Most areas of Mexico that have been colonised by northern immigrants and tourists have an electronic message board where questions, gripes, gossip, and discoveries can be shared in equal measure.
This area of Mexico is no exception. For years, the electronic message board TomZap was the place to go if you needed to know where the locksmith was located or if you wanted to ask one of those whimsical "where is the best hamburger served in Jaluco" questions.
TomZap is still on the internet. But its Spartan functionality has been replaced with the glitzier whatever-Mark-Zuckerberg-is-going-to-call-his-company today. I will go way out on the end of that lexical limb and call it Facebook.
There are several in our area. All designed to make visitors feel a little less anxious and a bit more at home.
Some questions seem to have the same cyclical existence as Covid. One of my favorites deals with recommendations on banking. Which bank has the best exchange rate. Which bank will open accounts for tourists. Which bank has English-speaking staff. Which bank offers toasters with each new account. (Hold it. That last one was an escapee from the 1950s.)
Immigrants and tourists alike are always filled with plenty of opinions usually accompanied with colorful anecdotes of their own experience or of someone-who-knew-someone-who-was-related-to-a-Rockefeller. Taking into account the limited number of banks in the area, I am always amused at the range of experiences. But we all lead different lives.
In the years I have read the bank recommendations, I have yet to see anyone recommend what should be named The Peoples' Bank of Mexico. Most northerners think of Oxxo as a convenience store. My neighbors think of it as a financial institution.
Whenever I stop by to buy a soda, I am inevitably the only person in line with merchandise. This morning I stopped by the Oxxo near my house for a post-walk bottle of water. (I am fond of the mineral water with a hint of a lime.)
The young woman already at the counter wanted to transfer money to someone somewhere. The next man in line was older. He was picking up money from someone somewhere else -- perhaps from the young woman in front of him. The next two people bought telephone time.
The Oxxo clerk was extremely efficient. She processed the four financial transactions in less than six minutes. Putting that in context, I have stood in line for a similar number of transactions that took another clerk over ten minutes to complete.
I have an American immigrant friend who has lived here for close to fifteen years. He refuses to give his custom to either Oxxo or Kiosko. And his objection is not the same as a lot of foreigners, that the convenience stores take business from the small mom and pop abarrotes. What irritates him is that he has usually stopped to quickly buy one item, and then has to wait for all of the financial dealings. I reminded him that he was not in a Boise 7-11.
My advice to him was that I had long suffered from that same type of impatience -- especially when the young guy in front of me pulls out a list of about eight telephone numbers to buy time for his entire Guadalajara family on their vacation days in Barra. My trick is to think of Oxxo as a bank.
I just imagine that I am trying to buy a bottle of Coke at Banamex. Having learned patience at the bank, I can exercise the same virtue at Oxxo.
And, if I am really that concerned about time (and why is there ever any reason to be that concerned about time in Mexico), I suggested he do what I do. Stop at an abarrotes and make a quick purchase.
Of course, there is a logical pitfall there. I go to the local abarrotes to catch up on the neighborhood gossip. Few are the times when I buy and run.
So, all of you who want a new place to exercise your financial transactions, try using Oxxo or Kiosko. They far outnumber the local banks.
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