When we had our first lesson with the Spanish teacher, I asked a bunch of questions about the economic situation in Durango Mexico. Minimum wage is $42 pesos (about $3.80 USD) per day. It sounds like this is the going rate for unskilled manual labor. Our friends said that many people can’t even get the minimum wage for work. Most people work a 6 day work week here. This seems pretty amazing when you consider that a pound of tomatoes cost about $36 pesos.

Our teacher said that WalMart was considered a very good employer because they will hire young people and work around their school schedule. Working full time at WalMart pays about $500 pesos per week or about $45 U.S. Dollars. So that would give you a yearly salary of around $2,300 per year.

Our friends told us that $50,000 pesos per year (about $4,500 USD) is a pretty average annual salary for skilled labor here. That is what many of the lawyers and accountants make each year. Obviously there are many people who make more. Teaching at a top private school seems to pay somewhere around $1000 USD per month, but I think that is highly variable as well. Tuition is about $350 USD per child. Most of the teachers at the top private schools are brought in from overseas because all of the classes are taught in English.

The teacher also said that the cost of food in Durango was much higher than in some of the other Mexican states because almost all of the fruits and vegetables have to be imported from elsewhere. Durango does raise beef, so the beef prices are supposedly pretty good. We didn’t buy a lot of beef in the U.S., so it is harder for us to compare the price of beef.

Today I was once again noticing how many streets lack street signs. It can be very difficult to figure out where you are because there is about a 50/50 chance that any street you come to will have a sign with its name. It seems like this would be something the city would invest in, but maybe it is too expensive.

On the other hand they provide free trash pickup for the entire city 6 days per week. In my U.S. mindset this seems like something that individuals should have to pay for themselves. Use taxes to pay for the street signs and make everyone pay for garbage pickup.

If the city didn't pickup the trash, many Mexicans wouldn't pay for it because it isn't essential. People would still put the trash outside to get it out of the house. The many stray dogs would get into it and drag it all out in the street where the city would have to clean it anyway. Plus they would have to try to go around issuing tickets to people who left out the trash.

The missing street signs don't seem so bad if that is what it takes to provide trash pickup.

In the States, grocery stores regularly put things like milk and eggs on sale in order to attract customers. Here in Mexico, they don't seem to change the prices to attract customers. Instead they give you something else for free. For example, on weekends, Walmart tapes small bags of juice to all of the milk jugs. So you get this juice baggy thing for free when you buy the milk.

I guess this is good for people who want the juice, but it isn't a very motivating factor for us when we want the milk and don't particularly care for a small bag of yellow juice that we can't identify.

Another thing interesting about pricing, is that milk seems to cost the same at the corner store as it does at Walmart. There is also no incentive to buy in bulk. Milk is 18 pesos for 1/2 gallon and 36 for a full gallon. With the higher expense of packaging two 1/2 gallons over one full gallon, you would expect the full gallon to be at least a little cheaper.

House for RentWe went and looked at a house in a neighborhood that we really like. It was ok, but there was a a strong sewage smell in the yard and you could really smell the car exhaust from the nearby large street. We could probably fix the sewage smell with some work, but not the car exhaust.

We drove over to see the house with our friends and as we walked back over to their car we realized the the keys were locked inside. Their spare keys were locked in the trunk so we were stuck. They found a "locksmith" who drove over on his motorcycle and took out a toolkit and started sticking various objects into the lock. I tried to get a picture of him working, but he had the door open in about 30 seconds.

As we got into the car I asked our friend how the locksmith knew it was our car and that we weren't breaking into someone else's vehicle. He said he didn't and that they just "trust" the person who is paying them. Our car uses a different type of lock, so I doubt someone would be able to open it short of breaking a window. Of course breaking the window will pretty much get you into any vehicle and it tends to attract a lot of attention.

Trimming TreesThe other day as I was walking to the store in the morning I saw a bucket truck pull up near our house. The man in the bucket had a machete and was trimming the trees away from the electrical wires. It was a little scary to watch him swinging the large machete blade that close to the live wires. It seemed to work out ok and he got the trees trimmed without hitting any of the wires.

