I’ve been home now exactly two weeks. Each time I go to the grocery store I spend from between $50.00 to $80.00 and I’ve been to the store about four times! Each time, I think to myself, “What a a major rip off.” I want to tell everyone what I paid for a papaya in Vallarta… what I paid for tortillas, tomatoes, garlic, rice… I really want to scream. Why is this happening in Portland… and throughout the US? In Vallarta I spent about $20.00 a week, if that, for food; fresh food right off the trees, bushes and fields, and I ate high on the hog!

It doesn’t seem right to pay so much for things that grow on trees. I know, you would say to me, “We pay for growers, pickers, packers, truckers and grocers.” But we have statistics that tell us how many children in the US are malnourished in this country of wealth. Wealth… not my family. We struggle to put nutritious food on the table in sufficient quantities for the four of us. I’m not talking in abundance. When we splurge and buy something other than the necessities, that money comes out of somewhere else. Some bill has to wait. Something doesn’t get paid in order to have a “treat”.

We, our family, are better off than many others. We have steady money coming in. Others do not. Some children go hungry everyday and right here in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. And we call Mexico poor. We are poor. We are poor at heart. We are poor in compassion. We are poor in knowing how to feed our citizens.

Oh, yeah. There’s enough food being produced. We just make it hard to get at. We make it too expensive. We make it unavailable. We make it inaccessible. WE need to let people sell food out of their houses. Let vendors sell in the streets. Let people fish without an expensive license. Let people truck food around in the neighborhoods in the back of their cars, from the beds of their pickups… Let there be free lunches and dinners and breakfasts for children in the schools, in the parks, in the streets.

I lived cheap in Vallarta. Why does my rent in Portland have to be nearly 3 times what it was in Mexico? Why do my utilities have to be more than double and triple here in Portland? Why does food cost 8 times more? Why does a house cost $500,000+ in North Portland? Why is rent for a simple, old ranch style house or a tall-skinny over $1500.00/month? This is a crime against American citizens whose minimum wage is $9.25? You do the math and figure out how we are suppose to live.

Yes, I found the foreign investors exploitation of the Mexican people and their land intolerable. I could not understand the acceptance of usurping culture for entertainment. I couldn’t, for the life of me, get why people who have free garbage service still throw their garbage all over the streets and in natural areas. I didn’t get why when all the spay and neuter clinics are free, people still allow their dogs and cats to breed like rodents.

Living in Mexico was a revelation. We think we’re not free because of big government and too many regulations. Try living where there is no DEQ. Coming back to Portland is a marvel of an experience. Little to no garbage in the streets, most animals fixed and on leashes, less environmental pollution that even 10 years ago and we’re still trying to make it better. There is open protest against coal exportation, oil drilling, fracking… But we are a mess, nevertheless.

Education should be improved and affordable. Racism is one of our biggest unresolved issues. No one should go hungry. Everyone should have access to health care. Everyone should have a roof over their head. Bullying should end. War should end, just stop sending money and weapons around the world to support war. We should not be participating in religious or cultural hatred. And there’s so much more.

In talking to many Mexicans, the question was always, “What are you doing here?” My heartfelt, inadequately compassionate and embarrassed answer was, “I can sit my big, fat American ass down anywhere I please, even in your neighborhood whether you like it or not. I can, as long as I can pull down $1500.00/month, move anywhere I want to in Mexico. But nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. You can’t cross our border and we’re making it ever harder for you to come.” Resentment? You can bet your big, fat American ass on it! In every Mexican neighborhood are large signs painted on walls along the streets demanding, “Be nice, your livelihood depends on it.” How would you like these types of signs in your neighborhood?

I knew from my first week in Mexico that I wanted to come home. I found it hard to lounge on the beach while Hannah was struggling to find affordable housing for her and Ancel and Enora while I could make a big difference in their lives just by coming home. Secondly, my tolerance for heat and humidity had greatly diminished since living in Mexico 21 years ago. But the biggest impetus for my return was that my tolerance for observing the disparity between the tourists and ex-pats and the Mexicans was just not there. Perhaps if I hadn’t plopped myself down in a Mexican neighborhood and had lived nearer the ex-pats and those amenities developed just for them, it wouldn’t have been the daily slap in the face that it was.

All this to say that I am glad I came home. I love being with the family and my friends. I see the US in a new light but that is not to say that I have donned rose colored glasses; to the contrary. There is a lot to say about being in the familiar. And this is not to say that I will not return to Mexico someday. I am thinking that it might be better to have extended visits… perhaps a month or two at a time in different locations.

Stay tuned.