Yesterday, for the first time in 12 days, there was movement on my residente temporal visa renewal — payment was finally applied and information entered into the system. This is going much, much more slowly than it did last year in Progreso — I had my card on the 22nd of May after starting the process around the same date at the beginning of the month. The situation is becoming unbearably stressful, especially since I still have my vehicle temporary import permit to renew. For that, I’ll do like last year and wait until I get the “your renewal is approved” letter before going to aduana, rather than wait for the card itself. I believe I get a grace period beyond the expiry day of the permit, but if I avail myself of that, I’m guaranteed to lose my deposit.

I have to say that the Mexican online immigration system is quite good at keeping you informed and letting you know if you have to do anything. This is because you get a notification by email if there is action needed on your part. So if you see movement on your account but didn’t get an email, you know there’s nothing to do. For example, I eventually got an email confirming that they’d processed my change of address that invited me to download a letter for my records. With the movement yesterday related to my renewal, I did not get an email.

As an English speaker, it amuses that when you’ve signed into the website with the user name (pieza) and password linked to the exact thing you’re tracking (eg. a renewal), you are asked which NUT you want to consult, which is yourself.  Hey, every bit of levity helps in life!

(The NUT is your unique “procedure” number that follows you through your immigration journey.)

I remain surprised by how stressed I am about the whole renewal process, but I guess that just goes to show how seriously I take it. Hopefully, I’ll get the invitation to return to INM to have fingerprints taken no later than this time next week…

via IFTTT

via IFTTT

via IFTTT

I’m a little under the weather (thanks, INM lady, for passing your cold to me) so I spent the bulk of yesterday afternoon and evening curled up on the couch with Bonita binge watching the Netflix series Ingobernable, by far the longest and most complex thing I’ve ever followed in Spanish. By 9:30, I was ruing a cliffhanger and mindlessly watching clips of M*A*S*H on YouTube when the power went out.

Ah, a sign from the universe to get thee to bed, I thought! And then, I noticed that the neighbours had power and the streetlights were on.

I went through the house to see if I might just be having problems with one circuit and discovered that was the case — I had power upstairs and in my laundry room, but nowhere else. I decided to deal with this in the morning and went to bed. But I did not dare run the AC in case there were major issues with the power generally and a fan was no match against the room being at nearly 40C. Add in the noise from open windows and I did not get a wink of sleep. I normally run the AC an hour before bed to really drop the temp and then I just run the ceiling fan all night and am fine, even in the current heat the locals stop me on the street to complain about, but last night was like trying to sleep in a very humid sauna!

I still had no power to the lower half of the house this morning. The fridge was still cold and I made the decision to slide it all the way to the office, plug it into an extension cord, run that extension cord out the window, and then plug the cord into an outlet in the laundry room. I also plugged my modem and computer charger into this outlet. So at least now I didn’t have any stress about work or my food going bad, but I could not run any fans in the room. Even with the exterior door and window open and a decent breeze, it was like a furnace in the office today and my computer kept shutting down for fear of overheating. It is amazing what a difference a mere ceiling fan can do when there’s cross-ventilation!

Thankfully, my landlady was checking messages. After she confirmed that I’d checked and reset breakers, she promised to send an electrician.

I worked as steadily as I could and at 3:30 she texted to say an electrician would be by at 4:00 if I still needed one. Yes! Power was sometimes coming back, but voltage was being very erratic. I managed to finish and send my job literally 30 seconds before the doorbell rang!

The electrician and his helper started at the fuse box where power comes into the property. Yes, fuse box.

I had suspected that my issue was with corrosion at the fuse box and it took two seconds to confirm that this was the case. The guys did what they could for me today by cleaning contacts and then the main electrician called the landlord to tell him that this thing needs to be pulled and replaced by a modern unit ASAP. He got permission to go quote the materials so I’m hopeful that this is going to happen!

I got the guys a cold drink, we chatted a bit about my long drive from Canada and why I can’t sell them my truck, and their delight at learning that I’d just adopted Bonita, meaning I’m here long-term/permanently, was so heartwarming — Mexicans are so welcoming.

They left and I pushed the fridge back to the kitchen. Whew! The change out out of the unit could happen tomorrow but would be more likely Thursday or Friday, which would suit my schedule better. Again, I hope this happens because the power here is a mess and based on their inspection of the electrical panels, everything can be traced back to the fuse box. I should see a lower voltage (better for my electronics) and fewer brownouts with a new panel.

So like my Monday, my Tuesday was much more eventful than expecting. Hopefully, tomorrow will be boring!