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October 27, 2008
Puerto Vallarta Hiatus
Molly at The River Café, Puerto Vallarta
We were away in Puerto Vallarta for the week, and contrary to what the listing for our rental condo said, there was no wireless access in the unit. Yeah. I was really angry.
Let me just indicate that as the reason for there being so few new entries of late. I'm working on a write-up of our experiences as vegetarians there, but it's not ready.
For now, enjoy this lovely photo of Molly at one of the places where we had some vegetarian food. There is no fuzzy filter nor a Photoshop® effect involved; it was so humid there the lens of the camera fogged over while Shawn was taking photos.
Posted by crispy at 07:33 PM | Comments (6)
October 12, 2008
Yes, We Have No Water (Revisited Again)
Sigh.
Once again we have a sign on our door telling us that the building is out of water. We had some left in the tank before we left for dinner tonight, but upon returning home after midnight, the tap was dry.
This is getting really old.
I don't know if we can get water delivered by truck tomorrow because it's Sunday.
Posted by crispy at 02:58 AM | Comments (4)
October 09, 2008
La Metallica
It's official. Metallica will be performing at the MTV Latin Music Awards being held here in Guadalajara, October 16th in the Auditorio Telmex.
Also appearing will be Tokio Hotel, Belanova, Babasónicos and "Kiss' Gene Simmons."
Posted by crispy at 01:30 AM | Comments (1)
October 08, 2008
Renewing the FM3
Since a year has passed since getting my FM3, it is time to renew it. Yesterday, I started that process.
Thinking that it would be akin to renewing ones driver's license, I did not do any preparatory research on what would be required. This turns out to have been a completely stupid assumption on my part, especially considering that it involves a huge bureaucracy. By the end of my time at the INM office, I was on the point of tears. TEARS OF RAGE!!!
I will spare you the tedium that a chronological retelling of the experience would afford, although venting would probably let me feel a bit better. Everyone has dealt with a distended, lumbering government agency that seems like it will crush the life out of everything good in the world. I realize it is no fun for any of us to re-live such an experience vicariously through the tales of others, unless perhaps some aspect of the experience was exceptionally odious. This time around though, nothing was traumatic enough to serve as a juicy centerpiece for a blog article.
That is not to say that I did not learn about a few important things that I want to share here. I do have some first-hand information about the renewal procedure, and I can report that there are a couple of recent changes in the required documents that should be noted by anyone that will have official business with a government office in the future.
First, for those as uninitiated as I was myself, let me say that the process of renewing the FM3 seems to be very similar to the initial application process with the same number of steps and only a few less required materials.
To renew the FM3, one must submit the following:
- a properly filled-out and signed application form requesting a "migratory procedure," obtained from the INM office
- the original FM3 booklet
- a copy of each page of the applicant's passport (even blank ones) plus the original for confirmation of the copy
- original and three copies of the receipt payment of the application fee (MXN $1172), to be made at any bank
- three most recent bank statements (or other documents) proving that the applicant has a monthly income equal or greater than 250 times of the actual minimum daily wage in Mexico City (this amount is reduced by half if the applicant owns property in Mexico)
- a recent document (light bill, gas bill, water bill) showing the applicant's current address (no older than 90 days) and a photocopy of the same, and (and this is a new requirement) the applicant's name must be on the bill.
I'll come back to that last bit because it's a shocker. First though, let me point out what specific items I had to submit for the original application that renewal applicants do not have to submit for the renewal.
- a hand-written letter explaining why the applicant wants to be granted the requested status (I have seen this cited in other articles online about renewing an FM3, but I was not required to turn one in)
- ID photographs
I am by no means done with the renewal. I may have to turn in other things, pay additional costs and so forth, but for the first step in the process, those are the things I did and did not have to have.
Now, back to the part about having proof of address with my name on it.
For those of you living in Mexico, you know about the importance of the light bill for various official purposes. You also know that when using it for those official things, it does not matter if the light bill is in the name of the person using it as proof of address, or at least, you know that used to be the case.
If you are not familiar with the importance of the light bill because you either do not live in Mexico or you have just recently landed, it might seem strange that official institutions would accept it as proof of your address without your proper name on it. I know, I know. It does not make sense, but this is based on a few quirks about Mexico.
First off, in Mexico, the mail is not reliable. In other countries, to prove your address, you show a piece of mail that you have received that shows your name and your address on it, delivered through the postal service of that country. While security varies, it is also true that you should be the only person getting your mail, and you should not be getting the mail of others in your box. In Mexico, you may never get mail that is sent to you through the postal service. Despite recent PR efforts on behalf of the government, the federal mail system remains a complete joke. For that reason, Mexican institutions cannot use the mail method to verify your real address.
