Dyani:

We’re here today with Annie McDonald, who is from Calgary, Alberta, in Canada. So Annie, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what brought you to the point where you decided to move to Mexico?

Annie:

Yeah, my son’s dad had been trying to convince me to move to Mexico for quite some time. He wanted to get to experience the lifestyle and the lifestyle for his son. And I was 1000% … not on board for it for a really long time. . And then, like a lot of countries, the landscape changed with Covid drastically, and it just kind of got to the point where we couldn’t go anywhere. We couldn’t go into restaurants. I couldn’t take my son’s swimming. I couldn’t take him to movie theaters. I couldn’t do anything with him, and it’s freezing cold. So, , our main option was to play outside in the cold. And the topic of moving to Mexico came up again. And I researched everywhere, but Mexico, and Mexico kept coming up in all of my research as the best option when people were comparing many different parts of life. And we just decided one day that we were going to go to Mexico. I already had some familiarity with the Latin-minded culture and I really want that for my son as well. And we just pulled the trigger one day and that was it. We were gone.

Dyani:

Oh my, that’s crazy. So, what were some of the logistical challenges and how did you handle that? Like, for example, of course, the language barrier, immigration, and your family situation and everything. 

Annie:

Lots of barriers.

Dyani:

I already know that you have a very unique experience in your relocation, and I’m interested in you sharing that with everybody.

Annie:

Okay. So we came here as a unit. I came here with my son and his dad, who is my ex, and so first, we started traveling through the States to get here. We weren’t really sure what the plan was. There was no plan. We literally booked a place the week before we got here. We had no vehicle. We had no idea what we were doing. It was very much just flying by the seat of our pants for everything. We knew nobody. My ex sort of knew someone that he went to high school with a few decades ago that lived here. And that is literally how we chose the city that we started in, “I sort of know somebody that lives there,” and that was that.

Dyani:

Which city was that?

Annie:

That was here, in Bucerias… So , that was literally how we chose which part of Mexico to start with. And everything was just- as we went, we figured it out. We figured out vehicles as we went. , the lovely and unique slowness and testing of patience as we went with all of our things. So yeah, there were a lot of barriers. And then of course, living together in the same house, you know. We get along really well, but living in the same house with your ex and all of the stress that you have to deal with already when you have a solid unit, it’s pretty difficult. And then you throw that little wrench in… I had a puppy. I left Canada with my five-month-old puppy, a three-year-old toddler, and my ex. So , I’m really proud of us. We did pretty darn good. We’re back to living in our separate homes. But yeah, we did pretty good. It was a challenge. A challenge of a lifetime. .

Dyani:

I really think it’s just an incredible story. Cause I think a lot of people might be separated from their co-parent and they might think, ‘How could I ever get them to go?’ and “I can’t do it because, I’d move and then how would I see my kid?” So the fact that you were able to come to that agreement together and make that transition together as a family, even though you’re not together anymore. I think it’s really inspirational for people. It’s very, outside of the box,  and it kind of puts it back on the table for some people. It’s nice that he didn’t give up, huh? . He’s just like, ‘No, I’m going to convince her,” and you guys relocated together and then you kind of formed your separate lives here as well. 

Annie:

If you want to do something bad enough, you’ll make it happen. That’s pretty much how we started. We knew we would have to depend on each other a lot , for different things. Because I did speak some Spanish. I hadn’t spoken Spanish in over 20 years, pretty much outside of, you know, what you talk about in resorts, like [inaudible] all the basics. Yeah. , so I hadn’t used it in a long time, but that helped. So we, he depended on me for some things. I depended on him for other things. And it was very much just, we have, if we want to make it work, we’ll make it work. We’ll make it work. And we did for 10 months living together, traveling together, figuring it all out together. You’ll make it work.

Dyani:

Wow. 

Annie:

Anyone could do it. If we could do it, anyone could do it. 

Dyani:

Yeah, I think it’s one of those things people think,“I could never do that,” but it really is attainable, you know.

Annie:

Doable. It’s not easy, but it’s doable. 

Dyani:

Yeah. We know a lot of people who have made it work and made it happen. So about the the Spanish. would you say that it’s something you definitely need. to get by? How has it felt for you? Did it come easily? Did you take any classes? What did you do to adapt to Spanish? You’ve only been here for a year, but you seem to have a good grasp on it for somebody that hasn’t taken it for 20 years. It’s impressive and that’s interesting for people to hear about also.

