Monterrey Consul Nightmare

 

We walk by faith, not by sight

Sometimes I wonder if it is all made up.  The spirits, the light energy, the Higher Self, all that stuff.  How do I know that I am not just fooling myself?  Escaping in flights of fancy?

Once again, my passport was stolen.  Without a permit tag from the DMV, I parked in the handicapped spot at WalMart.  My surgery hasn’t been that long ago; it is still painful to walk with a cane.

Some righteous person who believes you must live by the rules must have taken offense at this.  S/he entered my car (was it locked?  I thought so, but maybe when I went back to persuade Junior to wait in the shade instead of the oven-car, I didn’t hit the button right}.  I had taken my wallet inside the store, and left the little shoulder pouch I use as a purse in the car. 

When I returned with my bag of groceries, I was only thinking of Junior and paying the ticket for the parking space.  I noticed the pouch, it was lying in the foot well.  I don’t usually carry my passport, so I wasn’t thinking of it, not perceiving that the lightness I noticed was because it was missing.

In due time, I made an appointment with the Consulate in Monterrey for a replacement.

I tried to persuade myself to go by bus, but in the end, I couldn’t do it.  I even bought a bus ticket, which disappeared.  Literally.  I tucked it carefully, intentionally,  into that same black pouch, but when I got home it wasn’t there.

The bus.  It is a nine-hour trip.  It is night when you arrive.  You must find a hotel.  In the morning, you must check out and take a taxi to the consulate.  Upon arrival at the consulate, you must divest yourself of everything, and enter the consulate with only the clothes on your back.  So where do you leave your overnight bag?  Your phone?  Your wallet? There is a small shack at the edge of the consulate grounds that sells coffee etc.  There are rows of folding chairs under a canvas. Are they traveling companions, or is this a queue with a signaling system to call them in when their appointment is up?  It does not appear to be large enough for a locker system, to check overnight bags for dozens of travelers.  And when the consulate is done with you, connect with a return bus that might get you into Durango in the wee hours.  Then there would still be the trip to Canatlan from there.

No.  That I lost the ticket and the cost of it was perhaps a relief, although it was dismaying.

My appointment was for Tuesday.  Monday I am preparing to leave on the six- to eight-hour drive.  I had just made the bold move into the ‘poor house’, that is, the St. Vincent de Paul house for the elderly and feeble. That was made necessary by my finding myself, at the third week of each month, out of money.  I have been living on my savings, which were little to begin with and dwindling monthly.  This seemed the only viable solution.

As I am preparing to leave for the trip, packing what clothes and food I would need, the mistress of the house urged me to take Gustavo along to do the driving.  She protested that since I was one of theirs now, she was responsible for me and my safety, and so Gustavo needed to accompany me.  Wow.  I was relieved.  I knew I couldn’t afford to pay someone to do that; it was a blessing that she was giving me that assistance.

Communication is the missing link in all of Canatlan society.  It is chronic; endemic, all pervading.

We arrive in Monterrey at dusk.  I check in, and am asked to pay 200 pesos extra for the second bed that is already in my room, paid for.  My car is small.  I cannot abide subjecting someone to sleep in it overnight.  Not to mention the sanitary considerations.

The appointment is for 8:30; they specify arriving 15 minutes prior.  There is always a queue.  All over the world, there are always massive numbers of people around a US Consulate/Embassy.  We leave at 7 fo a 7 km drive.  The road system in Monterrey is a nightmare.  There are roads crossing roads, curved roads, bending roads, bridges, railroad tracks, all covered in bumper-to-bumper cars.  At one point the GPS voice sent us off the highway to a narrow road of 100 feet, ending with a facing wall requiring a sharp right around a wooden light pole and requiring and another sharp right into the thick of traffic. 

We arrive at 8 a.m. sharp, according to my car clock.  But then I remember that this clock is ten minutes fast.  A relief.  Because I still have to dispose of my little black pouch holding my wallet and telephone.  I ask around and following the pointing hands until I find the shack, with its neat rows of folding chairs filled already with people.

