IL Postcard

And They Taste Just Like Chicken

Date: 06/28/2008 Author: Dan Prescher

Sunday, June 29, 2008
Merida, Mexico

Read more about living overseas in International Living Postcards—your daily escape

Suzan found our pet iguana this morning. I could tell by the way she screamed.

Iggy Pop was hiding behind the water softener in the pump room. He’d been in there a couple of days, apparently.

Here in Merida, we don’t have squirrels like we did back in Omaha. Here, we have iguanas. They’re just about as plentiful as squirrels, but they’re not nearly as cute. Or smart. Or agile.

This particular iguana fell off the top of the wall into our central courtyard a few weeks ago and hasn’t been able to climb back out. He found a hole under the sidewalk just outside our kitchen screen door and took up residence. So Suzan named him.

Every now and then we’d wake up in the morning to find him clinging to the screen door, looking longingly up at the top of the wall, unable to figure out his next move since the wall is too smooth for him to climb. All attempts at capture failed...Iggy may not be smart or agile, but he’s fast.

Then Iggy disappeared for a few days. We had hung a hammock from the terrace roof—the Merida equivalent of inmates tying sheets together—and we figured he’d taken the hint and used it to climb out and make his escape.

But this morning Suzan opened the pump room door to get the broom. She screamed, and Iggy bolted back into his hole. How he got in the pump room in the first place, I haven't a clue.

My point being, there are things you have to get used to if you decide to move out of your comfort zone and live abroad...different laws, different foods, different money, different weather, different customs.

Different squirrels.

These differences are, in part, why Suzan and I have been living abroad all these years in the first place. Because whatever else living in a foreign country does for you...soothes your soul, saves you money, satisfies your wanderlust...it also keeps you on your toes.

As a card-carrying member of AARP, I’m not a young man...but here in Merida, I can't get set in my ways, because my old ways don't necessarily apply here. Case in point...today I have to figure out how to get an iguana out from under my terrace. Much as I’ve come to like the scaly little guy, something has to give, and none of my vast experience with squirrels applies.

I’ll end up asking a local what to do, because they’ve been dealing with iguanas for thousands of years here and pretty much know the ropes. So it looks like today is going to be like a lot of my days here...I’m going to meet someone new, and I’m going to learn something new. And it will be something I never even dreamed I’d have to learn when I lived in Omaha, Neb.

Whatever the local Iggy solution turns out to be, I’m hoping it doesn’t involve turning him into a food item. Iguanas do get eaten around here and just about everywhere else they’re found. (A quick Google search on “iguana recipe” turns up 423,000 hits. By comparison, a Google search on “squirrel recipe” turns up slightly fewer...only 418,000 hits.)

Luckily, Iggy isn’t big as iguanas go, and he probably wouldn’t make much of a meal, so he’ll probably be turned loose to fall into somebody else’s courtyard. But as I said, there are things you have to get used to if you decide to live abroad, so I’m keeping an open mind.

Dan Prescher
Publisher, International Living