Annie:

I don’t think you have to have it. There’s so many, I mean, I’m someone that believes that you should learn where you’re going, you know, learn the culture, the language. I’ve just, that’s my personal opinion, but I had a foundation. I still had the foundation buried deep down back in my brain somewhere. So I learned it fluently for a year when I was about 13 years old. We lived in Peru and then we didn’t speak it at home. We didn’t speak it again outside of a couple trips here and there. , I would practice it in my car by myself. I don’t know why because nobody was there to judge me and I didn’t feel embarrassed by it. I haven’t taken lessons here. It’s just literally been learning by going head first into everything, learning through embarrassment, realizing that there are words that were used that I learned there that aren’t used here, or don’t have the same meaning here.

They have very different meanings here. And that’s it. I know my son’s dad is taking lessons and he’s picking it up, but he wants to, so if you want to, you will, and that’s it. I might do some lessons at some point to get more formal, like the writing, for example. I never learned how to write properly. So I’m sure there are people reading some of my text messages here wondering what the heck? But, you know, they understand it enough. So, I don’t think you have to have it. I know lots of people that have moved here that have zero Spanish, and they make your work, they figure it out, they piece it together. It just depends on what you want to accomplish.

Dyani:

Yeah.

Annie:

I’m learning it as I go, but I had some foundation. My ex didn’t really have too much foundation. Some ‘Duo Lingo’ foundation. That’s about it.

Dyani:

. Well, you gotta start somewhere, right? Where there’s a will, there’s a way, right? . So what about –  you’re a year in, you’ve made this commitment, you’ve gone through all the hoops and hurdles that you have to, to make it here and to start to get settled, and what’s your perspective on it so far? Has it been worth it? How do you feel? Like you’re getting situated, , you know, and I have a couple of other follow ups that go along with that: Like, what do you miss about back home and, what do you not miss at all? How has it been now that you’re looking at home as somewhere from further away?

Annie:

It’s an interesting perspective. I would say I feel very much settled here, but I am one of those crazy people that I can be completely thrown for a loop and I just adapt. So for me, I knew that it was, well I’m not gonna say it would be easy, I just know that I eventually even out no matter where I am. I know not everybody is like that, but like I’ve said, if you want something to happen, you just make it happen. You figure it out as you go. So I’ve probably felt pretty settled here. I would say after probably about eight months or so where some of the craziness was starting to die down. I just went for a trip back home and just came back last weekend. And this feels like home for me. I was really excited to come back about a week into to my trip back to Canada.

I wouldn’t say it’s easy. It hasn’t been easy, but it hasn’t been bad. It’s just like anywhere. I think that , even people moving to Canada, they tell you, this is frustrating, this is hard. It’s really no different. It’s just in a different country, in a different language. It takes time to figure out the ins and outs, the loopholes, the things you can live without or can’t live without, no matter where you go, even if you’re coming from another country to Canada. So we moved a lot when I was growing up. I moved to multiple different countries of the world. So I knew some of that, but from a child’s perspective, I didn’t have to do grownup things like paperwork and stuff like that. It was very different, but it’s been totally worth it. I’m really content, I’m really happy. My son is really content. I mean, he doesn’t really have much memory before, because he was three when we got here. So this is kind of what he knows, what he loves. And he couldn’t wait to come back to the heat. I definitely don’t miss the cold . I was never born for that. 

Dyani:

Me either. I feel you on that.

Annie:

What were some of your other follow-up questions about that?

Dyani:

What do you miss the least?

Annie:

The cold, I guess.

Dyani:

What you miss the most?

Annie:

The way of life is very different and the mentality of people is very different. It’s not to really bash one or, or put one above the other. Here, what I love a lot is it’s a very “live and let live” mentality. I have a lot of friends here that have different opinions on many things, and that’s cool. Your opinion has no negative effect on my world. That’s great. Our kids get along. So when are we getting together for a play date? Whereas it was a very different way of living in Canada. This was even before Covid. This was before. I learned these things becoming a mom, like, ‘Oh, you have a different opinion than me? You’re a bad mother.’ It’s like, ‘Oh, okay. Interesting.’ Here it’s very much ‘live and let live.’ So I don’t miss that, and I don’t miss the cold. 

Dyani:

I think that’s a really good point. I never thought of it like that, but it’s really true that the diversity of thoughts and opinions and people in an international community is just so much more vast. So you just accept it and you don’t dwell on it. Whereas when you have just a couple of different mindsets in a setting, people just tend to group in those mindsets, and it’s very divisive. It’s a lot less like that here. 

Annie:

It is. And I don’t know, I struggle with this. Sometimes I wonder if that’s just the kind of people that I attract into my world, or if that just is the mentality there. But it was, I mean, you’re always gonna have the people that are very divisive, but I just find that everybody that I’ve met here is very much, ‘Even though we don’t live the same, we don’t have similar views on many things, you’re a great person. That’s awesome. I’ll meet you by the pool or I’ll see you li see you around.’

