Welcome to the Ajijic Book Club

from amazon.com

Rita Golden Gelman is an ordinary woman who is living an extraordinary existence. At the age of forty-eight, on the verge of a divorce, Rita left an elegant life in L.A. to follow her dream of travelling the world, connecting with people in cultures all over the globe.

In 1986 Rita sold her possessions and became a nomad, living in a Zapotec village in Mexico, sleeping with sea lions on the Galapagos Islands, and residing everywhere from thatched huts to regal palaces. She has observed orangutans in the rain forest of Borneo, visited trance healers and dens of black magic, and cooked with women on fires all over the world. Rita’s example encourages us all to dust off our dreams and redisc...

I was born on July 2, 1937, in Bridgeport, Connecticut. My father owned a small pharmacy on the east side of town and my mom worked in the store full time. As a child I spent a lot of time in the store unpacking the magazines and putting them into the rack and selling candy bars and gum. We also frequently visited my grandfather’s grocery store up on Whiskey Hill. I loved those bins of cookies and the refrigerated room where he kept the meat. And the little kitchen behind the store where the family gathered during business hours.

As a teenager, I worked every afternoon at the drugstore, mostly making sundaes and shakes at the soda fountain. I loved scooping ice cream, pouring the hot fudge over it, and squirting the whipped cream in a rising spiral with a cherry on the top. But even more, I loved interacting with the customers. Right from the beginning I was intrigued by the many shapes, sizes, accents, and styles of p...