hi Global Goulets! I just found you. I love this list so much I wish I wrote it. I’ve lived in Mexico in the past and I am always upset by family and friends who get all weirded out by Mexico. Here’s what I wrote a few months ago:

People say to me, “Weren’t you afraid to live in Mexico?” My answer, “Of course not. There are regular people there, with regular lives.” Like me and you, they get up and go to work and go home to their families and continue to make ends meet. No they don’t all live in shacks on the side of the road. There are neighborhoods and nice families that go to church and eat together on Sundays. And no, it’s not the same as living in the United States. Sometimes the water in my apartment got turned off for no reason. Sometimes the water would be off for days at a time and I’d have to fill up my Nalgene at the local Starbucks…But shit happens in every country. The news that others hear about the US involves young people going to school with guns. Rioting over race…

I also say: Don’t make assumptions that tourists in Mexico are targeted or harassed. Most Mexicans are very protective of Americans and visitors. They go out of their way to help us. They stop what they are doing (selling avocados on the street) to talk, to say Good Morning, to give directions. You can visit Mexico and experience real Latin dancing, tequila tasting, art, ancient ruins and architecture as well as the aqua-blue water and tourist destinations in the Yucatan Peninsula. Don’t just go there, though. See the real Mexico: Guanajuato, Mexico City, Puebla.

Mexicans have a cultural expression: when passing a group of people (strangers!) eating a meal, it is customary to say “Buen Provecho,” which simply means, “Good health and enjoy your food!” In other words, we care about you even if you are a complete stranger. Would Americans ever adopt this lovely expression into our own public settings and restaurants? Probably, no. We are too private and wary of strangers to consider wishing someone we don’t know good health. But here I go making a generalization. Sometimes we all need to be reminded that no single destination or experience or news story should define an entire country or its people.