Hobbling along with my cane, I cross a curbed driveway and realize that there are parking spaces under the consulate building.  No crass signs advertising the price.  Then up the curb onto the sidewalk, which is sculpted into many layers.  It is crawling with people.  There is a small army of uniformed soldiers labeled “private security” on their shirts.  The color of their uniforms is, apparently, semiotic.  There is gray, or blue, or white.  They are efficiently corralling the herd of people by the supplicants’ intentions.  I couldn’t even imagine.  It seems an impossible scene.  How can all these people be attended to by the limited numbers of workers inside this building?  I have been to many embassies and consulates throughout my lifetime of world traveling; it is always like this, except here in Mexico the numbers have exploded.  Hundreds of people: men, women, children, young, old, complete families, thickly lined in a cacophony of voices.

I say the right words to the rightly colored shirts, and find myself in the right queue.  I wait patiently.  This line seems slimmer, quieter.  We, the chosen few, the citizens.

At 8:15 we are thinned out further and sent to stand in front of a numbered door.  I chat nervously with the accented gentleman behind me.  He and his lover plan a trip abroad in a couple of months, and require a fresher date on their passport.

Finally, the door opens, and we pass through the screening machine, like the TSA at airports.  Men remove their belts.  No one wears watches.  Eyeglasses pass along the conveyor belt through the sensor box.  Another outside door opens, and I recognize the small cemented stone pathway to the next building.  After nearly ten years living here, I know this building.  We all take a flimsy seat in room.  There is the non-functioning clock on the wall.  No one has a time piece.  Better not to be reminded you have been waiting for exactly how many hours. There is the TV up high, with the volume set around 30, so only the guard at the desk below the TV can actually hear it.  A violent Vin Diesel movie of fighting slimy, long toothed monsters is playing.  What language is it set to?  English or Spanish? 

The bright yellow plastic chairs quickly fill up.  Inexplicably, a guard pulls one from the neatly box-formed rows and puts it down against the wall closer to the guard’s desk and the door, and indicates for me to sit in it.  Though the TV hanging in front is in the the space to the left of the rectangle of chairs, it is directly in front of me.  Better to see the mauled and bleeding bodies, the slimy drool of the narrow jawed, small pawed gray critters, the scantily clad bodies of the small band playing cat and mouse with them.

I stare in fascination.  I actually appreciate Vin Diesel’s body of work.  And his body.  Before long, I wake up and make a choice.  I close my eyes, and take myself to the perhaps imaginary space of light and energy.

I breath slowly, in and out.  A calm and lightness come over me.  I tilt my chin slightly down, to control the flow of saliva.  And soon I am at peace.  My body dissolves.  There is only my head where the Theta waves, the Delta waves, the whatever waves have no gravity.  I watch my breath.  I feel my body become a puddle of light. I am anchored.  I want for nothing.

No clocks.  How much time is passing?  The room full of people disappears.  There is only silence, occasionally broken by the sound of the microphone carrying a voice tossing out a name, and a person rising and walking to the interview window.

Yellow chairs, yellow sunlight flowing through the long windows.  Silence, calm.

Time passed, and I came out of it.  I opened my eyes.  Before long, movement and chattering returned.  But for that time, whether it was five minutes or fifty, that room was filled with light.  The light in me flowed out, and peace filled the room.  For that short period of time, I did not need faith to know a stillness that is beyond understanding. And for all my doubts, I had tangible proof that it is real. 

The rest of the day was a nightmare.  We started the day concentrating on arriving on time.  The ubiquitous OXXO never was positioned on our side of the road, through that long trip to the consulate.  I had an apple in the car, so I ate that.  In the end, I spent five hours in a chair in a room.  There was no clock, no coffee, no water fountain, no game-filled smart phone, no food at all.  No door opening to a courtyard, for a breath of fresh air.  No where to walk to except the toilet.  I got up and took a walk, a circuit around the large desk area and past the interview windows.  I could feel the nervousness of the officials at this stolen liberty. 

At long last, my name was called.  An American lady did my interview.  I took my oath and signed my name.  Then I continued to sit, while she scrolled through her computer, eyes glued to the screen, scrolling, pausing, scrolling, clicking her mouse.  What was taking so long?  At last she told me to return to me seat and wait.

The crowd was thinning out.  There were now many empty yellow chairs.  And still I waited.  The TV was now showing a cartoon, of violent square creatures cutting each other to pieces.

