Past news

The American Consulate in Merida has a Warden System. The warden system is a network of volunteers who assist the Merida Consulate in rapidly disseminating official U.S. government information to American citizens in our consular district during emergencies. Normally wardens are U.S. citizens, but they may also recruit non-U.S. citizens to help. Merida’s consular district consists of the Mexican states of Yucatan, Quintana Roo, and Campeche.Local news reports show dengue and hemorrhagic dengue cases are on the rise in the states of Yucatan, Quintana Roo and Campeche.Dengue is spread by mosquitoes. To reduce the risk of contracting dengue, the U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC) recommends wearing clothing that exposes as little skin as possible and applying a repellent containing DEET, picaridin, oil of lemon eucalyptus or IR3535 as the active ingredient.

One of the most common questions I am asked by friends is: What’s the cost of living in Yucatan? My standard (and rather evasive) answer has been: “Well… it depends”. Can a person live on $4,000 dollars a month down there? Or $2,000 dollars? Because the answer, of course, is “Yes, there are thousands, maybe millions, of Mexicans living here on much less.”The cost of living in Yucatan (and much of Mexico) depends more on your lifestyle and personal financial decisions than they probably do in your own country. There are simply more options here. Many commodities can be found at very different prices depending on location, context, and quality.

The Mexican economy is like eBay, a swap meet and a garage sale wrapped in a department store in a mall at Disneyland (I refer to Cancun). For example, you can watch the same Hollywood blockbuster in an old, art-deco theatre in downtown Merida for about $2.50 pesos that would cost you $8.50 lying in a barcalounger in a modern cineplex in northern Merida. Or you can go to a government-sponsored film festival at the Olimpo or Teatro Merida and pay $1.50 pesos to see an art film. One important way to reduce costs is through immersion and assimilation. The more Yucateco you become, the less you’ll find yourself paying (and willing to pay) too much.

It’s obvious to most of us who live here that speaking Spanish and adapting to local traditions will almost always guarantee finding a lower price or a lower-priced alternative. What’s not immediately obvious is how thrift becomes a way of life when it is supported by the culture that surrounds you. You can drive across town to Home Depot for that machete (yes, you might need one here), or you can walk to the corner hardware store and buy one for less. The choice is yours.With only a few exceptions (real estate and lodging come to mind), you’ll be paying for everything in pesos. After the horrific peso devaluation of 1994, there have been important changes in Mexican finance, which includes a virtual peso “peg” to the U.S. dollar.

Over the past six years at least, the Mexican peso has tracked the value of the dollar at an exchange rate of 11 pesos to one dollar, plus or minus half a peso. In the last few months of 2009-2010, in response to the worldwide economic crisis, the exchange rate climbed to 13.5 pesos to the dollar. Today it is 12.81 pesos to one USD.Unlike Europeans and Latin Americans, who are conditioned to think in multiple currencies, most norteamericanos have a difficult time understanding the value of anything not quoted in dollars. But it’s not that hard. Just divide the price in pesos by 10, and then give yourself a 25 percent discount. For example, something that costs $100 pesos costs $10 dollars minus 25%, or $7.50 dollars, mas o menos.

La Comision Federal de Electricidad (CFE) is the national electric company that supplies power to all of Mexico. Although they are a “World Class Company”, (as the slogan on their trucks remind us), they do not pretend to be affordable. Without a doubt, electricity is the most expensive utility in Yucatan. We in Yucatan benefit from the previously mentioned socialist influences within the Mexican economic system by living in a region classified as 1C, which means that because we have an average summer temperature of 30o C (86o F), our electric bills are subsidized during the summer months of May through October. (Or, if you are a die-hard capitalist, you could say we are gouged the rest of the year.)For a private residence in Merida, the three summertime electricity rates are:Basic: $0.567 pesos up to 150 Kilowatt Hours (KW/Hr)Intermediate: $0.668 pesos up to 600 KW/HrHigh: $2.255 pesos after 600 KW/Hr During the rest of the year, the rates are:Basic: $0.661 pesos up to 150 KW/HrIntermediate: $0.780 pesos up to 600 KW/Hr High $ 2.350 pesos after 600 KW/HrFor those who are not familiar with the term “KW/Hr”, it means kilowatt-hour, which is a thousand watts of electricity consumed in an hour. If you burn ten, 100-watt light bulbs for an hour, they consume one KW/Hr of electricity.

Naturally, here in Yucatan, low-cost fluorescent bulbs (11 to 17 watts) have been widely adopted, not just to conserve electricity, but also because they survive power fluctuations caused by our lovely afternoon electrical storms better than standard incandescent bulbs.How much electricity does your lifestyle consume? If you plan to live like most campesinos outside Merida, you do not own a refrigerator. If you want a cold drink or fresh eggs, you walk to the corner store, which serves as the community refrigerator. You don’t own a washing machine, either, preferring to wash your clothes by hand. You might own an electrical fan, but you certainly don’t own an air conditioner. You hang your hammock in a shady spot and let the breezes cool you off. Probably the only electrical appliances you own are a (rather loud) radio and a television, along with a few light bulbs (and maybe a string or two of Christmas lights, para La Virgen).

