Autumn's Adventures in Mexico: Coffee, Cats & Dogs

A coworker told me it’s now scorpion season and that they love wood ceilings (just like my termites) so I need to shake out linens and clothes and keep a watchful eye out. Apparently they’re only deadly if you have an allergic reaction and there’s some kind of anti-venom for scorpions sold in the local drugstore, which is information that should comfort me more than it does. Cindy recently found a scorpion in her house and I’ve started finding small yellow larvae from something dropping from my ceiling so I’m a little amped up about critters these days and my sleep is starting to suffer.

Showing off my town to an ex-volunteer who now lives in Mexico, after a rare, good night's sleep.

Sign from a bar in Guanajuato; here's to a life without termites.

Every time I hear a different noise or think I feel something on my bed, I have to jerk off the covers and turn on the light to make sure all is as it should be. I’m starting to mellow out a little bit as I get more familiar with seeing things crawling around (although clearly not enough to stop writing about this). For example, this morning I found a small spider crawling on my bed and I just knocked it off with only the noise of “Merrr” vs. any shrieking. Then I saw a huge cockroach on it's back by my bed and realized that at least one noise I heard in the night was real. There went my mellowness. My house is scheduled for a termite fumigation soon so let’s hope that poison knocks out a few other things at the same time.

In the meantime, I’m lucky that we have really good coffee here, which I often need after a sleepless night, so let’s talk about coffee. And dogs. And - because why not - cats.

If you know me well, you know how much I love dogs – especially dogs I don’t know that I run into on the street…. Yesterday I saw a giant German Shepard romantically (and aggressively) pursuing a teeny-tiny Chihuahua. I really wanted to tell him that no matter how great her personality, the physics of this relationship just weren’t going to work out. Other dogs clearly make more appropriate choices for their novias because I’ve seen quite a few pregnant dogs here, and this is not my first time to witness two dogs engaged in a courting ritual on the street. I’ve only had one dog act aggressively towards me and sure enough, it was a small dog that chased me in front of my house. I was like, yo, I live here so you’re the one who needs to step off, perrita! I’m pretty tough.

This would be one of the nice dogs - who frequently hangs out at our office and has fantastic ears.

I don’t see many cats here in Mexico but I have seen two napping in my backyard. One is a tabby who looks well-kept and the other is a wilder looking white-when-clean cat. I’m not sure which one was responsible for pooping in front of my patio door but if that was some kind of power move, it’s on gato! It’s possible that all the cats in town are currently in heat because I heard a serenade of cats howling like they were engaging in some kind of fight-club for cats for hours the other night. I also awoke to the sound of a cat howling outside my bedroom window two nights in a row so something is definitely in the feline air these days.

Scruffy white cat napping in my jungle of a yard.

As for coffee, that’s one of the core products targeted for sustainable practices with our project so I’ve had the opportunity to taste many different blends. I’ve also had the opportunity to get out in the woods to see coffee plants and talk with people who are growing and processing this liquid gold (which I have at times bought directly from their house). We are blessed with especially tasty coffee in this region and should you come visit me, I will totally hook you up! It’s so good that one of my fellow volunteers returning to the US requested that I bring her 4 bags of it to take back as gifts.

Perhaps the most polite person you'll meet in Mexico, Don Balbino.

Coffee plants.

Coffee bean; sadly many are suffering from plagues.

A sampling of our local coffees.

I must confess that Starbucks is present in Mexico but only in the big cities and I promise I haven’t purchased any of their coffee here. I did take advantage of their free wifi once in Guadalajara and I bought my favorite drink, a Sanpellegrino Aranciata. Side note: if my family wanted to have this delightful beverage available for me in copious amounts during my next visit, I would not object. I was a little sad not to be able to take advantage of my free Starbucks cup of coffee this year for my birthday because I definitely can’t afford Starbucks now and free stuff is my favorite, but such is the hardship of being a Peace Corps volunteer. Instead I had to brew my own fresh, locally-grown coffee. That’s right – I finally took the time to learn how to use a coffee pot. I realize this is something most people learn when they’re like 4 years old, but it took me a little longer to put forth the effort.

To be fair, I forgot to buy coffee cups after I bought the coffee maker, so the first time I actually tried to make coffee, it was only partly successful. Now I have 2 lovely coffee mugs and, thanks to my coworker Alma, I'm up to 4 plates and 4 bowls! I also purchased a big jar full of utensils from a volunteer heading back to the US, so now I have more than 2 forks. Good coffee, 4 plates, plentiful forks AND a fumigation on the way? Living in the lap of luxury.