Friends, Moving, and Losing Your Linguistic Elegance

We're rounding out our second year here in the DF this week, and there have been so many changes/transitions in the past few weeks to make me feel like we're starting this adventure from scratch.

One of the most difficult things about living abroad is seeing the friends you've made leave. This summer, we said goodbye to six friends, all of whom moved to far away places. I suppose it's in mental storage that this happens amongst the Mexico City expat community, but it never fails to bother me. I am a creature of routine and comfort, so if you leave me, be assured that you have ruffled my feathers. :)

We are also uprooting ourselves from the lovely boho Colonia Roma to move to a place closer to Nick's work. We decided against the apartment a block away (in hindsight, a very good thing since a new club has just opened across the street, and they play freakishly loud music from Wednesday to Saturday) and will be moving to a new neighborhood which, from many accounts, is also a very amiable place. All I ask for is good street food, ok? Preferably less than two blocks from my door. Thank you.

And, related to the move, I know it'll really feel like starting over when I have to make contact with the utilities, cable, and phone people. As happens every time I encounter these people, blood rushes to my face, the temperature in the room suddenly rises, and I become linguistically debilitated to the point of providing ridiculous answers to standard questions.

Examples of linguistic debilitation:

Census taker: How many bathrooms do you have in your house?

Husband : 95 (the number of meters in our apartment)

Census taker: Do you speak any indigenous languages?

Husband: Yes

Census taker: (mystified) Which ones?

Husband: English

Store clerk: ¿Con quien le atendió? (Who helped you?)

Me: Mi nombre es Alice

Store clerk: (annoyed) No, no, no. ¿Con quien le atendió?

Me: Alice

Store clerk: Un segundo...

(only after post-phone reflection did I realize what he was saying)

In the next few weeks, I will be making quite a few "Why hasn't your service worker showed up the past three times he's made an appointment with me?" conversations, but, hopefully, all my insides won't come unraveled. But, if they do, I'll make a note of it so we can all have a good laugh.

Don't Mess With Cuauhtémoc

Throwing Trash in the Street Prohibited

Fine of $374 pesos (~$30 USD) or 12 hours in jail

These signs are posted all over my neighborhood, and I find the choice to pay up or go to jail very amusing. What is this -- MONOPOLY?!?!

Do We Look Like We're Made of Money Part II

As most of us do, I take a brief look at our bank statements every month to ensure all the withdrawals and deposits are correct. Even though Nick is the financier by trade, I end up doing all our personal finances. Minus the frequent "service not available" messages, online banking here is trustworthy and useful. I can check our movements, pay bills, and most of the time, I can successfully transfer money between self-owned accounts and third-party accounts. And you can online bank in English with Banamex--something I find very helpful when dealing in financial matters. Something to consider if you need to open a bank account here.

Well, this week we've been counting our losses--first from our doormen and now from the government. I noticed a suspicious charge on our recent bank statement, and I really couldn't tell what it was because the charge was a mix of numbers and Spanish acronyms. Here is the actual line item: 

000000000164473 IDE RECAUD PER ACTU 164473 CARGO POR IDE AUT. 139764

Between forgetting and mustering up the courage to call the bank, I finally did to inquire about the charge. A sampling of our dialogue in my less-than-eloquent Spanish:

Me: Hello, I have a charge that I'd like more information about.

Operator: Can you read the charge off to me?

Me: (thinking to herself, "I hope this guy knows code.") It says IDE RECAUD PER ACTU

Operator: (sounding annoyed) That's an IDE charge. Any deposits over 25,000 pesos are subject to a 2% tax.

Me: (Brain rejecting this seemingly irrational explanation) Are you telling me that I'm being charged extra if I deposit more than 25,000 pesos in my account?

Basically, yes. In short, there is a tax called called IDE, short for "Impuesto a los Depósitos en Efectivo", or "Tax on Cash Deposits" in English. Beginning July 1, 2008, the government instated the IDE to increase tax revenue, and all cash deposits over 25,000 pesos (per month) are subject to a 2% tax. You can read more about it here in English. Here in Spanish.

Well, hell, if I knew this minute law, I might of just kept the money at home or deposited it in smaller increments. I never, ever, ever thought that I could be charged for depositing money into my bank account. I wonder how many people unknowingly fall victim to this insane tax law. 

Avoiding and ignoring laws here is second-nature, so I'm sure the only contributors to IDE are by first-time victims like me. After that, you smarten up and find ways around it. Anyway, on a lighter note, here are more ridiculous Mexican laws. And, let's not forget the rest of the world. 

Managing the Predictability of Unpredictability: How a 30-min errand turns into 3 hours

Yes, ANOTHER 3 hour tale, but this time, it has nothing to do with the bank. (Although, feel free to read Lesley's post on her banking experience today.) It wasn't so much a frustrating 3 hours but just one of those days that blared out, "YES, you live in Mexico!!" 

The day had been going pretty routine--work, deadly bus rides, and errands--until about 1pm. Around that time, I decided to finally tackle a major errand to the post office to send off 15 pounds of books to fellow blogger, Amanda. A fairly easy errand in the US; in Mexico, it requires a sober and concerted effort, and it might not be successful the first time, as the post office may be closed momentarily or out of stamps or who knows what else. And post offices are far, especially on foot, and especially while carrying a 15 pound box! 

So first, I had to go buy a box. Then, I returned home, filled the box up, grabbed $1000 pesos ($75 and very excessive but only because I heard sending mail was expensive), and then hauled the box about 15 minutes away. Whew, the post office was open, and whew, it was surprisingly very inexpensive! With just minor communication problems, I had that box shipped off.

