BY ELLEN BALDAUF LYONS
Please imagine this if you will. You’re lying in bed reading with a headlamp shining brightly so as not to disturb your sleeping spouse next to you. Everything is hunky dory. You’re really into the book and getting into it including the mind of the main character. Then, all of a sudden, this flying bug lands on the page. Unidentifiable but 1) it is not a fly 2) nor a moth 3) or a mosquito or 4) anything known. Not a scorpion. Just it’s irritating you and a tad scary. So you slap the book closed on it.
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Then, off to the closest window with a screen that you carefully open and then you shoo this UFO out. But it doesn’t stay out. It comes back in. Meanwhile, the book you’re reading is not stained in any way shape or form because this bug seems to be indestructible.
Talking about indestructible versus destructible now in the context of moving to a new country and culture, I am finding out that despite decades of experience here in Mexico and fluency in Spanish, I need a reality check on my sense of my ability and willingness to adapt.
Let’s face it. When you move to a new country and culture you have to destroy all preconceived notions of how things should work. For example, I found out the other day that despite putting the new electrical account into my name from that of the builder of my new home, it will still take six weeks before I can get an actual bill in my name that my chosen bank will accept as proof of ownership. Until that time, I cannot open a bank account. Perhaps another bank will accept it but then this other bank will require a Mexican cell phone number which I do not have. Yet. None of the banks here have a uniform policy about opening a new account. The
requirements vary from bank to bank. Furthermore, the clerks at the CFE office (local utility) have different ways of filling out information, but this works for the locals. It may drive us gringos crazy but that’s how it is.
A local friend advised me to adhere to the local norms. Sound advice otherwise, we will all be tilting at windmills. When things are beyond our reach, it is our job to adapt, not complain, argue or try to impose our own cultural ways of doing things. Surrendering to the status quo is sometimes what is best and that will yield positive results in the long term. If I don’t open my bank account until the end of October, so it goes. Now the other day, I did find an adolescent scorpion in the corner of my bedroom
frantically trying to right itself. Probably one of my cats upended it in the middle of the night. Anyway, following the cultural norm here, I had one of my construction friends take him outside where it belongs. I didn’t smash it or try to throw it down the toilet. It certainly wasn’t interfering with my current book. Back to the great outdoors where it belongs.
