Adventures in Pension Land - Round 4

Here is where things stood on December 22, 2012:

Christmas was coming and I had promised I would spend it with my son the doctor (that sounds like something a Jewish mother would say) who is working on his specialization in Mexico City. He was recently married so his lovely wife (also a doctor) and he would be hosting our immediate family in their first ever apartment as a married couple.

On the other hand, the Social Security people had demanded an account statement of my retirement funds, and the bank which kept my retirement funds said they could not provide the statement until I was registered in their system, something that would take 8 working days.

So, for the next two days I did nothing but watch television and eat tamales.

Several kilos later, I flew to Mexico City for the above mentioned Christmas dinner. I knew that nothing would happen between Christmas and New Year's so I hung around Mexico City, spent New Year's Eve with friends getting properly blotto, and then flew back to Monterrey to continue my quest for a pension.

As soon as I was back in the "Sultan of the North", as they used to call Monterrey because of it prominent Lebanese/Arab population, I called the magic 800 number and--oh surprise!--I was registered in the Social Security/Banamex/Pension system.

Off I went in a little green taxi to the Banamex office to get my Account Statement!

Taxis are small in Monterrey!

When I got to the Banamex office, horror of horrors--it was far from being empty! I suppose that word had got out that the downtown office was always crowded and that this one was always empty, so it was empty no more.

With a heavy heart, I took a number--sigh!

Of course, the number on the counter was 20!

To make matters worse, I had assumed that the so-called executives would be there during lunch hour, as they had been the time before, but this day it was not the case. All but one had gone to lunch! And, the guy who was there had a customer/relative who took his visit to his relative/friend/executive as a time to catch up on all the news, gossip, personal stories, family history, and sundry subject matter of the last two or three years.

As they spoke of football, the customer's mother's ills, the executive's vacation, the customer's car trouble, something that made them both laugh heartily, and so on, they seemed oblivious to the fact that there were dozens of people waiting for service.

Blah...blah...football...blah...my mother... blah...my trip to Europe

I think that anyone who has read my blogs will have come to understand that I am not a man of infinite patience, and the I tend to be brash, impulsive, and outspoken when the little patience I do have is tried to the limit.

Mexicans, as a people, tend to be docile, and contain any anger they might feel when faced with an "authority" that might do them harm if said "authority" is rankled. I, on the other hand, might have inherited genes from rampaging vikings, hoodlum Spanish conquistadors, raiding Chichimecas, or charging hoards of Genghis Khan or all of the above, because I am not docile and do not contain my anger when said "authority" rankles ME!

I got up from my chair and went into the executive's office.

"Hey," I said, "you two guys might have a lot to talk about, what with this guy (I pointed to the customer) having gone to the Football World Cup and his mother being in a poor state of health, and you, Mr. Executive, having had lots of car trouble, but there are people waiting out here. So, how about if you continue your personal conversation on your own time?"

They looked at me as if I had just told them something ugly about their respective mothers, kicked their dog, and said their children were ugly. But, they said nothing. After a moment, the executive recovered and ignoring me said to the customer, "OK, so I will send you the papers tomorrow."

I went back to my seat and the customer left the office, head down, sheepishly avoiding looking at the persons he had kept waiting.

Well, my outburst did clear the log jam but it did me little good. I had number 85 this time and the counter showed number 20!

Fortunately, the other three executive soon came back from lunch (looking well-fed and in dire need of some Alka-Seltzers), so things started to move rather briskly. Within only two hours number 85 came up on the counter and I jauntily sauntered into one of the girl-executive's office.

I think word had got around that I was a "difficult" customer because she was very curt and lacking the faux smile proper of an account executive. Without looking away from her computer screen, she asked, "How can I help you, sir?"

"I was here about 10 days ago asking for an account statement which I will need to request a pension from the Social Security," I answered. "One of your colleges put my information into your system and registered me, so I am here to collect my statement."

"Your social security number," she said without looking at me. I gave it to her. She typed on her keyboard, hmmed, and hawed, and typed some more. Without a word, she got up and left the office. She came back a few minutes later with some printed sheets of paper. From such bizarre actions I deduced that these "executives" do not have individual printers but must go to the back office to get printouts. Real efficient.

"Please sign this," she said putting a pen next to the print out.

"Why?" I asked.