At this point in the day, I was feeling quite satisfied that I successfully completed an errand on the first try. It only got better when I saw the sacador de filos, the knife sharpener, on my way home. I asked him if he wouldn't mind stopping by my place and sharpening a very dull knife for me. So, he followed me home, I ran upstairs, and encountered the problem I had considered before in a previous post. How do I carry the knife down without looking like a crazy woman? Well, I grabbed a kitchen towel, wrapped it tightly, and ran it down to the knife sharpener. He completed the job, and I just had to ask him how other people transported their knives to him? "Usually in a towel," he said, and we both grinned at the oddity of this little life dilemma. 

I was so elated to have shipped the package AND encountered the knife sharpener that, in my euphoric frenzy, I realized I forgot my keys and locked myself out of my apartment--WITH A KNIFE IN MY HAND!! I pondered my next move, and fortunately, the doorman agreed to hang on to my knife (a strange request, eh?) while I went to fetch the house keys from hubby at work.

Although three hours is a lot of time spent on an errand that was only supposed to be 30 minutes, I am quite amused by how the afternoon transpired. And I feel like I'm managing the unpredictability of life here better than I was a few months ago. But, before I say it with complete confidence, I want to see that package reach its destination 'cuz that's not the kind of unpredictability I find amusing.

I'm Getting all too Familiar with the Word "Predial"

Impuestos Predial. Or, predial for short. It's the word for "property tax", and I've heard it more than the six times they say it takes to make it stick in your memory. (predial, predial, predial, predial, predial, predial in case you need to learn it, too)

I know, I know... you're asking yourself, "But you don't own any property in Mexico. Why is predial part of your vocabulary?" Well, it turns out that it's an extremely important word to know because the predial is your ticket to accessing many services, such as social security, a bank account, a driver's license, etc. 

Now, doesn't this predial thing just beg the question as to what one does when he/she wants to access a service yet doesn't own property? While there are other proofs of address, such as your telephone bill or utilities bill, they are not 100% guaranteed to get you through the door. Some take the electricity bill, others the water bill, and another the telephone bill. It's really a mystery to me who takes what, but one thing is fact: the predial is 100% guaranteed!! 

Here's another concern with the predial. I coincidentally received a notice about the predial today, and I opened it, despite it being for the landlord. (Yes, he continues to have important mail sent here despite it not being his residence anymore.) Well, good thing I did because it was a six-day notice to the landlord to fulfill, as it says, his "obligación constitucional" (constitutional obligation) to pay property taxes. For fear of facing eviction or serious fines, I did a quick search on the internet about paying property taxes in Mexico, because I had a feeling most people avoid it like they do their income taxes. Here's what I got from Yucatan Living: 

Well, apparently, we [writers of Yucatan Living] are among the few who pay their predial happily and the city seems to have trouble collecting. So, there are discounts: 12-15% discount if you pay in January, 10% in February and 8% in March. There are also other rather interesting incentives. If you are jubilado (retired), you might get a discount up to 100%! You can pay with a credit card and get a discount from the bank. People who pay early might win any number of prizes, including two brand new cars, 15 trips to the Riviera Maya, 12 laptop computers and 12 Sony Wiis!

If you know more about the predial, or in general, about comprobantes, please enlighten me. I am having a stroke of "newcomer" luck.

Phrase of the Week: Más Tarde

It's been over a month ago, April 21st to be exact, that I had my last three hour bout with the bank. So perhaps the time was right for another round of misstatements and let downs as we tried to REOPEN our bank account. That's correct, ladies and gentlemen, the bank CLOSED our account. Shut it down, kaput, cerrada...

Last week, before our road trip to Tequis, Nick tried to withdraw some money from the ATM. "Operación no está disponible. Intente más tarde (Operation not available. Try again later)." Más tarde (later) we tried again, to no avail. Obviously, we weren't going to get any money out for the weekend, but we had around 200 pesos ($20) and our credit card to get us through. Fine, lessons learned: 1) always keep a stash of cash at home because ANYTHING can happen here and 2) don't wait until Fridays to withdraw money. 

The weekend passed, and on Monday, we gave a call to customer service because we were not only having problems withdrawing money, but our online banking hadn't been working for nearly two weeks. Customer service, too, was having some computer issues and asked me to call back "más tarde". Several calls later, I find out our account's been CLOSED and am directed to my branch to find out why. 

Más tarde the next day, Nick and I trek far over to our branch. **Note to all newcomers: open your account where you will live or where you will think you will conduct most of your banking** We stand in line, wait about 30 minutes (for the bank, that's amazing!), and find out that the government closed our account because we had a US address registered as our main address. HUH? Where'd the money go?!? He says, "Come back más tarde with the appropriate documents to reopen your account and everything will be fine."

A few days later, when Nick and I both have a good half day to devote to this endeavor, we trek over once again to our branch. Documents in hand, we are about to step in to the branch, excited to see a really short line, and we are stopped. The guard says, "The systems are down, regrese más tarde." MÁS TARDE ME BACK MY MONEY, HSBC!!! 

30 minutes más tarde, we return and find things up and running. Without making this story too much longer, I'll just say that another Friday's gone by and we still don't have our account reopened. When we both find a full day to devote to the matter (because I don't think half a day cuts it anymore with getting things accomplished at the bank), we are going to march in there, get it done, or else we're taking our money out and shoving it under the mattress!