The Gringo Tax

One of the tricky things about being here is deciding what to pay for services. Our sense of economic fairness and scale is completely out-of-whack with the local economy in Mexico, and the Mexicans know it. They have a couple of interesting tricks:

The first most obvious one is to simply charge Americans slightly more than Mexicans, for everything from produce to taxi rides. This rightfully irks our friend Liz (who is American and is married to Fernando, a Mexican), since she can see right away the blatant discrimination. Liz has become sort of an advocate for economic equality. For example, when we took a taxi to their house last weekend, the taxi driver wanted 180 pesos, but she brought Fernando out and we only had to pay 150 pesos. Even in town, apparently the going rate for a cab ride is 25 pesos for locals, but the cabbies almost always ask us for 30. Once a cabbie tried to get 200 pesos from Sue.

The more clever trick, which both Antonio and Rocio have used, is the "whatever you think" response when we ask them how much to pay for transportation or childcare. Obviously we are way better off than they are, and I don't mind paying a little more since I want to help them out, but it's an interesting technique nonetheless, and it probably works. If they volunteered a price, it would likely be less that what we wind up paying. In spite of it all, Rocio makes about $5/hour babysitting for us, and Antonio does fine, too.

Rocio worked her tail off for yesterdays party, doing all the shopping and cooking, so we paid her $75 (1000 pesos) for the whole days work. Sue wanted to pay her $100. Liz told us $75 was twice as much as necessary. I think Rocio was happy with $75, and for what was basically a catered party it was a great deal for us.

Personally, I don't mind, since I feel very fortunate to be able to live here in comfort, and if I can help out some of the locals along the way that's great. It seems like the right thing to do, as long as we're not totally taken advantage of.