when does it stop being paradise?

My friend Al lives just outside of San Miguel de Allende.

I originally met him through his blog, Life at Rancho Santa Clara. A retired newspaperman, he wields a word-thrifty pen in his writings of ranch life in the highlands of Mexico. Whenever I am in San Miguel, I arrange at least one dinner with him and Stew.

Most expatriates here periodically ponder whether Mexico is their final destination. Part of that is due to the fact that they are not immigrants. As expatriates, they still retain emotional ties to the Old Country,* often referring to it as "home."

Last Monday, Al published one of his best essays I have read on that topic (When is it time to leave San Miguel?). Al and Stew have had their shares of adventures on their ranch -- including a land dispute that has been every bit as dramatic as There will be Blood. Even though, No Country for Old Men may be more appropriate.

Al has been telegraphing his concerns for about a year. I knew the details of the land dispute, and its monumental frustrations, but it seemed as if the concerns went deeper. They do.

In Monday's post, he pulled no punches. One of Al's personal virtues is his jeweler's eye for the truth.

He listed the factors that are driving him to consider leaving Mexico. Availability of  health care. Crowds and traffic. Stress. Personal safety. Cartel activity. Murders.

Nothing on that list would surprise anyone who lives in Mexico. They are the same concerns that people here (visitors and residents) on the coast discuss -- or ignore. We have an additional problem: inadequate infrastructure to support the current population, let alone the building boom that is now underway in our villages.

Now and then, I hear a visitor refer to this stretch of the Pacific as "paradise." It isn't.

Our villages are faced with exactly the same problems Al puts on his list. It does not make the place a bad place to live. The fact that I have chosen Barra de Navidad as my final home is evidence that I do not think of the place as being sucked down the drain. But, to call the place "paradise" minimizes the daily struggles that my neighbors face.

Some of you know Hank through his comments here. He is an American who has lived in the Barra area for three decades. He married a Mexican woman and raised his children here. He has now moved away. One reason for that move was that he does not like how Barra has changed. In particular, he does not like how foreigners have completely changed the tone of an area he once loved.

I do not know if Hank ever described Barra as "paradise." I know he would not describe it that way now. For better or worse, Barra is certainly not what it was thirty years ago. I doubt any place on earth is.

Al has decided to stay in San Miguel. His reasoning is simple. He and Stew have built a nice home for themselves on their ranch. They lead a good life there. Because he is a realist, he has weighed out what Mexico has added to his life against the vague miasma of doom. For him, hope has prevailed.

But, let's hear that from Al.

Yet, even though I speak Spanish, and we both have invested a lot money and energy in Mexico, Mexico remains a beautiful but foreign land to us. We don't cry "Viva Mexico!" at sunrise every day, or profess to know the intricacies of this country's culture or, far less, its politics. Mexico remains a flawed beauty where we are lucky to live.

"Mexico remains a flawed beauty where we are lucky to live." I like that.

I like it because it sums up my own thoughts on why I have decided to put down my permanent roots here and to call it home.

And that is a far better appellation than "paradise."


* -- The term is Jennifer Rose's, and I have unabashedly stolen it for my own selfish purposes. It is a gem. Why bother stealing dross?