Temporary Internet

30 June, late at night, we arrived in the middle of a terrible thunderstorm. It was glorious to observe, so I stay camped near the window as we descended. My first impression of Mexico City was not the size (which is immense) but of the traffic. Here it was, late on a Tuesday night, and I can see bumper-to-bumper traffic on every road in sight. Bienvenido a México.

We sat for a long time in customs as Raul sorted out the pets. I was a nervous wreck. The day before, we went to get the health certificates for the animals at the vet. The cat seemed to have a urinary tract infection, but the vet assured me that I am an idiot. Surely, the crying every time he would urinate was just a complaint that he wanted to go outside. Also, I had read up on what was necessary to bring our animals into Mexico, and had been assured that I only needed a clean bill of health and the appropriate vaccinations. The vet was certain that I needed the seal of approval from the USDA (which would take days to get), and then proceeded to tell us the horror stories of what happens to your pet when you arrive at your destination without the correct paperwork. In Saudi Arabia, they euthanize your pet right there on the tarmac. Thank heavens that Raul speaks Spanish, and our documents were exactly what we were supposed to have. (We did call the USDA and received assurances from them the day before.)

Having cleared customs, we met our driver and our sponsor waiting to take us to our temporary house. We loaded everything up into a van and crept along the crazy streets of Mexico City to our happy little suburb out in las lomas (the hills). Turns out that the extremely terrible traffic I had seen is a product of the rainy night. This is the rainy season (May-September), and the city gets a thorough drenching most every night. The roads are crap, so either the road washes away, or it floods and cars driving through will stall. Either way, it can make a 12-mile drive take 3 hours.

We were happy to get to the house in under an hour. As soon as we arrived, the dog needed to go on a little walk, and he experienced his first taste of city life: lack of grass. He's a suburban dog and has never needed to go on anything other than grass (and Turkmen wedding rugs). The street in our community is lined with trees, but each tree is planted in a tiny little box with pavers all around. The dog found a 1-square-foot patch of grass around a tree, and he had to curl his body around because he was so determined to do his business on grass. It was too sad. It turned out that our house (unlike many in the neighborhood) has a little walled lawn at the front, so he's a happy dog once again.

The house is charming and groovy. The top picture is our back terrace, which though narrow, is attractive. The house has 3 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms, and maid's quarters. The kitchen is tiny, but the house is adequate for the 6 weeks that we have to live here while our permanent house is vacated, cleaned, and awaits our belongings. The very best thing about the house is that while we have no car, we are within walking distance of some lovely restaurants and shopping. This has come in handy on many occasions.

Since we're here temporarily, we can't set up important functions like Internet. So we walked to the main telephone provider down at the mall and bought a 3G USB modem for some unlimited (pokey) access. It didn't work. Each day Raul would walk down and fuss, and each time, he would be given a new and exciting reason why it ought to work. Finally, on day 8 of this crap, someone at last admitted that no one had bothered to authorize it correctly (i.e., turn it on at their end). Needless to say, when it was time for me to buy a cell phone, we went with a different company. Bienvenido a México.

In order to have our car shipped into Mexico, we needed to give a copy of the title to the Mexican government. Of course, the title was nowhere to be found. I had shipped a box of things I didn't think I needed immediately by UPS, and we waited anxiously to see if the title was there. It arrived, but there was no title. So I went to order a new one. But to do any online or telephone business with the Virginia DMV, you have to have a PIN that they sent us 8 years ago. So first I had to order a new PIN. Which had to go to the Virginia address, then forwarded to the Texas address, then truck its way down to Mexico City. 12 days later it arrived, allowing me to order the new title. 7 days after this (Thursday), I found our original title. But the Mexican government only processes car titles on Tuesdays. We could have had our car weeks ago, but we're the idiots. Fortunately for us, we have some amazing friends here who lent us their car (they are also very trusting) while they were away, and even now are lending the car and driving us around and just being generally awesome.

So, remember the cat's very vocal complaints in the litter box that the American vet assured me was not a urinary tract infection? The cat continued his wailing until I noticed that he was leaking a bit. I had Raul seek out a Mexican vet, and the leaking progressed into leaking blood. When we got him to the vet, we found that his urinary tract infection had progressed into urinary tract disease. His plumbing was completely blocked off with inflammation. His bladder was at the rupture point, his abdomen was filling with fluid, and his kidneys were about to shut down. In a few more hours, he would have been dead. The kitty spent 2 weeks living at the vet. We went nearly every day to visit him (thank you again, awesome friends, for your car) to love him and help him heal. One night he even came home just to spend the night, and the next morning the mobile vet service came and picked him up (they were still having to manually empty his bladder for him). All told, after all that time and all of those procedures, the cost was only around $1000. Raul marvels that we paid that much to fix a farm cat, but I figure, after 4 years of having the kitty, that's not bad since we paid that much for the dog before he was even ours.

Did I mention that I don't speak Spanish? In most cases, this isn't much of a problem because I have Raul to do all of my talking. But a few times I've had to go out on a limb and wing it, and then it becomes apparent very quickly that I am wholly deficient in the local language. You think, how hard can it be to go grocery shopping? Then the cashier asks if you found everything all right. But you don't know that and have no idea, maybe she is asking something really important. Then, my favourite, your credit card is denied (because Visa can't figure out why we're STILL buying groceries in Mexico). I managed to muddle through that one the way my father taught me you get by in any foreign country -- keep handing them money (or other credit cards) until they leave you alone. Then we had the cat for his one night of recuperative love, and I know that the vet driver is coming. So I sat down with Raul and worked out the directions in Spanish in case the fellow called (because no one has ever made it to our neighborhood without directions ever, even a taxi driver that you hail outside the gate will not know how to get to your address). He did call, and I have no idea what he asked for, but I gave him the directions to our house anyway. And an hour later, he arrived. Then Zorra fell and landed hard on her wrist. The next day I popped into the health unit at the Embassy to get an Ace bandage, but they insisted that it might be a fracture and that I should get it x-rayed. X-rays are done for the embassy at a private radiology lab a few blocks away, and I survived, but just barely. (Zorra had not fractured her wrist and only needed -- get this -- an Ace bandage.) My death fear of looking like an idiot is getting squeezed out by exposure very quickly.

The government allows us to send up to 700 lbs of stuff (up to a certain size) by air to tide us over until our 16,000 lbs of household effects arrive. Ours arrived about 10 days after we did, and it was like Christmas. There were so many things I had forgotten that I had packed but was so glad to see. My Kitchenaid Mixer (and ice cream maker attachment) was unwrapped with a giant squeal of glee (I have used the mixer every other day since then). The girls were tickled to see beloved toys, and everyone was delighted to play the Wii again. (We have no TV channels since we can't sign up for anything in this temporary house.)

Raul went to work straight after arriving, and hit the ground running. He's been very very busy, and so far doesn't see how he's ever going to stay ahead of everything. We girls, however, are seemingly on vacation, and are having a great time, eating great food, and seeing amazing, funny, and frustrating things. (To be fair, Raul is eating amazing food with us and been on some fun adventures.)

I will write more later.