She blinked and stared at me with a puzzled and hurt look as if I had just said, "I am NOT the father of your baby!"

"Because, because it's the, I mean, this is your statement," she stammered.

"Ah, you had not said so. Can you please explain what is on the statement? I want to know what I am signing."

She sighed a sigh that said, "Why do I always get these lunatics?"  But, she gamely took the pen and started to point out and underline the figures on the first sheet.

"This is how much you have saved," she said circling a number, "this is what the Social Security has provided, this is what you have saved in the Infonavit system as a provision for you to use in buying a house, and this is the amount of interest that the money has accrued this year to date."

"OK, I get it; but why do I have to sign it?"

"Well, well, you must, because, it means you have received it."

"The money?" I said surprised.

"No, of course not. I mean the statement."

"Ah, OK. Than I'll sign." She breathed a sigh of relief as I signed all six copies of my statement. "OK, what's next?" I asked.

"Well, you will have to go back to "them" and present this so you can request your pension."

It was my turn to sigh. "Them" was the Social Security bureaucrats. It meant I had to go back to square one, that is, the little window in the Family Clinic. There was nothing for it. I took my statement, bid adieu to the girl and the other chumps waiting their turn to have an "executive" maltreat them, and left the bank's office. Outside, I waved down one of the innumerable taxis I was to use during my saga. Reflecting on how much I spent on public transport, I might was well have bought a car.

I arrived at the Family Clinic around 2:00 PM. I knew they closed shop at 4:00 PM so I figured I had time to get something done. I went straight to the little window. Of course, there was a queue. The usual men in walkers, ladies in crutches, sundry pensioners and would.be pensioners were sitting or standing, waiting for their turn at the little window.

To my surprise, things went quickly and just minutes before the closing bell rang (there is no bell, that is just a metaphor, folks), I got to the window. I gave the girl the papers she had clipped together along with my newly issued savings statement.

"Very good," she said and my heart sang. "Where is your bank contract," she added and my heart sank.

"Contract? What contract?" I asked panicking.

"You are supposed to have a bank contract with a bank account number where your pension will be deposited when and if it is approved," she said.

My mind raced back to the fat girl, the so-called executive who had not mentioned the damned bank account and contract. Agh! she had trounced me. I could imagine her laughing at my present trouble.

"You have to go to a bank of your choice," the girl in the little window said, "and open an account for this purpose. Tell them what it is for. They will know what to do. I will keep your papers until you bring me your bank account contract."

Now I felt as if the girl had said to me, "We did everything we could, sir, but your dog died on the operating table." I went away from the little window, slump-shouldered and feeling more dejected than ever.

Dejected and rejected, I left (notice the tamale paunch I had developed)

But, outside, the sun was shining, the air was cool, and there was yet another trip in a taxi to be taken, so, chin up, shoulders squared, I marched to a taxi and ordered, "Take me to the Banamex bank on Americas Avenue."

Next installment: Triumph over Adversity. I finally get my "Request for a Pension" done in "Adventures in Pension Land - Round 5. But, will that be the end of that? Tune in tomorrow when the caped avenger...no wait that's another story.

Adventures in Pension Land - Round 3

Another bit of history:

The AFORE (Administradora de Fondos para el Retiro; Manager of Retirement Funds) began operating in 1997 when the new Social Security Law took effect, replacing the 1973 Law. If you were paying attention (and I understand if you were not, because this stuff is boring) you will remember that the IMSS changed the amount of weeks one has to pay "contributions" to it, from 500 to 1295 in that same year.

These AFORE are supposed to invest a portion of your salary, which is matched by your employer, into an account in your name. The idea was that the meager amount of money the Social Security System pays a retired person would be supplemented by his or her savings plus the interest accumulated by the good investment policies of the bank which holds said savings.

If you think about it, it was a great deal for the banks and the SS system. The banks got a ton of money to invest and were allowed to charge investment commissions on it, the SS system got off the hook of having to be the only source of retirement money, and the government could claim it was doing a lot for retired workers.

Well that is the theory, the practice is another thing entirely.

Here is my story:

There is a 65 year old guy who has been working for 45 years. He has accumulated more than enough weeks to be eligible for either the '73 Law (500 weeks) or the '97 Law (1295) weeks. He goes to claim his pension and he is told that if he wants to apply for it, he must first deal with the bank who is managing his AFORE.

