Dear Sir,

In response to the letter to the editor by Terry A. McKinnon of Ajijic re the amount of shocking crime in the Ribera de Chapala, I’d like to say the following:

Terry, if you are so concerned about crime and safety in our community, why do you stay here and not return to where you came from? I am sure that I can speak for many retirees that have been living in this community for many years and have no safety concerns. Probably one of the reasons that most of us are down here in the first place is that we wanted to get away from the big city hustle-bustle, the cold and from reading about the daily crime in the cities where we used to live or, as in the case of snowbirds, return to.

I honestly believe that you have completely lost sight of crime in cities across the United States and Canada. Crime here is nil compared to up north. So let’s keep it in perspective.

Maybe the following suggestion will help reduce petty crimes down here: Stop flaunting expensive jewellery and bragging about how wealthy we are, as many do. These folks only have themselves to blame if they are robbed.

I would like to say that for the past five years we have been living here, we have bought the Guadalajara Reporter on a weekly basis and thoroughly enjoy reading about our community, the things of intellectual interest that are going on, etcetera. But the one thing that I am really not interested in reading about is all the ugly, bad things that most of us create by ourselves. We read enough about that when we lived up north. I hope the editor of the Reporter will not take your suggestion and print trash instead of things that are of interest to us all.

Viva Mexico!

Mario Okunsky, Ajijic