning is perhaps the most important factor in determining the ultimate success or failure of the adult seeker of a new language. If one does not make this distinction and does not seek the logical methods for acquiring the target language, then what one most likely seeks are a classroom, a teacher, a textbook/workbook, and abject failure to learn more than a few lines out of dialogues. I can still recall the very first dialogue I memorized in my seventh grade German class. I cannot speak German, however.

Because I've sought methods (all home study courses) that directed me to acquiring a high degree of spoken fluency in Spanish, I can go to the Mexican doctor, discuss fairly complex issues with neighbors, go anywhere in Mexico where we live, and get along just fine in the language. Because I sought spoken fluency first, before learning about the language (grammar), I am now ready to step into a learning environment (classes) where I will learn about the language.

One comes before the other.

It does help that I live in the environment in which I can practice constantly and receive correction. You would, however, be surprised at how many monolingual English speakers live in Mexico, the total Spanish immersion environment, and yet cannot string enough words together in Spanish to form a coherent sentence. The sad tragedy is that they are forced to commit what the authors of the novel, The Ugly American, referred to as "social incest." The authors described Americans in the Foreign Service in Asia who, not required to learn the local's language, didn't learn it and, therefore, could only socialize with their fellow Americans.

Blogger Michael Dickson, in his Blog entry titled, The Movie Set, says this:

"From my direct experience, a minuscule proportion of Gringos speak passable Spanish, and without Spanish you can never, ever, know this darker and more interesting world. You stay in your Glitz Ghetto."

He's right.

If as an American expatriate, you claim "all your friends are Mexican," and you remain monolingual, this can only mean all your Mexican pals are bilingual. The world of the bilingual Mexican, often from a higher, more educated class, is but a fraction of the culture! How can you ever get past the masks and into the real, often darker and far more interesting, world of Mexico or whatever Spanish-speaking culture you love without the language? You can't.

The sad thing is the instinct to learn speech, no matter from which language is alive and well in even the oldest adult's brain. Apart from having a brain disease process going full tilt, you can learn Spanish, or any language, no matter your age or lousy disposition.

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AMAZON.COM & MEXICAN LIVING BOOKS - All You Need To Know About Living in Mexico

The Most Hated Gringo in the World -- 31

I haven't commented on my Hated Gringo Status lately and thought I was due to come up with something and here it is: A couple or three years ago I wrote on the issue of Mexicans not being the angelic supermen that Gringos tend to make them out to be. Remember this quote:

"The people of Mexico routinely treat strangers with warmth and curiosity. The people here seem to have the ability to enjoy life, be more hospitable, more respectful of their fellow man."

To the contrary, I suggested in an article that Mexicans, not all without exception, can be very xenophobic and this was perhaps due to their provincialism. Today, six years living in Mexico full time, I think this really applies to the mega-provincial areas such as Guanajuato.

Regardless, for my effort in offering a different Expat viewpoint, I was called a racist and, of course, threatened with all manner of bodily harm.

So, for your perusal I offer the following article by a journalist who deals with the same subject:

Tone down the xenophobia

BY AMY GLOVER DRAKE

"U.S. citizens who do not speak a word of Spanish recognize "mi casa es tu casO as a Mexican expression that denotes warmth, hospitality and openness. But in many ways, Mexico is a country that has a difficult time accepting people..." CLICK HERE for the entire article.

GUANAJUATO & MEXICO CRIME UPDATES Part 1

Check out NBC's Dateline Report on San Miguel de Allende Kidnappings--CLICK HERE

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Kidnap law now set to be created

BY DAVID AGREN

The News

A majority of state legislatures has approved a constitutional amendment that will pave the way for lawmakers to craft a national anti-kidnapping law.
........Read Entire Article

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Gun control debate hangs over violence

BY SUZANNE GAMBOA

Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Members of the U. S. Congress may be alarmed by the surge in Mexican drug violence and its potential to spill across the border, but they grow silent when the talk turns to gun control as a solution........Read Entire Article

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'Mexico more urgent than Afghanistan' ... AP/BLOOMBERG NEWS

WASHINGTON - U.S. lawmakers criticized the Defense Department on Tuesday for not making the drug violence in Mexico as big a priority as Afghanistan and for not coordinating U.S. resources to confront it.
...Read Entire Article and Article Source

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Yo, Citlali

Por: Janet Vázquez, Miércoles, 01 de Abril de 2009
A sus cinco años la vida le arrebató a su madre y se aferra a la esperanza de un hogar

La pequeña Citlali fue recogida un día de septiembre pasado en la carretera Irapuato–Salamanca cuando su madre, una joven de 23 años, cayó fulminada de un paro cardíaco.

Citlali, quien tiene secuelas de quemaduras en diferentes partes de su cuerpo, ya está a salvo en la Casa Cuna de Irapuato, pero confunde su nombre, los lugares en los que ha estado y su edad.
...Read Entire Article and Article Source

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'`War on drugs hit by downturn'

REUTERS


ROME - Mexico's economic downturn is complicating the battle against drug trafficking, draining state budgets and boosting the ranks of the unemployed who may turn to criminal gangs for work, a government secretary said on Tuesday.
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