DEJECTED ME

 Sigh! Yet another hurdle to jump, another obstacle in the "parcours du combattant", as the French say, another queue to stand in, another bunch of papers to gather, and so on, and so on. OK, so there was nothing for it, but to jump through the hoop, fight the bear, tame the tiger, bite the proverbial bullet.

I went on the Internet and googled "AFORES". I got a million hits but most importantly an 800 number to call.

I grabbed the phone with unusual vigor and called the said number. Much to my surprise, I got a person on the line who was actually in Mexico. He asked me for my SS number and in two seconds told me that my AFORE was Banamex. This bit of intelligence came not only as a surprise but as a sense of wonder: how did that happen? When and who assigned my retirement savings to that bank? The young man on the phone told me I could consult my AFORE online. Banamex has a website for said purpose, he assured me. This was another surprise. They actually made things easier for a user.

After consulting online, I found out that these AFORE are like sharks. There is a feeding frenzy and the smaller ones are eaten up by the larger ones. In theory, any bank can bid for your money and offer you services and good rates of return on your dough, but in practice, only the large ones have the muscle to manage such large investment amounts for such a huge number of people. Looking at the ratings of the banks that are still in the game, I noticed that Banamex was up at the head of the table with more than 8% return on your investment. I was delighted by this bit of good news. The web site also tole me where I could go to get a statement of the amount I had saved over the years.

SIDEBAR: OK, I am a computer savy person; I have access to the Internet 24/7. So, I had the resources to dig into all of this and find the information I needed. But, what about Juan Pérez (this is our mythical John Doe) who lives in a small town, who has worked for some small company for 30 years and now is about to retire? How does he find out what he needs to know to get the SS system to give him his money? I pity the man.

Right! So, back to my story. Now I am armed with information that says I have to go to my bank's AFORE office and claim my statement of account. You, dear reader, are an intelligent person . Guess what I found when I got to my bank's AFORE office?

THE DREADED QUEUE!

ANOTHER SIDEBAR: It seems that the reasons unemployment is so low in Mexico (4.3%) is that millions of people are employed at information desks! In Mexico City, for example, no matter where you go, there is always someone at a desk (usually in a badly fitting uniform) who asks your business, demands an identity card from you before you can go in the building, asks you to sign a smudged log book, and directs you to where you already know you are going. Someday, someone will invent an "Information Desk Robot, Version 1.0" and make a fortune.

So, there I was, in the queue for the information desk. Again, the idea was to get a number so one of the FOUR "executives" could help me with my request for a statement showing my savings and affiliation to an AFORE.

From the looks of things, I was going to be there all day, maybe even a week: there were some 30 people waiting in chairs, and another thirty on the queue. I took the time a person was taking with the AFORE executive, and it was like 30 minutes. So, 30 + 30 X 30? I did the math and got the Hell out of there.

I had taken the precaution of jotting down the address of the TWO Banamex AFORE offices in Monterrey. Of course, a metropolitan area of nearly five million people need not have more then two offices with just four executives each. Banamex is taking good care of our money by not spending it on such frivolities as good service.

Off I went to the second office hoping that I would have good luck and that it would be less crowded than this one. It was, literally, on the other side of town. It took me a half hour to get there. And when I did, here is what I found:

No queue at the information desk! Nobody sitting the the chairs waiting their turn! And four idle executives each one in his or her office!

"What can we do for you?" asked the girl at the information desk.

"I need a copy of my statement of account," I replied.

"Please take a number and sit down," she said.

I was about the say to her that I didn't need a number since there was no one there, but I decided to humor the girl. After all, she was probably bored and I was the first distraction of the day for her. I took a number--it was 38--and I sat down.

I noticed that there was a big counter on the wall and that the number on it was 35. I wondered where she or he was, as well as numbers 36 and 37 because there was no one sitting on the chairs and there were no persons in the offices other than the executives themselves.

"Hmmm, this is curiouser and curiouser," I said remembering "Alice in Wonderland."

All four executives were oblivious of my presence; they were busily clicking and clacking at their computer keyboards. Once in a while, one of them would pick up a phone and call someone. At last, about 15 minutes after I had arrived, one of them, a young man, got up and put on his coat. My spirits lifted. Surely he would ask me into his office.

But, alas, no: my spirits were dashed when the said executive announced, "I'm going to lunch!"

