Mexico Diaries : The Expatriate

"An expatriate (in abbreviated form, expat) is a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country and culture other than that of the person's upbringing or legal residence. The word comes from the Latin term expatriātus from ex("out of") and patriā the ablative case of patria ("country, fatherland"). This "Latin" term comes from the Greek words "exo" meaning outside, and "patrida" meaning country or fatherland."

We pulled up to the look out of a left hand point break in the state of Michoacan, we spotted one car parked down the bottom, that looked very settled in, we decided to drive down and check it out anyway.

As we pulled up next to the bloke, he approached us quit happily and introduced him self, a bit of small talk was exchanged both ways, he then went on to tell us his life story.

- Moved from San Fransisco 4 months ago with hes 21 year old girl friend (who was a former student of his, her mother is 1 year younger than him). She was from the local town

, and returned back with her new American boy friend, apparently the towns people thought she was crazy returning as she would know be a number 1 candidate for kid napping, appreeeently she has a rich uncle who owns a few restaurants in the states, her cousin wa

s kid napped and held at ransom, which the uncle paid off. So for her to come back to the town where people know she has rich relatives and even an American partner( pretty sure every Mexican thinks white people are automatically rich)is thought of to be crazy.

- He teaches media classes online to students from Russia and Thailand (they were the examples he gave us). He has satellite Internet set up, which he said was a big pain i

n the ass as he doesn't have a proper street address and had to put "the blue house" on the form.

- Has uncrowded waves every day, and that we were only the 4th group of surfers he had came across in the last for months.

- He told stories of locals being caught stealing and having their hands chopped off, people being taken up to the hills by banditos and being shot for not letting them over take

on the highway and kids shooting at passing cars for fun (as heard in the video below).

- Also talked a lot about teenage pregnancy. that the town was asking why she hasn't popped one out yet at 21, and that 15/16 was a legit age to start.

- Drove his car down from san fran with a co

uch on the roof.

A LIST OF THINGS HE WAS SICK OF IN AMERICA

- people

- traffic

- parking fines

- way to many rules man

After Story time, the fellas said it was about time they go for a surf and he should come out, he was rolled a fat ass joint then handed me and Brett his pouch and told us to help our self (we were staying in the car to take photos.. and smoke his weed).

He struggled to paddle out, caught 1 or 2 waves very wobbly.

Then come in (stacked it on the rocks walking in aswell), packed up his car, shade set up, dogs and left. I cant remember the mans name but he was one of the more interesting people Ive come across on my travels.