Yesterday I walked a lot to check out several properties that were for sale - places that looked like they might work for us. I wasn't really supposed to come here for that purpose. This trip was supposed to be an opportunity to see if I felt that we really could live here and adapt. The heat, humidity, the cultural extremes.

As you may have gathered from the first post after arrival, this question wasn't very well answered initially. Now, after a lot of painful denial and self-doubt, I will say yes.

Yes, we can. Yes we should.

It will not be easy. There will be more depression and lots of anxiety. I still don't know how we will find a place. I do know I will have to come and repeat this experience (OK - it will be a DIFFERENT experience, maybe even a BETTER experience) in order to actually focus on the home purchase. There are number of things we can do to make this work better for me when here.

Better phone-home arrangements for whining and water-works sessions. A cell phone for wrangling the wily realtors here. Advance email schmoozing with all the afforementioned agentes de bienes raices (realtors). Flexibility with travel dates. Staying at the best affordable place, where gracias por dios I finally relocated to hoy mismo.

Tengo que volver a Merida pronto. Dios en cielo y su hijo, ayudame por favor.

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Here is one house I looked at. I wish it had been the right house, if for no other reasons than the neighbor (see the sign for his home business below), and the fact that it is just down the street from one of the historic sixteenth-century arcos that mark entries to the old city from different directions.

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