"Damned! Of all the cheek," I thought. But, I kept my cool and waited some more.

Another 15 minutes passed and another executive--he too was a young man--came out of his office and looking around as if trying to find a lost person, he said, "Number 36! Number 36, please!"

I had had enough! I said, "There is no one here! There are no invisible persons, or customers hiding under the chairs, or people too small to be seen! There is NO ONE HERE BUT ME!"

He ignored me and went back into his office, sat down and started to click and clack at his computer. The number on the counter changed to number 37.

After a couple of minutes another executive, this time a young woman, came out of her office and said, "Number 37! Number 37, please!"

I couldn't believe it! I thought I had fallen into a scene of a Kafka novel or something.

"What the hell is this?" I asked. "Is this some sort of meeting for the Braille Bible Study Group? A resource for the blind office? I am the only person here. Can't you people see that?"

My ranting was to no avail. She went back into her office and sat down to fool around with her computer. But, the number did change and the third executive, a young man, came out of his office and was about to say something when I got up from my chair and said,

"Wait, wait, let me guess: is it, perchance, number 38's turn?"

He seemed startled and said, "Why, yes. Yes it is."

"Really?" I said and turned to the empty chairs and asked, "Number thirty eight? Yooohoo, number thirty eight!" I looked down at my paper, "Oh, its me!"

I followed the young man into his office. He kept looking back at me, perhaps wondering if I was not insane.

He sat down at his desk and I sat down as well.

"What can we do for you today?" he asked and I felt like saying something nasty but I did not.

"I need a statement of my account with the total of my saving to date," I said calmly, surprising myself at how calmly I had said it.

"OK," he said, but first we will check to see if you are in our system." Phrases like that always mean trouble and this time was no exception. "Please give me your Social Security number," he asked.

I gave him the SS pink sheet and he typed the number into his computer; he waited a few seconds and then announced with a smile, "Ah, you are not registered in our system."

"And, what can we do about that?" I asked through clenched teeth.

"We can register you right now," he said cheerfully.

He started the litany of request for papers: SS proof, birth certificate, Voter Credential, and so on. I had everything. Lastly, he asked for proof of my domicile. Although I no longer live in Monterrey, the electricity bill still arrives in my name, and I had borrowed that from my ex-wife. In Mexico, electricity, or gas, or other kinds of bills are always taken as proof of where you live.

He looked at that last piece of documentation and puzzled over it. Finally he said, "This is not valid. It has to be less than three month old."

"It is less than three months old," I said. "It was issued on the 2oth of October. We are the 22nd of December."

"Uh, uh," he uttered and puzzled over the date some more.

"Do the math," I said, "20th of October, and 30 days, brings you to the 20th of November. Thirty more days and it brings you to the 20th of December. That is only 60 days, so the electricity bill is valid as proof of my current address."

"Ah, no," he stammered but the rule says 60 days or less."

"No," I said, "the rule says 90 days or less." I was about to add "you dunderhead" but thought better of it.

He got up and went to the next office to consult with the girl executive. Since the walls of the all the offices are made of glass, I could see what was going on. He showed the girl the electricity bill. Gestured to me. The girl looked at the bill. She looked at me. Said something to the boy executive and then she went back to her clicking and clacking on her computer. The boy executive came back to his office.

"What's the verdict?" I asked feeling like the guy who is trying to pass a bad check.

"Oh, she said it was OK," he answered and cheerfully started to type on his keyboard. I wondered why I had not had the good luck to be in the girl's office instead of the math whiz'.

"So, we are going to be able to register me in your system?" I asked.

"Yes, yes, of course," he said cheerfully.

He typed and typed and typed. After a good 20 minutes he said, "There, you are in the system now."

"Good," I said. "Can I have my statement of account now?"

"No," he said.

"Why not?" I said whining like a child who has been denied a second helping of ice cream.

"It will take the system eight days to complete your registration," he replied.

"Jeez! These are computers, not some guy running with a piece of paper all the way the Mexico City or somewhere like that. Why does it take so long? Do you send it by Pony Express or by carrier pigeon? No wait, a pigeon would take less than eight days. Why so long?"

"Well, actually, it is not up to us. We send the information to the Social Security system and the Infonavit system (the system that allows workers to save up for a home), and a few other government agencies, and it is they who take a long time to confirm the registration."