I've noticed that you see a lot more people wearing neck braces than you do in the U.S. I'm not sure exactly why unless it is from minor auto accidents. The way I understand it, insurance will pay for actual expenses involved in an accident. So if you are off work for 10 days, the insurance will pay for the time you lost at work. It is possible that wearing a neck brace gives you a good way to prove you were injured.

In NYC I've heard of a bus that was involved in a very minor accident. There were 20 people on board. By the time the police got there, the bus had 40 people on board and many of them were complaining about whiplash. People off the street saw a chance for a payout and climbed on the bus to claim they had been injured.

We saw what looked like an accident where a car hit a pedestrian a few days ago. The lady had a skinned elbow, but looked like she was fine otherwise.

Sunday we were standing on the street when I heard some music playing. There was a donkey loaded down with synthetic feather dusters being followed by two men. One was playing an accordion while the other was doing his best to play and carry a large upright bass. Behind the two men were 30 other people walking two by two. The marched down the street and turned the corner before I could get a good picture of them. We asked our friends what was going on and they weren't sure. Maybe it was some house cleaning ritual where everyone shows up at a friends house and helps dust away the cobwebs.

November 20th is a holiday in Mexico similar to July 4th. in the U.S. It actually celebrates a 10 year revolution that started in 1910. We are told that there are many parades and celebrations all over the country on this date. We didn't see any because we spent the day sick in bed.

Resaurant in DurangoOn Sunday we went to a restaurant with our friends and something in the food didn't quite agree with our stomachs. Monday was pretty miserable. Our friends were just fine, so it must have been something in the food that we aren't used to up North. We have a friend who came to the U.S. from Colima and he got sick on the U.S. food.

Anyway, here is a photo of a restaurant I would suggest avoiding if you happen to be visiting Durango Mexico. If you are use to Mexican food, it is probably fine, but for gringos you may want to look for a different place to eat.

We tried to look at another house tonight. We were supposed to meet the owner at 5pm. Around 5:30 we called to find out where she was and were told she was “on her way”. We stayed around until about 6:15 and tried to call again, but her phone must have been off the hook. Oh well we’ll try again later.

In my U.S. mindset I would think if you have a house for rent, you’d be there before prospective renters in order to make sure everything is ready for them and to try to make it impressive.

We did get a chance to meet the neighbor who it turns out is a friend of the friends we are staying with. She is married to a man from the U.S. so the entire family speaks English. She told us it was a nice house but that the last renter had been paying $3000 pesos per month. The owner had quoted us $4500 per month. The neighbor said we should be able to get her down to $3000. So that was some useful information.

The house is just down the block from the large yellow house that we liked, but that seemed a little bigger than what we need. Unfortunately this house is closer to the main road and after standing there for awhile the I really started noticing the car emissions.

It would be nice if we could find a place that was furnished. The cost of getting a refrigerator, washer, furniture, etc. is really going to add up. So far I haven’t heard of anything like that being available.

This afternoon I was at the church down the street helping them setup a website. Haley sent me an instant message asking me to pickup some jelly and butter from the nearby store before I came home. I had forgotten my Blackberry, but I figured it wasn't any problem. I could just find the items on the shelf. I couldn't after a few minutes of acting confused and looking at every shelf someone came up to try to help me.

My ability to communicate in Spanish totally left me. The only Spanish words I could think of were for Bread, Fruit, and Milk. I started with the butter. I said "pan" (bread) and acted like a I was holding a piece of bread and spreading something on it. They took me to the bread. Ok, so I said "leche" (milk), acted like I was shaking it vigorously and then acted like I was spreading it on bread. They took me to the individually packaged pudding and jello section. Finally someone realized that this gringo might want to put butter on his bread and directed me to the appropriate area.

Next I wanted to locate jelly. I figured we had exhausted the things that were possible to spread on bread, so I acted out spreading jam on my "pan" again and the lady took me back to the bread section. I then said "frutas" and pointed at the pretend bread and she understood what I mean. She took me to the jelly section where I located the strawberry jelly and headed to the checkout.

