Where In the World Am I?

Kay Castaneda,

When I tell people that I live in Mexico, the most common remark is “It must be fun to sit on the beach all day!” “So you live in Mexico City?” is another question I get. Cancun is a popular vacation spot so people ask if I live there. “Our cruise stopped in Puerto Vallarta. Is that where you are?” No, I don’t sit on the beach all day. There’s not a drop of water around here. No way would I live in Mexico City. It’s too big, too crowded and the air is horrible. We are going on a short trip there soon, but just for three days. Tony and I love Puerto Vallarta. We visit at least once a year, sometimes more.
I try to be nice and remember when I thought Mexico was only a desert by the American border. South of the Border as the old saying goes. When I was growing up, the only thing I knew about Mexico was tacos, serapes and sombreros. Mexico was always sunny and hot, no trees, only cactus, and no cars. People rode donkeys. Nobody in my family vacationed in Mexico and neither did our relatives. Florida was the popular destination for those families who could afford to take off work and stay gone for a week or two. And people drove there. Taking a plane to get to your destination was not an option in our neighborhood. Rich people and business owners flew on their trips to the Bahamas or somewhere. So when I say I knew next to nothing about Mexico, believe me. At least I knew it’s a foreign country, and not a state in the Southwest like the woman who sent us an important document. When we didn’t get it after three weeks, she said that she mailed it to to New Mexico!
My husband Tony and I got married in 1980. The first time we drove from Indiana to Mexico was 1983. Things were different back then. We don’t have cacti in the Midwest unless you buy one in a pot at the garden store. Seeing those Nopal cacti and Joshua Trees at night was spooky to this young Hoosier girl. It’s cold at night in Zacatecas, our state. We live in the semi-desert.

Semi-desert

A semi-desert is characterized by having fewer high temperatures. It’s a dry climate sub-type with low precipitation. Long dry summers with short sometimes rainy winters are the norm. It has two main seasons, winter and summer. Nightime temperatures tend to be,cooler. A semi-desert has a more versatile plant life than arid deserts.
National Geographic Society

Map of Mexico

Last summer I noticed, complained, and expressed my opinion about the huge amount of dust in our house. I dusted once a week back home. The dust is thick in this house. You can actually write your name in it after 2-3 days after it settles on the furniture. I wash the dust off first with a damp cloth dipped in soapy water. You have to wring the cloth good or you’ll end up smearing the dirt. Wipe. Lift off the dirt. Then dry the surface. Polish wood furniture? Haha no! The air dries and cracks wood. The wood closet which I call a dresser is so cracked that I’m afraid it will fall over soon.

Sierra de Organos

You can see dirt devils out in the yard. Be prepared because when the wind starts spinning and whirling, you should close your eyes. Don’t worry about trying to get back in the house since the wind will push you where it wants you to go. The wind will follow you into the house also. And then there’s the silent invisible wind as I named it. When you’re near a window, and the sun shines in, you can see dirt specks whirling around in a circle. Those pieces of dirt may seem tiny but when they finally land on the tables, they are HUGE!

Dust devil Zacatecas
click link

Floors are another matter. That same wind shoves dust in the doors and then it lands on the ceramic tiles. Don’t try to walk barefoot or it will feel like you’re stepping on glass. We have a girl who comes to clean the house on Saturday. Her main job is to remove the top layer of dust. She sweeps and collects the dirt in the Dust Pan. Whoever thought of that name? I bet they didn’t live in Zacatecas. Suzana mops but the dust which she just swept gets swiped and smeared all around no matter how many times she changes the bucket of water. The brand of soap or detergent doesn’t make a difference. Fabuloso, Axion, Salvo or Ace and more. My favorite is Lavender Fabuloso. Our dust smells good!

I was studying a map of Mexico one day. “We live in the brown part!” If you look at the map, there is a very large area in the center of the country that is not green. The interior of Mexico is a vast area of dusty brown, sandy, gravely, bare earth. But that’s not completely true. There are trees, not tall elms, or towering oaks, or huge hearty Black Walnut trees in this Central Plateau. Zacatecas is right between two mountain ranges; the Sierra Madre Occidental and the Sierra Madre Oriental and to the south, the Sierra Madre del Sur. We are 7,250 ft. elevation.

Joshua Tree cactus

Nopal cactus

Indianapolis is about 800 ft. When I’m up on the roof here in Zacatecas, which is flat like all the roofs in Mexico, I see mountains in every direction. They are so close. Every time we get to the edge of town or just in the Wal Mart parking lot, I have to tell Tony “We’re in the mountains!” Lifelong residents probably don’t think like that. They’re used to the mountains. Maybe people don’t even realize they’re mountains. I do. When you grow up in a flat place, seeing the earth popping up out of the ground is amazing. The mountains have color but you can’t see that on a map. Purple, gray, pink, brown, white, black, rust, gold and silver, any color you could think of covers these mountains. I can see blankets and quilts of green and copper stretching and spreading under the sky.

Templo de Nuestra Senora de Purificacion

Sancuario Plateros El Santo Nino

I no longer get a bloody nose from the altitude. I’ve gotten used to the thin air. At first, the bright sun everyday was blinding. I love the sun now. I don’t have to sit under my Happy Light for SADS, Seasonal Affective Depression Syndrome anymore since the sun provides excellent light. I rarely have big seizures now although I have occasional arm jerks, small tonic-clonic seizures. Maybe it’s that sun. Light heals.