With the exception of a few ceiling fans, a small refrigerator and perhaps a washing machine, many working class Yucatecos living in Merida don’t consume much more than their campesino cousins, although a growing number own a DVD player and a battery charger for their cell phone.We observe that the Yucatan middle-class owns an assortment of electrical appliances similar to most middle-class gringos, but they don’t have as many and they are not used as often. You won’t find a garbage disposal or dishwasher in most Yucatan kitchens. But the obvious socio-economic dividing line is air conditioning. The modern miracle that made Las Vegas possible and lures thousands of campesinos and working class Yucatecos to the malls every summer is what takes the biggest bite out of anyone’s electric bill.I have five “mini-split” air conditioners that are only turned on when absolutely necessary. I have air conditioners in the bedrooms – a common practice among homeowners who chill electrically – and I try to avoid using them whenever possible. I have slept the last three nights with only the ceiling fan on.

I would guess that anyone with an average gringo lifestyle (and addiction to air conditioning) who lives in a restored colonial house in Merida’s historical center likely consumes an average of 1,500 KW/Hr of electricity every month, which means they’re paying approximately $2,400 pesos every month. The bill is delivered every other month, so expect to see double when it arrives. My last electric bill from May 6 to July 10 was 320.08 pesos. Remember that I was only here from May 10 to May 25. That is about $15.00 for each month of the two month period. Recently, the president of Mexico announced a 10-20% discount off electrical rates nation-wide as part of a fiscal stimulus program. If the legislation passes, it will be welcome news.

The water supply is delivered by a company called Japay (HOP-eye). There really is no shortage of water in Merida, nor in most of Yucatan, so prices are low compared to the rest of North America. The least you’ll pay in the centro historico is $50 pesos per cubic meter for up to three cubic meters of water. One cubic meter is 164 gallons. An average toilet flush is about 2.5 gallons. A five-minute shower is roughly 13 gallons. A load of laundry in a modern washing machine runs between 30 and 40 gallons. The more water you use, the higher the price per cubic meter, as the table below illustrates. My last water bill for two months was 62.00 or about $3.00 USD per month.

There are two garbage collection companies in Merida: Servilimpia and Pamplona. Both charge only $17 pesos per month to collect your garbage. They have different collection days depending on your location. Where I live now, Servilimpia works Colonia Santiago on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. In the tourist areas of the centro historico, they collect whether you pay or not. Sometimes, they forget to stop by for some reason, but in general the service works.Have something big or unwieldy you want to throw away? Put it outside. If it is at all valuable or reusable, chances are a neighbor or passerby will pick it up before the garbage truck even gets there. If your garbage requires more effort or ingenuity on the part of the garbage company to haul it away, you might find them banging on your door, even in the middle of the night. Tip them $10 or $20 pesos and they will be happy. If not, they’ll tell you how much they want.

In addition, you will occasionally see a group of men in orange vests, sporting brooms and rolling trashcans, making their way along the streets of Merida to pick up after those who toss candy wrappers and coke bottles from their cars or from the buses. We would be knee-deep in modern, brand name detritus if not for them.There are no natural gas mains running under the calles of Merida. Every home and office has some sort of propane tank on its roof [mine is on the roof] or in a closet.

The gas is delivered from a truck operated by one of several independent companies with names like Z-Gas, Delta Gas and Gas Peninsular. The price of propane has nearly doubled since 2002. That’s the bad news. The good news is that it’s still one of the least expensive utilities and one of the most efficient energy sources. A typical three-bedroom colonial home has a 300-liter stationary tank on the roof. At a price of $5.48 pesos per liter, it costs $1,664 pesos to fill it. The gas heats my calentadores (water heaters), and is used for cooking, although I often use the campesino method, where cooking is done on an outdoor grille. A tank lasts us five or six months, so we pay an average of about $330 pesos a month for gas.I do not have a clothes dryer, so I hang my clothes out to dry. I disable my water heater during the summer months, as well. I keep only the pilot light on.

Like everywhere else in the world, your telephone options are mind-boggling. And even though Telmex (and its little cellular brother Telcel) is still the monopoly of old, it has been increasingly forced to compete with other companies, if not in price, at least in features. Telmex has several options. I have a Telmex Plan which includes the 100 local calls, 100 minutes of long distance within Mexico and a 1 Mb broadband Internet connection with wireless router. That runs me $328.44 pesos monthly. Roughly about $31.00 USD.OK, its getting close to my walk and run time, so Hasta Mañana.