Spanish Lessons
We met with our private Spanish tutor yesterday. It was a good meeting and she was helpful. Even more helpful than the Spanish instruction was her explanation about some things that had been puzzling us about Durango.
We mentioned that the food prices seemed much higher than what we had been expecting. She said this was because Durango doesn’t grow any of their own food. Almost everything in the stores has to be imported from other Mexican cities. She said they do raise cattle in the area, so beef is generally lower cost and high quality. We don’t eat a lot of meat, so we haven’t noticed.
We talked about what the average salary was in Durango and she wasn’t sure, but she did say that the minimum wage was 42 pesos per day. That is generally what unskilled labor is paid, so if you need someone to dig a ditch or something like that, you are looking to pay around $3.83 per day per person. 42 pesos seems pretty low when 1 kg of tomatoes cost 18 pesos.
In Durango Wal-Mart pays 500 pesos per week. I bet Wal-Mart in the US would love it if they could get employees for $45 per week. Wal-Mart is considered a good employer here because they high younger people and work around their schedule so they can go to school.