The same lady who had helped me went around to ring me up. She wasn't happy with the butter I had been given and took it back to exchange for another. As I was leaving I think she said that I would learn Spanish quickly. Either that or she told me that I had better learn Spanish "pronto!"

Anyway on the way home I felt proud of myself. Not because of my mastery of Spanish but because of my ever increasing skill at charades. The nice thing about charades is that it should work in any country, so after a few months here I should be able to travel anywhere in the world and buy jelly and butter with ease.

This Sunday, I understood more of the sermon that I have every before. It felt that I was catching about 25% of the major words. It was probably lower than this, but it felt good to be able to recognize every few words.

I think I'm getting pretty good at recognizing "church vocabulary" but that doesn't necessarily translate into being able to easily tell a cab driver where you want him to take you. I remember reading a book called "God Smuggler" about a guy who smuggled Bibles into foreign countries. He learned to speak English by sitting down with a English language dictionary and the King James Bible. He once passed on a dinner request by saying:

"Thus sayeth the neighbor of Andrew, thou wouldest be pleased to pass the butter."

I want to avoid sounding like that. I don't think it will be a problem. The church we are attending uses regular Spanish, not whatever the KJV equivalent would be.

A few days ago we were at Soriana (kind of like a Super Walmart), and I was looking at the televisions. They were showing a Spanish rap video. The rapper was rapping away in Spanish and holding a handcrank mixer toward the camera. The only word I could catch was "Sabe" which I think means "do you understand?" I didn't, so I moved on. Learning Spanish from rap videos is probably a pretty dangerous idea.

Front of House Near DowntownWe spent some more time driving around and looking at houses for rent today. There was a house for rent in a neighborhood we really liked downtown. It was at the end of a dead end street, had a garage for parking, four bedrooms and three stories. It was nice but the carpet was really old and dirty. In Mexico I think I prefer tile because it is easier to see if it is clean. I tried to see if there was tile under the carpet, but there wasn't. We could probably do a contract that specified they had to change the floor, but I'm not sure if it would be worth it.

Roof of House DowntownThey were wanting $5500 pesos per month (about $500 USD) and I'd rather be down in the $300 range. It was a cool house and it might have been more attractive if we didn't have a baby on the way. Also it was in an area that has scorpions. This probably wouldn't have been a problem if the houses nearby were clean. Most of them were, but some of the ones behind it that it shared a wall with seemed pretty run down. The one's it shared the street with were very nice though.

We also looked at the place on the mountain again that was renting for about $900 USD per month. It was very beautiful and would cost millions of dollars in high class areas in the U.S. There was a guy staying there that was doing some work to clean up the yard. We asked him about scorpions and he said they generally found about 5 each week! He said they also had problems with lots of snakes and that the owners were moving out because it was too expensive to run the utilities to keep the house going.

It was beautiful, but 5 scorpions per week isn't going to cut it. It think we are going to have to settle for a building that isn't on the mountain. This isn't really a bad thing because $900 per month is more that what we really want to pay–even if we could afford it. The scorpions make it an easy decision.

House Near Sam's ClubThe last house we looked at was near Sam's Club. It is a little ways from downtown, but it is in an area where people live that say they have never seen a scorpion. The house was beautiful. It had four bedrooms and a garden area. It also had a maid's quarters out back. The entire thing was surrounded by a tall wall and it was in very nice shape and clean.

Garden of House Near Sams ClubThe owner wants to get $65000 pesos ($597 USD). This is still more than what we really want to pay, but we might be able to bargain them down to something a little more reasonable. There are other houses in the $200 range, but they aren't in as nice of neighborhoods. Our original budget was for a $200 house. Our friends pay $200 and their house would work very well for us, but it is hard to find houses like that downtown. Maybe we could find something similar in the neighborhood over by Sam's Club, but so far we haven't seen one.

Inside House Near Sam's ClubWe want to see some more houses in this area to see what type of prices they are going for. So far the ones we have seen have been even more expensive, so it might be a really good deal for that area. The no scorpions thing is very attractive!

I think our best bet is to find a house by word of mouth. The one's listed by the real estate office seem to usually be more expensive, so the best deals are probably going to be the one's where there isn't even a sign on the house.