At last, my name was called.  This interview window was behind a door; a tiny cubicle.  A Hispanic looking man with a goatee began an interview.  He was asking me strange questions.  Like, did I know what happened to my lost passport, did I have contact with the passport, or something along that drift.  It became clear that he was trying to find out if I was selling my passports.  When I first arrived in Mexico in 2017, I took seriously the instruction that a foreigner must have their passport on them at all times, ready to identify themselves if stopped by a policeman or other official.  That this sticks in my brain may be a reflection of my age.  It ma well be that now a foreigner is told to keep their passport locked up in a secure place at all times. 

After I lost a few passports in a few years upon my arrival here, I learned the latter lesson…keep your passport at home locked up in a safe place at all times.  In 2021, during COVID, I could not get a ten-year passport to replace the most recent stolen one.  I was given a provisional one.  If I could go 18 months without losing a passport, I would be granted a full-term document.

And so I kept my passport locked up at all times.  Except the Mexican government passed a new level of paranoia, requiring that all people with telephone contracts, like with TELCEL, needed to prove who they were.  In my case, they required my passport.  I went to their office in Durango (there is none in Canatlan, an hour away) and tried to show them a photo of my current passport on my phone.  No, they needed to see it.  The very patient attendant at the large 22-counter center took the time to show me a handout that included a QR code.  She said that with this option, I could prove my identity from a distance.  Manny was with me, it was shortly after my hip surgery.  She spoke mostly to him, and he pocketed the little handout with instructions.  I never saw it again.  Nevertheless, at home I opened up the TELCEL website and tried to figure out how to register remotely.  One needed to put in a request for a code, and within a minute the code needed to be received and typed into the screen.  There was just a small problem.  The internet signal in El Pozole is slow.  Time and again, I would send off for a code, but the minut4e would expire before I could receive and feed it back in.

So I went down to Canatlan, to the internet café, and my friend Uriel who ran it.  I spent some time there, trying to complete this TELCEL requirement and another task or two.  I could not.  Inexplicably, the internet was blocked and unresponsive.  Junior and I gave up, and came back home.  The only recourse was to take the passport to Durango and go in person to show the TELCEL counter person my passport.

But first I stopped off at Walmart, to pick up just a couple of things.

And so, my passport was stolen.  TELCEL set a deadline to comply as September.  Whether I am granted a temporary or ten-year passport, it will not arrive before the end of September.  Will TELCEL have to cut off my telephone service?

This is how my passport was lost.

The goateed man grilling me in this tiny cubicle did not believe my story.  He continued to probe.  I had to tell him how I had become indigent, that stealing my passports was not enough punishment by the brave Mexican men, that the proceeds from the sale of my property was included.  Maybe he interpreted that to mean I was desperate enough to sell my passport, while I was only trying to show him the dangers of being a vulnerable single old foreign lady living in this glorious country.  He called in another man, to sit at his left slightly behind him in this tiny cubicle.  They brought me to tears.

Gustavo was waiting on the sidewalk when the five hours were up.  We had discussed this process as taking maybe an hour, so he was beside himself wondering where I was.  I did not see him at first, blinded by the rears, sucking up the snot pouring out of my nose.

We drove home.  He picked up a couple of burritos from a car parked outside an OXXO somewhere on the highway.  I was not hungry.

I put on a headset, cranked back my seat, and listened to an audiobook.

It was dark by the time we reached the outskirts of Durango.  I must have dozed.  I opened my eyes and glanced at the dashboard.  The gas gauge was on empty, the orange little tank was glowing.  We saw a sign of a gas tank at an exit ramp, and followed it.  We were on an empty, dark road.  I rather abruptly ordered him to slow down.  I wanted to have the car engine running at maximum fuel efficiency, if we had any hope of reaching a gas station in time.  I kept my eye there.  He speeded up.  I still had the headphones on; I am afraid I spoke more harshly than I intended.  I barked to slow it back down to 80/50.

After a few miles we saw the twinkle of lights above the trees; we would find gas there, finally. We made it, but that slowed us down even more.  It was 10 p.m. when we approached Canatlan.  As exhausted and depressed as I was, still I could not rest at the poor house overnight while Junior was waiting for me in Pozole.  And so we extended our final arrival by another half hour; we drove to Pozole for Junior.

