what surprised me most

So, my sister-in-law asked me today, "what's surprised you most about Mexico?"
Very intriguing question.
1. how very nice the people are. Latinos who come to the US, whether to visit or to live, are basically met with total contempt. Not from everyone, but plenty of "americans" scoff at their accent, their style, their skin color, etc. Few of us will go out of our way to help them, no matter how lost they are. While we are constanly under scrutiny in Mexico (everyone stares at us when we talk, when we walk by even) almost everyone is nice to us. They'll slow down their spanish, use "sign" language, and even try to talk in English. They smile, and politely show or explain things we don't understand. We absolutely fell in love with Mexico because of the people.
2. How comfortable we are there. Yes, the weather is nice, and so are the people, but mainly the lifestyle is great. We can be 15 minutes late, routinely, and it's not a life crisis. We can still shop at Costco, and at the mall, and not come home broke. We can eat fresh mangoes and advocados every day if we want. We have our house and our car cleaned weekly, and we don't even have to pump our own gas.

But the most intriguing thing -
3. Our perception of money has changed. Americans are all about how much stuff we can get for out dollar. Black friday exemplifies that attitude. (a free mp3 player? a $200 laptop? $10 casmere sweater?) We don't really care if that stuff was made in a foreign country by lax standards or if a teenager was up at 3am to sell it to us or if it's even something we actually need. We just want it bc we can have it. Mexicans are not about stuff. They're about lifestyle. They own a cashmere sweater bc that sweater is better than a cable sweater. They pay to have their car cleaned every week bc taking care of something is part of the price. They'd rather have a clean home than a cluttered home, so they spend money each week on a housekeeper rather than on chinese-made homegoods. Overall, they consider it their personal responsibility to work for their money, and that once they have earned that money to spend it responsibility. That means no credit card debt, low house and car debt, no student loans. It means paying people to do service jobs for you rather than hand out welfare. It means that empowering your neighbor is a better use of your funds than empowering an indian slaveworker. Hopefully we can embrace a saner attitude towards money when we return.