No Larosa's, no Skyline, no United Dairy Farmers,White Castles, and no malls. There are computer shops. I have been checking off and on for about a month to get a USB hub. The stores here run out of things. The grocery store near us runs out of chickens once a week. For a while they were out of hot dogs. There are a lot of grocery stores within a five minute walk from here. But they all consolidate their purchases and buy in bulk together. It's not a chain store, but, well, it is a chain store without a name. So if the Chinese grocery near me is out of hot dogs, it is a good bet that all of the Chinese groceries are out of hot dogs or down to one or two packs. You can't buy Dano powdered milk anywhere in town, and probably will not be able to till sometime in November. It has been that way for a month. I saw a pint of fresh milk in a grocery once. I was surprised that there wasn't a armed guard next to it. It is hot here, and there are not a lot of refrigerator tankers, like, I have not seen any at all. I suspect that they can not get milk from the farms to the towns before it spoils. There is cheese here. You can get Chinese or Mennonite cheese, which is just home made cheese. Or you can get a variety of processed cheese products that are all about the same as velveta. Or you can pay an insane amount of money and get cheddar or mozzarella. I have a sneaking suspicion that I will have to go to Mexico to get ink cartridges for my epson printer. Only HP here. Oh and the water from the faucet tastes like rocks. Oh, and the showers are cold. Mostly, nobody has hot water here. You can get a shower head attachment that has an electric heating coil to heat up the water, but being adverse to electrocution, I have not had one installed.
The ocean, it is actually a cove off of a bay, is very close. There is a sea wall, a bunch of very large rocks and the water. There are places where people have cleared the glass and rocks and made a sandy spot for swimming. But there is very little wave action and so something called turtle grass grows in these spots. If you go in the water, you ought to have shoes on. People talk about "third world" countries. Near as I can tell the only difference between the first world and the third world is, the third world has more garbage on the streets. That and the supply chain is such that stores run out of things or never have them at all. People are people, and the people here are a little less stressed out than people there. Consequently they are generally more pleasant.
And ... That ... Makes ... A .. Difference....
So we sometimes walk along the sea, picking up coconuts to drink the water inside them. And on a hot day, and all of them are, a cold shower is really good. I don't drink the water out of the faucets. A truck comes by every few days and delivers bottled water. And I can go to Mexico to get printer ink. There is a big Mexican city just across the boarder, about 8 miles from here. I like the Chinese cheese, and I have recently acquired a large block of Happy Cow processed cheese, it is actually very good. Dano milk should be available in the next week or so, so we won't have to use the Gold Star powdered milk which supposedly isn't as good because it doesn't dissolve as fast as Dano. The grocery gets fresh chickens every Tuesday, so we buy several and keep them in the fridge. Someday I will find a USB hub here. But I don't REALLY need it. I have gotten along just fine for several months without one. I never liked malls, but a twist of perception and I can imagine that we now live IN the mall. All around us are stores, eateries, food vendors, everything a person needs. You probably walk farther from your car to the mall than I do to the "department" stores here. There are no White Castles. But there is Sky Blue Fast Food, where Mr. Chen or his wife can make you the very best 5 dolla fry chicken you have ever eaten. Or fry shrimp, or fry fish fillet for 9, or chicken fry rice or chow main or chop suey, enough to feed Christopher and myself for about five or six dollars. There are no Taco Bells. But you can get Spanish food within five minutes from anywhere you happen to be. You can get Caribbean food here every few blocks. There are no La Rosas, but there is a Pizza joint less than a block from my house. They want a lot for those pizzas, but so does La Rosas. There is no United Dairy Farmers. But there is a man who drives around on a bike/cart selling home made ice cream. One flavor per day, Chocolate, sour sop, rum and raisin, coffee, and ... wait for it... corn.
No, this isn't paradise. They eat corn ice cream here, how can this be paradise?
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