Musings With MI
Miriam Sanchez
My Life In Mexico
I have been living in Mexico for thirty years. One of the first things people always ask me is what made me decide to relocate here or they say you’re so lucky. I tell them luck had nothing to do with it. It was a conscience decision I made to move to Mexico. So here is my story.
30 years ago someone very close to me died at a young age. By young I mean at an age with enough vigor to still reach some of their dreams. It made me realize that life could be taken from me unexpectedly at any moment. I decided I didn’t want to grow old or worse die thinking of all the things I wanted to do and didn’t because I was a slave to a job living a life I didn’t even like. Living in the United States made it difficult for me to accomplish any of my goals. Why, you may be wondering, after all the U.S is the land of opportunity. Well that’s true for some but most people end up working a job they hate, unable to quit because they have a mortgage, car payment, credit cards and a life style to maintain so as not to be ostracized by the general public. See in America there are certain living standards you must keep in order for society to consider you successful, if you don’t meet those standards your labeled, lazy, non-achiever a failure in some eyes. Dead end jobs don’t leave much time for chasing your dreams. So I left my job sold my things and began my adventure to find my place in the world. I wanted to do something with my life that mattered to me and to leave something good behind to be remembered by.
I was living on the east coast when I got my revelation and had heard that California is the place you want to be so I got on a plane and landed in San Diego where I had friends. I didn’t take me long to realize that California was not as liberal as I was lead to believe, nor any less costly to live then where I was. I started investigating other countries. There were lots of beautiful places less stringent then the U.S where the cost of living was far lower but most of them were under political unrest. I didn’t want to live somewhere I had to keep a suitcase packed because the government could be overthrown at anytime and I’d have to leave the country in the middle of the night. Mexico was as close to a democratic government I could find. It met my needs.
It had a stable government a low cost of living and the people worked to live not lived to work. The Mexican people are more concerned with what kind of person your than what you have, my kind of place.
I moved over the Tijuana border to Playas of Tijuana a very nice beach front community. I found a beautiful 6 bedroom 7 bathroom house for rent for only 350.00 dollars a month. I needed to find a way to make some money since the 2,000.00 dollars I had was going quickly so I turned the house into a B&B for family and friends of patients at the cancer hospitals. Playas de Tijuana is known for their cancer hospitals. People come from all over the world to be treated there because the treatments are not allowed in the U.S even tough their recovery rate is astounding. The problem is the facilities do not offer housing for family members. Most could only stay a short time because of the cost of staying in hotels and dining out. So my B&B offered an affordable alternative close to most of the hospitals. It was a win, win for all of us. The B&B made enough money to cover all the expenses and some savings for me. You see since there is no welfare system in Mexico the government makes it very easy for anyone to support themselves. I did that for about 5 years until the owners sold the house. What was I going to do next? I knew one thing for sure I didn’t want to go back to America. I started checking out the want ads for a job. Being bi-lingual and having experience in the entertainment business I began looking for work at the resorts. I landed a job as Director of Events and Promotions for the Baja Beach Resort. The company took care for acquiring the necessary permits for me to work and provided me with a suite at the resort to live. I was in heaven, a good paying job with my major expenses met. I was able to save money after all I didn’t have to pay rent, buy food or worry about bills, I even had a car at my disposal. That lasted for about 7 years until the big dispute over land ownership.
Tune in next week for more of My Life in Mexico. Visit Miriam Sanchez's Website
I have been living in Mexico for thirty years. One of the first things people always ask me is what made me decide to relocate here or they say you’re so lucky. I tell them luck had nothing to do with it. It was a conscience decision I made to move to Mexico. So here is my story.
30 years ago someone very close to me died at a young age. By young I mean at an age with enough vigor to still reach some of their dreams. It made me realize that life could be taken from me unexpectedly at any moment. I decided I didn’t want to grow old or worse die thinking of all the things I wanted to do and didn’t because I was a slave to a job living a life I didn’t even like. Living in the United States made it difficult for me to accomplish any of my goals. Why, you may be wondering, after all the U.S is the land of opportunity. Well that’s true for some but most people end up working a job they hate, unable to quit because they have a mortgage, car payment, credit cards and a life style to maintain so as not to be ostracized by the general public. See in America there are certain living standards you must keep in order for society to consider you successful, if you don’t meet those standards your labeled, lazy, non-achiever a failure in some eyes. Dead end jobs don’t leave much time for chasing your dreams. So I left my job sold my things and began my adventure to find my place in the world. I wanted to do something with my life that mattered to me and to leave something good behind to be remembered by.
I was living on the east coast when I got my revelation and had heard that California is the place you want to be so I got on a plane and landed in San Diego where I had friends. I didn’t take me long to realize that California was not as liberal as I was lead to believe, nor any less costly to live then where I was. I started investigating other countries. There were lots of beautiful places less stringent then the U.S where the cost of living was far lower but most of them were under political unrest. I didn’t want to live somewhere I had to keep a suitcase packed because the government could be overthrown at anytime and I’d have to leave the country in the middle of the night. Mexico was as close to a democratic government I could find. It met my needs.
It had a stable government a low cost of living and the people worked to live not lived to work. The Mexican people are more concerned with what kind of person your than what you have, my kind of place.
I moved over the Tijuana border to Playas of Tijuana a very nice beach front community. I found a beautiful 6 bedroom 7 bathroom house for rent for only 350.00 dollars a month. I needed to find a way to make some money since the 2,000.00 dollars I had was going quickly so I turned the house into a B&B for family and friends of patients at the cancer hospitals. Playas de Tijuana is known for their cancer hospitals. People come from all over the world to be treated there because the treatments are not allowed in the U.S even tough their recovery rate is astounding. The problem is the facilities do not offer housing for family members. Most could only stay a short time because of the cost of staying in hotels and dining out. So my B&B offered an affordable alternative close to most of the hospitals. It was a win, win for all of us. The B&B made enough money to cover all the expenses and some savings for me. You see since there is no welfare system in Mexico the government makes it very easy for anyone to support themselves. I did that for about 5 years until the owners sold the house. What was I going to do next? I knew one thing for sure I didn’t want to go back to America. I started checking out the want ads for a job. Being bi-lingual and having experience in the entertainment business I began looking for work at the resorts. I landed a job as Director of Events and Promotions for the Baja Beach Resort. The company took care for acquiring the necessary permits for me to work and provided me with a suite at the resort to live. I was in heaven, a good paying job with my major expenses met. I was able to save money after all I didn’t have to pay rent, buy food or worry about bills, I even had a car at my disposal. That lasted for about 7 years until the big dispute over land ownership.
Tune in next week for more of My Life in Mexico. Visit Miriam Sanchez's Website