Dyani:

It’s true. It’s really true, it’s the community connection, it’s very nice. So, what do you miss the most? Is there anything, even if it’s food or something?

Annie:

I mean, outside of the obvious, my family and my friends. Yeah. I’m a bit of an ice cream snob. I miss having my ice cream. I like the, the places that I really loved. I miss some of those really simple little things. I miss Winners, the concept of Winners, Just being able to go into a store and say, ‘Okay, I need a clock for my wall.’ Go into Winners and you have 50 clocks to choose from for $14.99. Here, you go into a store and it’s like ‘They have one clock, it’s overpriced and ugly. I’ll come back next month.’ Or you can go to a high end store and pay, you know, five times more than what I would ever want to pay. So those kind of luxuries or conveniences where you can just walk into a place and find exactly what you’re looking for because you have so many options.

Dyani:

So ,many options! It’s sometimes overwhelming when you go back. 

Annie:

Yeah. Like, I’ll come back tomorrow, they’ll be different ones and I’m overwhelmed today. Whereas here it’s the complete opposite. I miss that. But you know, then on the other side of that, it’s really forced me to have to think about, do I really need a clock? Just such simple things where it’s like, ‘It took me three months to find this. The space is actually okay without the clock. I’ve kind of learned to enjoy that open space.’ So it’s really interesting because, while I miss that, it’s really forced me to have to think differently about stuff. But I do miss it. I went back and one of the first places, actually the first place I went back to was Winners. And I’m like, ‘Look at all the options!‘ But I still don’t need any of it.

Dyani:

I know exactly what you mean. Even the grocery store. I’m like, ‘There’s so many different kinds of chip flavors,’ you know what I mean? There is a lot more variety, but it’s trivial stuff.

Annie:

So silly. I miss it, but it’s trivial.

Dyani:

Yeah, exactly. So can you tell us, another thing that I’m just kind of curious about of course, is – what I think everybody’s curious about – the logistics of what you do to make a living when you’re living abroad. Can you tell us a little bit about what you do for work?  

Annie:

So when we left, I was consulting — and I had a complete risk of losing my clients, and I lost one of my biggest clients for quite some time there, which was a huge financial blow, but it was a risk that I had to take — and I just continued doing that. I ended up working for three clients: two out of Canada, and one in the US. I do business workflow stuff. I’ve been very fortunate that the clients that I have know I live here. They know that I still bill them out of my Canadian company. I still do all of the legal things. I pay the GST. I pay all my taxes out of Canada right now. I haven’t done too much research on what the restrictions are on that long term, although I probably should do that one of these days. 

Dyani:

The government sees this video and they’re like, um

Annie:

‘Wait a minute..’ But no, I still do all of the legal things for Canada. I just don’t know what the timeframe of some of that is. But I’ve been lucky enough to work remotely. I would like to do some work here at some point for multiple reasons, to spread it out so that I’m not just completely based in Canada. But I know that making money working in Mexico is definitely not the same kind of money I’m gonna make working in Canada.

Dyani:

Yeah.

Annie:

But again, there are trade- offs to everything. I want to start learning the language for the work terminology that I use. The software that I primarily work with does have the entire Spanish version. They work all around the world. I would like to have more connections here. I’d like to work with businesses here. So I will start working on that because you have to have a work permit. You have to have a tax number. So baby steps. I’ve been doing all the baby steps of getting the residency and the bank accounts and all of that stuff as I go. So that’s how I made it work. It’s less hours for sure. It’s not like I’m making the same amount that I made back home, but I’ve been fortunate that I didn’t have to continue working that many hours. So I’m kind of in this transition. I’m still doing that, but I would like to start doing some of what I do here in Mexico and just make my life a bit more here. I’m just fortunate that I still get to work remotely for my clients. 

Dyani:

Yeah. It makes sense to adapt it to a little bit more of a hybrid model just to assimilate more with your environment as you’re in Mexico. And it’s gonna be interesting to see how that evolves. You have the idea and some things like that just happen organically too. You’ll see. We’ll see where that goes. But it seems that the remote work opportunity is obviously a great opportunity, and just the transparency factor is important. A lot of times, you have to hide that you’re working in Mexico. I know people that have. Your company might not know, and you never go into the office, so you’re able to hide it, and I think that becomes stressful, emotionally and mentally. But when you’re transparent about it, it’s a little easier on everyone. You’re just, ‘Hey, I’m here in Mexico. Maybe my internet’s not great right now, or this or that, but this is what I’m doing.’