"So, I have to wait eight days before I can go back to the Social Security people to claim my Request for a Pension Form?"

"Yup, that's it," he said smiling. "But first you will have to come back to us for your printed account statement."

I left the Banamex office and waved to a taxi. As I got on, the driver said, "It will take a while to where you are going. There's lot of construction and traffic."

I said. "Oh, I don't mind. I got eight days to waste anyway."

Next: Eureka! I am told I am registered and I go back into the breach, dear friends!

Adventures in Pension Land - Round 2

Both of you who have read my last blog entry will remember that I had been told to go to my "Family Clinic" to fill out a "Request for Pension Form". Why one has to go to a hospital to get the ball rolling, pension wise, is beyond me; it is one of those imponderables that bureaucrats come up with to befuddle lesser mortals.

So, early one morning, I took a folder full of papers and official forms, and jumped into a taxi.

"Clinica Dos (Clinic Number 2)," I said forcefully to the driver--as if I knew where the hell I was going.

The taxi driver sighed and said, "OK, but its going to take a while."

The man knew what he was about because Monterrey being in the middle of a metropolitan area of five million inhabitants and a hub of industry and commerce, there is always a lot of construction, bypass building, and what not going on. So, a trip that would usually take 15 minutes was a twisting, short-cut taking 35 minutes long.

Clinic Number 2 is one of the most important and busy clinics the Social Security system has in the Monterrey Metropolitan Area. Needless to say, it is a sprawling, busy place with a multi-story hospital and a labyrinth of offices and corridors. Lucky for me, it seems that any of the hundreds of people that stream in and out of the place all day long, know where things are because, again, there were no signs or indications to guide you to any of the services rendered there.

I stopped a woman who was dragging along three children.

"Señora, can you tell me where the pensions office is?" Of course, there is no such thing as a "pensions office", but I was so ignorant I didn't even know how to ask the right question.

"Ah, if you want to do something about your pension, or if you want to sign for your survival, turn right on the first corridor, and then left. The window is right there."

That last part of her comment "sign for your survival" was an intriguing comment but I had not time to ask what that was about and she looked as if she had no time for idle chatter having three children to contend with, so I thank her and followed her directions to the "Pensions" window.

Of course, the "Pensions" window had NO sign to indicate that it was the "Pensions" window. It was also, by far, the smallest window in the building. There were HUGE glass protected windows next to it behind which  there where were several girls doing nothing but chatting and filing their nails. Through the small slit that was the Pensions window, I could see a harried girl shifting papers.

There was a man at the window and across the corridor, there were chairs where people sat and, as I found out, were waiting their turn to conduct their business at the Pensions window. I asked a lady,

"Is this the Pensions window?"

"Yes," she answered.

"And, I imagine all of you are here to, uh..."

"Yes," she said understanding the drift of my question.

"So, I should go to the end of the line," I said.

"Are you here for a pension or for survival?" she asked.

"Survival?" She had used the word "sobrevivencia" to ask the question. "What is this "survival" that people keep mentioning?" I asked.

"Ah, once you get a pension, you have to come here every six months to sign and prove that you are alive, that's what!"

That explained why there were men in crutches in the waiting line and a lady in a wheel chair with a tank of oxygen and little white tubes in her nostrils. There was even a lady with four children who explained that she had to drag her kids to sign as beneficiaries of the pension she and the kids had received upon the death of her husband. Trust the damned bureaucrats to make things as hard as possible on people.

I wondered why, instead of cruelly making these poor people on crutches or on a wheel chair come and sign to prove they were still alive, the Social Security system did not send some of these fat-assed women who sat behind the windows doing nothing to the house of these persons and take the damned papers for them to sign.

Of course, that would be the decent thing to do and God knows the IMSS bureaucrats are not in the business of doing decent things for their constituents.

Upon reflection, I considered that this signing to prove you are alive every six months was going to be a bit of a crimp to my style, as it were, for it meant that if I got a pension I would have to come back to Mexico to sign for it every six months. Well, that was a problem to be solved when it presented itself because first of all, I had to get the damned pension.

Anyway, I was the last in line, and the last person to walk up to the little window. Since the bureaucrats work only until 4:00 PM, and it was nearly that hour when my turn came up, there was no one else in the queue.

