New Friends

Before coming to Mexico, I had talked to my mother-in-law's good friend, Carol. She and her husband have done many international assignments - Mexico (twice), Sweden, and Italy. Through Carol, I learned about the "Newcomers Group of Mexico City". It is a group for new arrivals and long time residents to help people meet other English speaking families through social and charitable activities. I had perused their website many times prior to arriving here, but as soon as I got here, I decided to join up.

Right away, they set me up with their Yahoo group. Through this, I put out a message letting them know that I was new and where I lived. Within a few hours, I received two emails from people that live in my area, Susan and Ginger.

On a side note, many people thought that I would be living in an "American" neighborhood and had preconceived notions that I was going to be surrounded by Americans. In actuality, there are around 300 people signed up for the newcomers group and there are 23 million + people in Mexico City! So not a large number in comparison. Also, I found out that there are even fewer people that live in our area because the majority of the newcomers live in the downtown area of Mexico City. When you tell people where you live, they give you a quizzical look and say, "Where?", similar to when I tell people that the majority of my family lives in Burnips.

So the first email I received was from Susan. She also comes from Michigan! Her husband works for Ford and she lives down the road from us! It doesn't get more exciting than that! She has two daughters aged 10 and 13, who go to a British school called Greengates. The most ironic thing is that Susan and her family live in one of the homes we looked at and it was our number one choice! I can't remember the number of the house in the blog (I want to say #12), but it is the one with the fish tank in the wall. Susan and I emailed back and forth a bit and she said she would be happy to take me and Claire to the Newcomers meeting on Friday, Jan. 15th.

Ginger, the other person who emailed me that day, also lives in the vicinity. She lives right across the street from Superama. This is Ginger's second stay in Mexico. She was here before for four years back in 1998. She is married to a Mexican man and they have two boys aged 3 and 2 months. Ginger called me and we talked for an hour about just about everything. She is a great resource to know and speaks fluent Spanish. I felt very lucky to have found these two woman within the first two weeks of living here!