Zacatecas Man

Zacatecas state

Indiana is green. Zacatecas is brown. Those are both beautiful colors.

Fresnillo, Zacatecas Mexico

I’ve linked this to Marsha Ingrao’s WQ#159
https://alwayswrite.blog/2024/02/07/wq-159-weather-inspires-open-the-door-let-it-in/comment-page-1/#comments

writing

Comments (16)

  1. Thank you, Kay for a delightful virtual tour of your home country including the dust (it can be a bit like that here at times) although the sun does magnify the dust…Have a great weekend :)

  2. You are welcome Carol. Thanks for stopping by my blog! Where do you live? Forgot if I asked you before!!!!! 😊🎉

  5. Now I know where you live, Kay! I’m glad you got used to the thin air and don’t have a bloody nose anymore. Dusting sounds like a major chore and it’s good you have a girl doing the dusting every week. As Carol said, thank you for the tour!

  8. You’re welcome, Kay! What kind of spring flowers do you have there? Perhaps you can post some spring flowers later. My garden is not ready for planting yet. It’s still under construction and should be done next month.

  9. I don’t know the names in English yet. I use an app where you take a photo of the plant and it gives you info about names, how to care for the plant plus if it’s healthy or not. My husband bought about ten types of flowers the other day that I’ve never seen. He bought tulips. I love those. He sells plants and pottery from our home so I will take photos soon. He buys them from a larger nursery and resells them. It’s common to have shops and sell from your house or yard in Mexico. I tried to grow pansys and they didn’t live long due to the summer heat. It’s still cool here about 50 degrees. Sunday is a good day for sales because people walk by to church and shopping. Lots of women haha!

  10. I really enjoyed this tour of your home! How long have you lived in Mexico and what took you there? Some of the broad generalizations people make remind me of similar misconceptions I encountered about my home country, Canada, when we moved to the United States. No, not all of Canada is covered with snow year-round, and it’s a very large country so I probably don’t know the guy you once met who was from Toronto. Your post is a good reminder to me, anyway, to not assume but to ask and be genuinely interested in the answers about the places people live or come from. And of course, the people themselves!

  11. Kay, you are such a vivid writer. I love your description of the brown and green. The part of CA we lived in before here was brown. How did two Hoosiers get in such brown places? I loved this, “Our dust smells good!” We have a lot of dust. It followed us from CA to AZ kind of like we are miniature Pig Pens, or dust devils. In Prescott we live in the mountains at 5300 feet, and in Scottsdale, we are at about 2500 with mountains all around us. In CA we lived at 250 feet surrounded by the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Our little CA micro climate has the worst air in the US. When they shake the walnut trees in September, the dust spirals off of them and fills the air so that it is a deep brown color. Enough about us. I love hearing about your climate and weather in sunny Mexico, and I’m glad it was a healthy place to avoid seizures!

  12. It certainly is brown here! I was telling my husband that I haven’t seen any squirrels here or deer. There are deer in the southern part of the state where there’s more vegetation. We used to have deer come in our yard in Indianapolis since we lived around wooded areas. We do have spiders here! I found a small black thing in the yard that looked like a miniature lobster. I ran in the house. I found a picture on the internet. They are harmless to humans but emit a vinegar smell when they get startled. Some black bears or brown, I forget have been spotted in the southwest part also wild cats. The Spanish is confusing so I can’t understand if they are cougars, mountain lions or what. The newspaper just said “large cats of the mountains.” Gatos grandotes maybe! I joined a Facebook group for the state. A professor writes about history so I’ve learned a lot. Thomas Edison was born in the capital city of the state which is also named Zacatecas. . So it’s Zacatecas, Zacatecas! Edison’s father was a native Indian of a tribe here (the Zacatecas!) He studied in the U.S. and became an engineer in the mines here. He met Edison’s mother in New York, they married and came to Zacatecas. Thomas was born in Zacatecas. The house is still there. The professor explained some newspaper articles of interviews with an old man who was Thomas’teacher plus a priest where the family attended. The family returned to the U.S. and used the maiden name of his mother due to prejudice against Mexicans. The University of Zacatecas owns some letters and papers of his. Even as an adult, Thomas hid the fact he could speak Spanish. I plan on learning more.
    Where did you live in CA? My husband has a sister and a brother in Fresno and a sister in San Jose. I think the altitude has something to do with having fewer seizures. I don’t have to take as much anti-seizure medicine. Thanks for your compliment about my writing, Marsha and I’m happy you visited. If only I could get more followers.

  13. What an amazing story, Kay. I don’t know much about the history of Thomas Edison, so this is eye-opening. You have lots of material for many posts. I think people enjoy hearing about your life as well as any short stories, poems, photos. That’s basically what we all do. Being involved in challenges, and hosting challenges helps your blog traffic a lot.

    We lived about 45 minutes south of Fresno, and 19 miles east of Visalia and 20 miles west of Sequoia National Park. It was beautiful, but lots of work.

    Building readership takes time and visiting lots of blogs. Eventually, you find a balance of what you can handle time-wise.

  16. Thanks for visiting my blog, Kym. My husband and I moved here after we both retired. We live in the town where he grew up. People have misconceptions about the world because they never left their small area or they don’t bother to learn. 😊

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