I leaned down and peered through the little window:

"I have come about a Request for a Pension form and ..."

She cut me short without looking up, "Your Credential as a Voter," she said, "and a copy." Luckily I had it with me and a copy of it in paper. This is a credential that you get when you turn 18 years old and it serves as an identity card and as a registered voter card. It is indispensable if you want to conduct any sort of public or private business. It is the equivalent of national identity cards in France or Spain.

"Curp," she demanded and I gave her the original and copy of the document which the government gives you as your unique identifying number.

"Social Security affiliation proof," she said and I gave her the famous pink sheet and a copy which proves I was affiliated to the Social Security system.

"Birth certificate and copy," she said and I have her that as well.

Finally she said, "Afore  statement."

I said, "What?"

She finally looked up and said, "You have to get a statement from your Afore in which they tell you how much you have saved for your retirement."

I had no idea I had been saving for my retirement, least of all how one goes about getting a statement that shows how much I had saved.

"Where do I get that?" I asked.

"From your Afore," she replied handing me back all my papers--neatly clipped together, I might add.

"How do I find my, uh,  Afore?" I asked meekly.

Before she could answer, it came to me, "Call the 800 number, right?" She nodded. I left.

So, it was back to square one.

I had no problem getting a taxi. Outside the clinic there is a veritable market place and fair with food vendors, drink vendors, people who say they can help you with your paperwork and formalities. And, of course, a long line of taxis.

Once back home, I googled "Afore" and found out an interesting fact.

The saga continues with "Adventures in Pension Land - Part 3" in my next blog.

Adventures in Pension Land - Round 1

Before I rant, a bit of history:

The Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social, better known by its acronym, IMSS, was born in 1943. In January of that year, the first company subscribed to it and the first IMSS card was issued to a worker. The following April, the bureaucrats working for the IMSS organized into a union, threatened a strike, and made their first set of demands, something that has been happening with the annoying regularity of the bowel movements of someone with amoebic diarrhea (and with the same results).

In 1973, the IMSS changed the rules of the game: instead of 500 weeks of subscription to the IMSS so you could get a pension, it was now deemed one had to work and subscribe for 1295 week. Those of us who had started working before that year could retire after 500 weeks and at age 65, those who started to work after that year, would have to trudge, trouble, and toil for 1295 weeks. Do the math, folks; that's more than 20 years. One week less than that, and you're out of luck!

As a bureaucrat said to me, "The IMSS is not in the business of paying you money, it is in the business of avoiding, whenever possible, paying you money."

Now for my story:

OK, so ignorant of all of that, and even more (as you will see) I set off to try to get my pension, because I had just recently turned 65 and I had been working and paying my IMSS dues (and so had the people who had employed me) since 1967--or so I thought!

So, first order of business was to go to Monterrey, where all my records and history were, according to an IMSS 800 number I called. You see, the IMSS is very efficient in telling you where to go (and I don't mean that in the euphemistic way), but it does everything possible for you not to get anything done once you get there.

 It is also strange, although it fits right in with what the cynical IMSS worker told me about the IMSS being in the business of NOT paying your pension, that there is NOTHING published about how one should proceed when claiming a pension. You'd think they would publish a damned little pamphlet or put up a pdf in a website or even send out flyers when a worker, according to their computer systems and records, reached the age of retirement or the amount of weeks necessary for a pension.

Nope! Not a word, not a leaflet, not a flyer to be had anywhere. The so-called Sub-delegation where the 800 number told me I should go to inquire about my pension, has so much empty, unused space and unoccupied buildings that if they rented that space they could easily pay for a million information pamphlets or more. But, of course, that is not the case. If you need information or help, you are out of luck: you are on your own!

Off I went to the Sub-delegation 4, papers in hand, cheerful in spirit, thinking that at last I was going to get this thing done. When I got there, the queue at the information desk was a mile long.

 According to a hand-made sign on the wall, you had to state your business and the girl at the information desk would assign you to the proper window and give you a number.

From the look of the amount of people sitting in the rows of chairs and looking very forlorn, getting the number was half the battle; waiting for said number to come up, was the other half.

There was, however, a lady going up and down the queue asking what our business was and flushing out those that should not be there in the first place. When she got to me and asked what sort of information I needed, I said,

"I've come to start the process of claiming my pension."

"Do you have your Request for a Pension form filled out?" she asked.

