We sure have a lot on common. What state in Mexico did you live in?
My father was a WW2 vet and he bought ranches in Durango Mexico. I grew up part of my childhood there, in a colony of all American ranchers miners and lumber businessmen.

We weren't missionaries but almost. My father was one of the main contributors to Primera Iglesia Beautista and my stepmother to the Methodist one. They were very religious. My father was my abusers and my older "sisters" one was involved in hippie depraved cults. Yes my abusers besides my family were from different nationalities.

Abusers come in all colors and ethnic backgrounds. Yes many Americans lived in Mexico in the 70s lots of Mormons and Mennonites too in the area we were and lots and lots of hippies too. Very depraved hippie communes and cults like The Children of God. They would try to recruit me a lot when i was a runaway but they never could.

kaisad, I lived in Guadalajara twice, for a year at a time, once as a 7 year old and once 20 years later when I finagled a teaching job there. Both times my life centered on Lupe and Pepe, my next door neighbors. When I was 7 my parents abuse took the form of neglect rather than violence. My parents were in Guadalajara for intensive language training to become missionaries, so their complete focus was there and not on family.

Lupe and Pepe were a childless couple next door, so they stepped in and became grandparents raising me then. In that year with them when I was 7 I learned how to swim, how to ride a bike, and--oh, yeah--how to speak Spanish.

When I went back to teach Spanish in Guadalajara 20 years later, my parents' neglect had turned from neglect to domestic violence--toward each other and anyone else within reach. Plus, I had survived their appointment as missionaries to the six year Tupamaro War in Uruguay., where I survived a car bombing, two rapes, and a professional military torture session along with bad days of gunfighting in my neighorhood.

Back in Guadalajara again after all of that 20 years later, I went looking for Lupe and Pepe again for comfort for all of that.

I got it. Pepe had died, but Lupe was still there in the same house. I had my then US wife with me, so it was with pride that I introduced my then US wife to my Mexican grandma.

As soon as we got back to the US, my then US wife filed for divorce. I was too "other" for her, she said. There was a whole other side of me, a Spanish speaking me, with which she could never share. I kind of regretted introducing her to Lupe and my Latino side, but I'd done it thinking I was including, not excluding.

Now I'm preparing to retire early because of kidney disease I have on top of PTSD. I've lost 60% of my kidneys permanently while on Seroquel for PTSD, and I teeter on the edge of being medically ordered to do dialysis. I have signed papers refusing that treatment "against medical advice," which means I have made the decision to accept fatal consequences rather than become a dialysis patient.

Just me, not something I recommend to others. It's that as a hospital chaplain in Chicago I sat with many dialysis patients. Seeing it up close, decided it's not for me. That's why I'm retiring early, to take care of my PTSD and kidney health without dialysis.

Early retirement brings in less income, so I won't be able to afford retiring in the USA with its cost of living. I visited and scouted retirement in Uruguay, and its cost of living is too high, too. So I'm trying out Mexico. I'm in its cheapest southern Chiapas region and the safest being farthest from the narcos of the north.

So far so good. I'm not getting my "druthers," I'd rather retire where I live in the US as most US retirees expect to be able to do. But to afford it, I'd have to go on disability. Though I support friends here who are on it, my grandfather cheated to go on disability under false pretenses. My father was deported from South America for church fraud. I'd rather go out of my way, then, to set a family record for honesty even though I could honestly claim disability, I know.

To engineer that, then, I'm calling upon my Spanish skills and my past experience with Mexico in order to afford early retirement in two years. Support here means a LOT toward my making it to then. I'm really grateful.

Wow Muji you're an amazing person. Growing up being from one culture in my case and your American and living in another as a child is interesting. It should be a very good experience for children, but IF your parents are abusive most often its a very confusing one.

I honestly thought my fathers neglect was because we were open minded and not catholic so he would not even ask me where i was when i would run away at 12 and 13 for days and one 4 months. He never did, i'd come back and it was like i was there yesterday.

My father had a huge cattle ranch and 2 families of ranches living in the ranch too. Like about a mile from our house at the ranch where the corrals were. I too used to try to seek comfort and maybe be one of them or be a part of something by working at the ranch which i did not have to and spend a lot of time with them trying to fit in.
Another reason i hate the word usted. I was the boss's Patron daughter so NO they address me as "Usted" not "tu" like they address each other and their children and they made sure there was a huge wall between us. Although they would allow me to tag alone doing all the ranch chores and even commented that i was a better worker than some of the lazy bastards my father "El Patron" would hire.

That stuck with me because NO ONE in my family ever said one single positive word of praise about me. Everything about me they said was bad.
My father was molesting me and a "sister" would say "what are you doing to my father?!!!"

I know that it sound like "meaningless" little nuances. But life is made up of simple day to day things and when they are combined with abuse and neglect. Is those little things that stay a trigger.

One of the things my father and sister would do to me at the ranch is the silent treatment. One time for A YEAR!. Others not letting me in my house (at the ranch) had to live in a warehouse in the corrals, also not letting me eat with them.

Needless to say i have a lot of trigger about something people this days do a lot. They just drop you, leave you hanging, don't show up, don't return a text. It drives me crazy. Because one day my family stopped talking to me at 13 with me being there and acted like i was not there for A YEAR!.

I hope you feel better and you enjoy your stay in San Cristobal i was there as a runaway at 13 i hitchhiked all the way from San Miguel de Allende to Tulum and back and went there, Palenque, Oaxaca and a bunch of other places in 1975. There was nothing there. San Cristobal too cold for me brrr. But i heard now its super nice.
With worldwide people living there. A lot of them anthropologist and archaeologist educated like you so it must be an interesting crowd. Good conversation in the cafes i suppose.
Wish you the best. :)

Hey what happened to Arfie? i don't see any comment by her anymore.

kaisad, arfie is still around on DS, posting in her journal every day. If you "friend" her you can join in with those of us who read her daily DS journal entries. As you know from afie's writing here, they're great nuggets every time.

Thanks for filling me in on the tu vs usted thing for you south of the border. Your explanation led me to really relate. You said "I was the boss's Patron daughter so NO they address me as "Usted" not "tu" like they address each other."

Wow, In my case it was that I was the big shot USA missionary's kid, and so he was like the bishop for the whole country of Uruguay. Therefore he was a "patron" of sorts, too, and I was isolated in that sort of ivy tower boss's kids get locked up in like it or not.

That's why it was such a breakthrough for me to make friends with that Uruguayan buddy I described in an earlier post. He was pretty isolated, too, by being gay in the context of my dad's church, which was not open to his orientation.

Me, I was isolated by being the preacher's kid. Somehow we bonded across our huge differences and I learned I wasn't alone. It's still what brings me here to DS every day.

It's awesome to hear that you know my town, San Cristobal, so well. Yeah, it's cold!! My USA friends don't believe me when I tell them how cold because they only think of Cancun or the desert when they think of Mexico. Today's one of those really cold days, though, I'm sitting outside writing this but I've got my coat on.

I am lucky, yes, that the foreigners who come here are cultured, educated folks, not just folks looking for tequila and to do cannon balls into a hotel pool from their hotel room balcony. Not that there's anything wrong with that; I had my time when I was younger. :-) But at 61, this more sedate crowd of ex-pats now is more my speed.

Let me know if you get in touch with arfie, OK? Or if you'd like to have me assist in that somehow....