Annie:

I’ve been really fortunate with the internet thing. I know so many people have asked, how do you function with the internet? I’m like, ‘I’ve lived in three places here so far, and my internet has been solid.’ Honestly, I don’t know if I’m like a rarity, but we haven’t had any problems with any place we’ve lived. We’ve had little blips, but I’m talking when you have two people doing Zoom calls and our son is watching Netflix, so you have basically three things streaming in your house. We would make sure that really important meetings weren’t happening at the same time, but then we know lots of people that have really struggled with it. When you’re working online, you need solid internet. So, I don’t know, we’ve just been fortunate. Again, you want something bad enough, it’s gonna work out.

Dyani:

You missed the beginning of Quelele, [to camera] which is where we live, and this is how I met Annie as well, because we have all lived in the same area in Mezcales. At the very beginning, there was no internet.

Annie:

Oh my Gosh. Nope.

Dyani:

And we all just used our phone data. But that was more about the stage of construction of the development than it was a. result of living in Mexico. And now we have a solid connection, since they installed one. Usually I’m meeting somebody in the States or in Canada on Zoom and they’re the ones that are breaking up.

Annie:

That’s totally how it is. We figured out little things like when we were living in here, the internet box, I don’t know what it was, the thing was underground right in front of the house that we were in. And we figured out at some point that a lot of the issues were a literal loose cable. And so we would just flag down the internet guy. I’m like, ‘Hey, can you come fix this?’ And they’d move the cement thing, jiggle some things, and we’re good, good to go. So you learn all these little things, like don’t bother calling, just flag down the guy that’s nearest that day. Cuz they’re always everywhere. Just little things like that. Once we figured that out, it was easy peasy. The Internet’s down, flag them down, they come do something. Problem solved. Okay. Have a nice day. Just such odd little things.

Dyani:

Yeah there’s a community and people help you out. So I think that mostly covers it for today, but, there was just one more question I had. If you had a piece of advice to give to people that are back home and maybe considering the move, what would you say? Either a way to prepare or something to consider.

Annie:

I guess it’s advice and to some it might sound pessimistic. Expect nothing to be the same. Go in with that mentality. Personally, I find that a lot of people have an expectation that living in another country is a specific way, especially Mexico. I’ve talked to lots of people about this. I think they think it’s supposed to be one way, but absolutely nothing seems to be the way that they expected. And if you set aside your expectations, things will be a lot easier. That’s to kind of prepare people for the the patience that you have to have with something that should have taken you an hour back home could take you days to accomplish here. And that stuff is super frustrating. But if you know that going in, you still might get frustrated, but it helps a lot. I’m not saying to program yourself to be pessimistic, it’s just you think ‘Okay, this should be easy.’ and then, It might not be. So just have very little expectation on everything. If you’ve let that go, things get a lot easier to handle. I’ll flat out tell people this isn’t for everybody. This massive change is not for everybody, but you won’t know till you try it.

Dyani:

It’s so true. There is a learning curve you have to prepare for. It’s gonna take longer at first, but you’re a year in and you’re feeling more adjusted. I’ve been here for six years and I felt like maybe around the five-year mark I finally started feeling like I have a good grasp on things. The patience, which you also brought up is so important, too.

Annie:

Don’t use the eight-month thing as a normal timeframe. I think about what we’ve learned in talking to other people – because I grew up overseas and moved a lot- but it typically takes a solid two years to feel settled. So when I say I feel settled, I don’t have everything set up and done yet. I’m still working on stuff, but my mental state feels in a much better place to now continue doing some of the stuff that I need to do. I should define what my version of ‘settle’ is, I don’t have all of the things figured out. There’s some stuff where I’m like, how have I not done this yet? And there are other things I’m like, I can’t believe I’ve got that accomplished. So I think it takes like a solid two years until you start really finding your community and all of your stuff is set up and functioning. But for me, the mental thing is okay, I’m good. I feel like I’m not in total survival mode. That’s what I mean when I say I feel more settled after the eight-month point. I’m a little out of survival mode.

Dyani:

I think that’s, that’s it, adaptation and giving yourself the time you need and being patient. 

Annie:

Lots of patience. 

Dyani:

Not having some really high expectations that you’re gonna dive in and just immediately resume the same pace of lifestyle that you had back home. There’s an adjustment period for sure.

Annie:

All worth it though. It’s all been worth it.

Dyani:

Yeah. It really is. Well awesome. Thank you so much.

Annie:

Thank you. I appreciate your time. It’s been nice.

Dyani:

Yeah. Thanks for coming out! [To Camera] If you’re interested in learning more, make sure to subscribe to this channel and follow our blog at dyanimite.com.