Another Roof Bites the Dust

buen dia!
ahh, the sound of an old roof crashing to the ground, music to my ears, because it means we are that much closer to a new roof going on.

If you recall, this is the room that will become the master bath. It has the little fireplace in it and it was once the old kitchen. Somehow, when the roof fell, it knocked out some of the electricity. Once it cooled off late yesterday, Senor spent about an hour repairing it until the thunder and lightning and rain knocked out all of our electricity. Oddly enough, this morning, everything he thought still needed repair is working again.

So, we now have created three roofless rooms. When the rain came last night, we scrambled to cover up everything that needs to stay dry.

Monsoon season starts June 24th. That is the official date, I have no idea who chose it. It is on my calendar, maybe it is a holiday?

Several mexican men we know say that June 24th means nothing, the monsoon season starts as soon as there is a big cloud over Mt. Alamos. Well, the cloud was huge yesterday. And it is there today as well. The weatherground forecast says there could be rain here for several days.

I want to tell you about our border crossing and FM3 renewals. I will make it quick and orderly because I have to go refire my glass. Senor accidentally pulled the plug on the kiln last night. Now if you asked him?...............he would say he did not do it. And I would say.......well, think about it, would I do it?

Then he would make up something about the electrical repair, the power outage and blah, blah, maybe one of the cats did it and the story would sound really good.

But if there is a power outage the kiln restarts automatically once the power comes back on and the kiln is nowhere near all his electrical stuff that went out when the roof came down. So I would see right through that tale....................

Border crossing.......going north there is a new military checkpoint..............it is huge, south of Santa Ana. There has always been a small military checkpoint in this area, but there is now a very large structure with a number of large and small covered bays.

We happened to go through a small bay the day the facility opened. Where are you going, they asked and where do you live...............then we were waved through. There are always miles and miles of trucks lined up in this area, waiting to get through the checkpoint, often waiting to get all the way up to aduana at kilometer 21.

On this day, there were absolutely no lines and we thought wow! they have solved the truck problems. And we were excited to get through so quickly, until we reached the old military checkpoint a few miles further up the road. We sat at the old checkpoint for an hour. Then, they did not even wave at us when it was finally our turn to pass.

When we came back south last week, we noticed all the trucks were lined up for miles and miles, again, just like old times. Maybe they have some kinks to work out of the new facility............

FM3 Renewal

On our way south we stopped at immigration in Hermosillo to renew our FM3 visas. We were about a week outside of the 30 day renewal time, but had been told on a previous stop at immigration, that did not matter. We were sure we had everything we needed with the exception of the SAT form, which we hoped she would have or that we could get nearby.

She asked for two copies of our passports and visas. I only had one. She said......... okay, es bueno.............and took those.

She took copies of our telephone and water bills.

She glanced at our passports and took our visas.

She took our letters that requested the renewal.

We had heard grand stories of people getting their renewals in Hermosillo in one day. We had high hopes.

She did not ask to see anything else. She asked if we came across the border by plane or car.

She sent us to the bank to pay for the visas. We picked number 37, waited 30 minutes for the light to tell us which bank window to go to, and paid one lump amount for both of us.

We took the receipt back to immigration.

No, no, no, no.................she smiled and said..............cada persona pagar seperatado (each person pay seperate).

We drove 20 minutes back to the bank, walked up to the window where we had been helped before and waited behind the person who was there. Two different people told us in spanish to pick a number. The lighted board said they were serving number 149 and the machine told us the next number pulled would be 201. We did not budge.

After three women came and keyed in numbers on his computer, we got two seperate receipts and drove back to immigration. By now the place was filled with people trying to renew visas.

She waved to us and called us to the counter right away, smiled and took our receipts and told us to come back in thirty days.............