• No flushing the toilet paper. This one really blows their minds. It’s true: we don’t flush the toilet paper, we fold it and put it in the (covered) bin next to the toilet. Yes, even when it’s #2. I never questioned the “whys” behind this cardinal rule, but fortunately Yucatan Living did the research for me in this article. As gross as this initially was to my US-formed brain, I quickly got used to it and now don’t even think twice about it. The only difference it makes is that you take out the trash in your bathroom a LOT. The only time this custom embarrasses me is when I’m back in the States and forget that it’s ok to flush TP there, so my host’s bathroom bin quickly fills up. It usually takes me about a week to remember, and by then I’m on my way back to Mexico.

  • We don’t drink the tap water. Again, I’ve never done any research on this, just took the rule for what it was. Water is stored here in subterranean tanks, with heavy cement covers over them, then water is pumped up to the roof to fill a tank called a tinaco, which is then pumped into your house. Sometimes you can see little flecks of black, but most of the time, the water looks just fine, although it’s still not potable. We shower with it, brush our teeth, and wash dishes with it. If you boil it, it’s fine, and in a pinch I’ve used it for pasta with no ill effects. But in general, we drink and cook with bottled, purified water only. We soak veggies in a solution of tap water/sanitizing drops. In four years, I’ve had to be treated for amoebas/parasites only once, which is a pretty good record, especially for someone with a history of stomach issues. It might sound funny, but now I usually only get sick when I go to the US.

  • Virtually no postal service. This one took me a couple of years to get over. No cards, letters, bills, junk mail, magazines, packages, NOTHING. My grandparents have sent me Christmas cards that will never arrive (go ahead and cancel that 5 usd check, Grandpa!). The Mexican Postal Service is notoriously HORRIBLE and when sending something, you know it’s a crapshoot. Send 10 postcards if you want 2 to make it. Don’t send anything you would mind losing. Don’t order anything online. Don’t rely on bills coming before you pay them or before you know it, you’ll be sitting in the dark with no water and no satellite. I read awhile back that the Mexican government has hired the US Postal Service to come here to retrain the postal staff and modernize the entire operation, but since I’m living way down in the boonies of Quintana Roo (the last state to be added to Mexico), I’m sure it will be YEARS before we see any improvement. And even longer before any of us let our guards down and actually use the postal service for anything we care about.

  • We wait in line to pay bills. Another thing that really floored me when I first moved here, but now is de rigeur. When the water bill is due, you go to the water company, wait in line, and pay your bill. When the electric bill is due, you go to the electric company, wait in line, and pay the bill. When the phone bill is due, you go to the phone company, wait in line…are you catching on? Now imagine this for every bill you have to pay and calculate the amount of time this takes up each month, bearing in mind that there will be many others whose bills are due on the same day as yours, so you’ll definitely not be the only one in line. Also, since (as I’ve already told you) postal service is non-existent, you won’t even have a copy of the current bill, so you have to guess as to how much the bill will be and hope the money you’ve brought will be enough to cover it, or else you’re going to have to come back and get in line again. This is one of the things I will always hate about living here, but fortunately, now that my business requires the payment of my client’s bills, my assistant takes care of them all at once (and mine, too).

  • Having hot water is still listed as an amenity in some hotel/apartment listings. I don’t think I need to elaborate on this one.

  • Ovens are not a given. I am one of a handful of people I know here who have an oven, and I have one only because our house came unfurnished (unfurnished here typically means “no appliances” either) and I insisted on buying one. Our second apartment had a tiny two-burner stovetop set into the counter until I begged the landlady so piteously that she put in a small range/oven combo. I don’t know if it’s the heat or the money factor that so few people have ovens, probably a combination of both. Can’t live without my oven, how on earth can one make mom casseroles without an oven?

  • Safety regulations are negotiable. Or they don’t even exist in the first place. Seatbelts, car seats, helmets, hard hats on construction sites, you name it. Here in Playa, the seatbelt and helmet laws are enforced fairly well (if only to help the poorly-paid police officer get his “mordida” or “little bite” of the offender’s bribe to get out of the ticket), but you’ll still see families of four on scooters, with the baby hanging off mom’s arm and junior standing up on the running board in front of dad, who’s driving. I see VERY few families putting their kids in car seats. There must not be an OSHA here, either, since on the construction sites you see men with bare heads and flip flops, climbing up a rickety ladder made from scrap wood and nails, carrying two bags of concrete over one shoulder. Or watch them, maskless, breathing in all the limestone dust. Man, you wouldn’t believe how rattletrap some of the scaffolding looks on these sites. It seems to me that many of the young men who are now building Playa del Carmen will not have very long lives.

These are all the things I can think of right now. When I first moved here, I made the mistake of not recording the things I found unusual and now they’re no longer unusual. The effacement of my memory has been so powerful that now when I go back the US, I’m struck by the thousands of things I think are strange there.