Gustavo helped me carry my overnight bag and snacks into the St Vincent de Paul enclosure.  I handed him a 200 peso bill, as a gratuity.  The way he looked at it and hesitated, I realized this was a disappointment.  More drama awaited me, after an exhausted sleep.

I am still feeling raw after the rough emotional Tuesday in Monterrey.  Back at the poor house, I was having difficulty getting the attention of one of the three key-keepers, to get outside to walk Junior and for the various errands I had to run. 

I still did not have internet, to transfer money.  When I saw Gustavo, I asked him about it, and the large young lady in black at her siting.  I was told it was turned off, for failure to pay.

When breakfast was eventually served and the ensemble was at the table, I walked in.  I was told that nothing is free, that 200 pesos was far from adequate, and who did I think I was.  After a bit of gratuitous berating, I finally had a chance to ask how much Gustavo was actually owed.  I had still not had a chance to bring more money from the States, and exchange and withdraw it.  After doing that, I paid Gustavo another 1,500 pesos. 

I did not start my day with a big breakfast.  It was now 11:30, and I wanted a cup of coffee and homemade bran muffin.  As I am thinking this, I see the young woman locking the kitchen door.  They were all going somewhere, and would be back after a while.

Having nothing else to do, I went back to my room and packed.  I was hungry, and caffeine-deprived.  Although I would continue to try to work out an acceptable arrangement for my existence there, my hope was fading.

Back inside for lunch, I was called to the table for my meal.  I was given a plate of refried beans and one chili relleno.  I like chili relleno; I smiled.  The two elderly disabled people, both blind, were sitting at their table under the archway in the courtyard.  I was seated at the kitchen table.  Alone.  I finished, and moved on to my next task.  When next I approached that area, I found the four of them sitting at that same table, eating and chatting away.  Rosea, the mistress of the house; Gustavo; Jose, a general handiman and night watchman; and the large young woman, always dressed in tight-fitting black pants, whose task among others was to provide a key to the entrance when anyone needed to enter or leave.  Today a new face was there.  I do not know his role, nor his name.  I suspect he is family to someone of the other four.  He seems an intelligent upper teen.

As rough as Tuesday was, on Wednesday I was wishing for a quiet interlude in the zone of light

After trying my best to continue to clarify my standing at the poor house, my rights, privileges and duties, it became clear to me that I could not find the peace I needed at that place.  When I went back to finish packing, the large young lady came back and tried a few arguments in defense of my staying.  They were specious; promises the Mistress would not honor.  The pivotal point would be having my own key; that was not going to happen.

I had my things piled up at the front gate.  It was locked.  There were those within earshot who were official bearers of keys.  I asked that the door be unlocked, so I could leave.  Now, clearly, I was invisible.  I sat on a stack of old clothes, and waited.  Nothing happened.  Finally, I called Lupito, my friend the carpenter.  I asked him to come and rescue me.  He wasn’t too busy at the shop, and so he came.  Simultaneously, the mistress rounded the corner and entered the vesterbule.  He asked her to open the door so I could leave.  For ten minutes, she refused.  She regaled him of all the dangers that dance in her head, of all the awful things that people do to each other.  He found himself defending my right to open the door and leave.

And so, bruised and weary, Junior and eye swung by Lupe and Roseo’s house for a cup of coffee and debriefing, before finally reestablishing ourself at our pretty rened home in El Pozole, where I would continue life in the red, spending more money each month than I took in. 

I do not know if I will have a passport, after six weeks pass.  At least I should have a temporary one because, once again, my right as a citizen cannot be denied without just cause.  That doesn’t change the fact that I cannot afford to live in America.  The only real need I have for a passport is for the continued use of my TELCEL phone line.  It is unlikely to arrive before the September expiration date.  Who knows, perhaps my sister will die and I will need to attend a funeral, although if that occurs within the next six weeks, chances are I could not get an emergency passport in time for the burial; so why go.

On the bright side, the tiny village of Pozole has a tiny river.  I have the freedom every day and as often as I like, to walk and sit beside it.  In that space, my spirit is free to sour high among the 300-year-old Alamo trees, and flow with the river spirits, and feel the rising sun on my face.  There I am free to believe.  I am free to take flights of fancy with my higher selves, and imagine a better existence, one full of light and love.  I have to believe.