Reggie AWOL, Immigration Frustration, but there's always the Mangos.

Reggie was AWOL this morning.  By 10 AM I figured that something was wrong but Skype chose that time to go on the fritz and I could not contact him.  Not long after, Rick passed on the message that Reggie's 13 year old daughter had had her appendix out.  The girl had rung Reggie several times yesterday afternoon complaining of vomiting, stomach pains, etc.  I've just Skyped Reggie and he told me that his daughter had her appendix removed at 8 PM last night, her mother flew back early from her visit to the US, and all is well.  He expects to be here at the boat early tomorrow to finish the job.

With that knowledge I rearranged my schedule and decided to visit Immigration at their new premises.  First I dropped by the boat yard and arranged to have Pachuca hauled out on Monday at 9.30 AM.  Bob Carroll has kindly agreed to assist me with the boat.

The new address of Immigration was posted as "Boulevard 5 de Febrero, e/Frojadores y Durango, Col. Los Olivos"   I still haven't figured out what "Col." stands for, but I'm pretty sure that the "e" represents "esquina", making it the corner of Frojadores and Durango.   However, according to the map Frojadores and Durango to not converge.  I peddled in the heat for over an hour searching for the place.  I showed the address to a senora in a barbershop and her direction didn't make sense to me.  I then went into a shop on 5 de Febrero and the English speaking man started getting confused himself about the conflicting address.  Fortunately a colleague overheard me mentioning that I was looking for the new premises of the Immegration department and he knew where it was: on the other side of 5 de Febrero within sight of the store.  It's where "Mexico" street intersects with 5 de Febrero - nothing to do with Frojadores or Durango, so go figure.

The move appeared to have been planned with the same precision as my FM3.  The painters were still working, electrical outlets were missing, the queuing system wasn't up, etc.  I noticed that the waiting room is only half the size of the old one and there are about half of the cages for dealing with the clients. 

The man attending to me claimed that he does not speak Engilish and I admit to poor Spanish, so we communicated pretty well in Spanglish.  He told me that my FM3 wasn't ready.  Why, is there a problem? I asked.  He looked up my case on the computer and asked if I had paid the money for the tourist visa.  I replied Yes, about 10 days ago.  He went and got my file, thumbed through it, then asked me if I had presented my receipt for that payment.  Yes, about 10 days ago to a senorita who speaks English.  He went away for ten minutes then returned to inform me that all was well and come back on Friday.  My guess is that the bilingual senorita who impressed me with her crisp professionalism did nothing that she promised - Didn't enter my date into the computer the first chance she got, Didn't place my receipt into my file, Didn't have my FM3 ready within a day after the computer became available.  As far as I can tell, my receipt was still still sitting on her desk and the 5 minutes of her time to complete my case is going to cost me another 2 days.

I know that I am a guest in this wonderful country and must play by their rules, so getting agitated and aggressive would be discourteous as well as counterproductive.  However, I rightly or wrongly I decided to remind the man of what they are putting me through.  I fully extended my arms, hands up,  with 7 straight fingers in his face and said "Siete Visitas!" (7 visits!)  He shrugged with a sheepish look on his face.  An American woman waiting for service gave a knowing giggle.

I then peddled to Chedraui for groceries.  My receipt gives a good indication of what I am eating this days: 2 cans of fresh pineapple juice, mangos (6), bananas (10), pears, broccoli, tomatoes, red peppers, non-fat yoghurt, and 1 kg of fresh fish.  The bananas cost 9.9 pesos a kilo.  That's about 80 cents, compared to the astounding $18.99 a kilo that people in Perth were recently paying because adverse weather has wiped out the Australian banana crop. 

The mangos were 7.5 pesos (60 cents) a kilo, and I've finally learned how to manage them.  I keep between 6 and 12 mangos lined up on the shelf.  Every day I pick the two softest ones and put them in the refrigerator.  Today I purchased 6 more mangoes, leaving me with 10 on the shelf and 2 in the refrigerator.   The payoff is the delight of two cold, sweet, juicy mangos at their prime per day.  I can't think of a better fruit available to humanity.  They even top grapes, which I love and can eat by the crateful (which I've done).  I'll miss them very much when I get back to Perth.