"Mexico is not convenient" An ex-pat friend said that to me the other night and it keeps echoing in my head. It's true, it just isn't as easy to do most things as it is in your home country. I don't think it is just a function of language, there just aren't as many of the ways we are used to that make things easier. For instance, I miss a valid, up to date, yellow pages. Finding a place to do or fix or buy something is a much more complicated process here. I'm not really complaining, just explaining.

This is why things like buying the extensions for a fan are a much more complicated and time consuming experience. I spent a lot of time on the fan extensions last week. Fans we bought in Mérida but couldn't get the extensions because they didn't have them. Easy, I thought, I'll just get them on the coast. Yeah! Sure! I went to every fan store I could find in Playa and no joy. Then I found the receipt from the purchase in Mérida and found the phone number for their store in Cancun. I called them every day for a week. No, they didn't have them now, maybe they could get them, I will call you back right away. No return calls, ever. What she said in spanish was that she would call me back in 'un ratito'. Finally, after privately naming the woman I talked to every day Sra. Ratito - ratito (little rat) means in a minute here - she told me to come to the store on Wednesday at 3pm.

I can't even begin to explain how hard it was to find this store. We were never lost in the sense that we always knew where we were but we couldn't find the street that contained the mall that contained the store. Finally, I called them again from the CostCo parking lot. I didn't get Sra Ratito but another guy who knew exactly who I was and what I wanted. He responded to my request for directions by telling me that they didn't have the part yet, maybe tomorrow. Oh no! I'm not going away that easily, I just drove almost an hour from Akumal to Cancun.

I told him I wanted to come by anyway to show them what we needed and make sure that the part they were looking for was the one we needed. They told me the name of the street that the mall was on and said it was only a few blocks from CostCo. Off we went... first we saw a sign that had the name of the street we wanted on it - it pointed ahead. When we got to the next intersection there was only a sign with the name of another street pointing to the right. Oh Please! No signs on the street itself at all. After a couple of U turns in heavy traffic, I went that way anyway... and after a long ways, still no street sign or a mall. Another U turn. Mimi and I are now getting testy with each other about where this damn place is. Finally, after pulling over and looking at the map and deciding that this just had to be the street, despite the sign for another street, I made another U turn and low and behold about a mile later the mall appeared. Hey! This was not so bad.

Once there, they seemed very unhappy that they did not have the part and that they couldn't get it. Finally, the guy there made a phone call and said if we waited they would get the part. Here's where the good part of Mexico appears. I think that they just don't have the part available but they didn't want to leave me at a loss so they went to another store and found something that would work. I am appreciative of this, the parts do work, but I was not so thrilled that they didn't tell me this in the first place a week ago. Still, the whole process did eventually work. Someone appeared with a bag and the parts and they only cost me about $8us although they pointed out that I needed to make sure they fit as they could not guarantee them and I couldn't return them.

So, the bottom line is that I got the parts, they were cheap, but no one was willing to tell me that they didn't have them and give me a clue where else I could find them until I showed up and they couldn't avoid the problem. Even then, they just went out and bought them somewhere else rather than just copping that they didn't have it and sending me somewhere else LAST WEEK!!!!