Conversely, the electric company (CFE) has a financial interest in customers getting their bills. That is not to say that customers always get their bills, but the delivery of CFE bills is much more reliable than the mail. Again, it is presumed that only the proper recipient gets the proper bill, so the electric bill has been relied upon historically by institutions here in Mexico as a valid way to prove someone's address.
The electric company does not care what name is on any given bill, as long as it gets paid. For some reason, the fact that the name frequently does not match the name of the person living at the corresponding address has not deterred the aforementioned institutions from using it as valid proof - if you have the bill, it must be for your address. It is as if it never occurred to anyone that someone might just bring in a random electric bill and claim it as their own to satisfy the requirements.
Yet it seems that light bulb has lit up over someone's head recently, because now they will not accept a light bill as the sole proof of address when the name printed on the bill does not match the name of the person using it. The workarounds they have come up with, apart from telling you to go change the name on the light bill through another fun-filled bureaucratic nightmare, are these:
- bring in a signed photocopy of the official ID of the person whose name is on the bill
- bring in another semi-official document (another bill, for example) that has the same address
The first of these two solutions is only convenient if the bill is in the name of someone to whom the current resident has easy access, such as the landlord. For me, it is in the name of a tenant that lived in my apartment so long ago, he pre-dated all the other current residents in our building. Some have been here several years, so that shows you how unimportant the name on the bill has been, up to now.
The second of these alternatives is a bit easier, although it still is not reliable. We have cable, but we have never once received a monthly statement. I have reported this to the cable company on numerous occasions, and they just shrug their shoulders and give the empty stare that somehow is supposed to terminate any further discussion of the matter. We do not receive our gas bill; someone else in the building does and they just post a sign telling everyone what their split of the bill is each three weeks or so. Nobody in the building ever sees the water bill, because the landlady pays it. Water is included in our rent.
If you think about the situation for a moment, you might start to wonder: since it is a renewal of an existing FM3, issued by INM, will they allow the FM3, which lists the holder's address, to be the secondary document?
The answer is no. Even though it is the most legally substantive document issued by the government for foreigners living in the country, the FM3 is not valid for proving your address in combination with the electric bill.
But a bill from the cable company is.
Posted by crispy at 04:06 PM | Comments (0)
Yes, We Have No Water (Revisited)
Just to let you all know, it seems the water is working again, but there has been no official follow-up. We asked the lady downstairs about it and she said that it was working again. She did not know what anyone did nor why it was not working, but it seems to be working again.
It should be noted that it was apparently working later in the same day that I posted the previous update about our having to get private water delivery (which I have learned from Cristina's comment, is called a pipa - thanks Cristina!). That means that we were with little to no water service for about three days. That is not great, but it not a tragedy from which we will never recover.
In fact, I have already moved on to my next nightmare, and in case the tamale lady brings some nice, hot churros for our one-legged taxista, I'll tell you about crispy and the story of renewing the big bad FM3.
Posted by crispy at 01:15 PM | Comments (0)
October 01, 2008
Yes, We Have No Water
Notice: "We have no water. Please conserve it."
Shawn returned from working out yesterday and told me, "we don't have any water."
I didn't understand exactly what this meant, so I asked him to clarify. He explained that the sign seen above had been taped to the door of our apartment building. Then I understood. The apartment complex, made up of eight apartments, has run out of water and none is coming in from the city supplies.
We received a different notice a week ago from our colonos. That is like the neighborhood association, and responsible for various civic issues in the colonia where we live. Last week's notice talked about several homes being without water north of La Ermita, one of the two streets that make up the interection at which we live. Supposedly, it was not a problem for us, since we were below that boundary, and indeed, last week, we had plenty of water. However, this week, the problem seems to be ours too.
There was water in the storage tank on top of the apartment building up through this afternoon, so we had a little water. We were, as the sign above asks, conserving it. Now though, it seems all that water has been used up and there is not a drop to be had for anything. Not for washing the dishes, not for taking a shower, and not for using the bathroom.
We have been without water on a few other occasions, but usually that has been because the switch on the pump that pumps water from the tank below the building up to the tank on top of the building needed to be reset. In those cases, when the guy that knows how and where to do that stuff came home from work, he would reset it and we'd have running water again within the hour. This time, the water from the city has just stop running, so who knows when we will have running water again.
I'm trying to roll with the punches and not get to annoyed with it. After all, my getting worked up about it will not get the problem fixed any faster. It isn't such a big deal to not shave for a couple of days, or even to go without a shower. I am pretty sedentary and do not work up much of a sweat.
But not having a working toilet in the house, now that starts to get inconvenient...
Posted by crispy at 04:27 PM | Comments (6)