"Uh, no, I have come to request a pension, so I don't have one, uh...yet, I guess."

She frowned, "But you must get a Request for a Pension form before you come here."

"And, where do I get that?" I asked.

"At the Family Clinic to which you have been assigned"

"And, pray tell," I insisted, "which clinic is that?"

She seemed really annoyed now, "Well, it is the clinic where you have gone for medical treatment or to consult with a doctor, of course!"

I said proudly, "I have never been to an IMSS clinic to consult a doctor or to have any sort of treatment!"

"Well, in that case," she explained, "you have to find out which one it is."

"And, who, in this palace of information and record keeping can tell me that bit of necessary news?" I inquired.

"You must call the IMSS 800 number. They will tell you," she said walking away.

I yelled after her, "But, you have dozens of people here, behind dozens of those little windows, and you have a whole system of queue numbers, and a large screen for information and to call out the next number and you mean to tell me that no one can tell me what my Family Clinic is?"

"No, you must call the 800 number," she said without turning around.

Dejectedly, I left the queue without even having reached the information desk.

Not having a Mexican cell phone or even a phone card to use one of the graffiti covered public phones, I had no choice but to take a taxi back home to call the IMSS 800 number again.

I called and got another cheerful IMSS person on the line. He couldn't tell me what clinic I belonged to but he said they would get back to me as soon as possible. The day was hot so I was taking a shower when the phone rang.

"Miss Liu Quinn Chong, can you tell me what Family Clinic I have been assigned to?"

"Yes," he said cheerfully, "I can. Please give me your Social Security number."

Ah! That I had. Among all of the papers I had brought from France, I had what is called "the pink sheet". This is a copy of the form an employer sends to the IMSS when they are subscribing you that service. I read out my number.

"You are assigned to Family Clinic number 2," she said.

"And where is that?"

"It is on Constitution Avenue a the corner of Felix U. Gómez Avenue."

I marveled that some girl in Timbuktu or Shanghai or whatever knew more about where I should be going to find out about my pension than I did, or the IMSS lackey who had first answered my call.

For years I had been passing that IMSS clinic, not knowing that I had been assigned to it (and all of my family as well). The reason I never went there was that the corporations I worked for discouraged it and had us visit private doctors or their own private clinics.

Restored in faith and body ( I had had not only a shower but a couple of beers while taking the phone call and while waiting for the taxi I had ordered by phone), I set off again to start my "Request for a Pension".

Little did I know that it would be, as the song says, "the start of something big".

To continue the saga, read Adventures in Pension Land - Round 2.

Into the Heart of Lightness

Mexico City can be said to be, among the many adjectives one might ascribe to it, a "city of light". As the plane begins its descent--some fifteen minutes before touchdown--one flies over, as the song writer Guadalupe Trigo put it, "a mantel of light and color". It seems to go on forever, this mantel of light. I looked out the window and said, "It looks beautiful", to which a fellow passenger and local citizen replied, "Yeah, from up here."

The young man sitting next to me had a point: like all large cities, Mexico City is best kept "at a distance", both physically and metaphorically.Since it has the best and the worst humanity has to offer, it is best one doesn't get too close.

I arrived on the 4th of December of last year and the city was in a festive mood. People were getting ready for a couple of weeks of festivities that included Christmas, New Year's Day, and the "Fiesta de Reyes" held on the 6th of January which celebrates the arrival of the Three Kings, or Wise Men, or Magic Kings, however you want to call the legendary Kings who came, according to Christian mythology, to offer gifts to baby Jesus.

Mexicans being ever resourceful, everywhere you went in the city, vendors had set up a stand to sell ornaments, Christmas lights, natural and artificial Christmas trees, and so on. Novelties were everywhere: one could put giant antlers and a red nose on one's car for 200 pesos, there was a jumping-jack Santa that popped out of a chimney, and a guy offered to print a newspaper for you with headlines that announced that Santa Claus and the Three Wise Men were coming to your house to deliver gifts and goodies.

I kept my distance from the hustle and bustle of the city by watching all of this from the comfort and safety of my friend's car. As I have mentioned before, we are lucky to have friends in Mexico City that not only live in a quiet, very civilized part of the city, but they also know their way around it so when we go anywhere in their car, I can just sit back and enjoy it all.


Keeping your distance does not mean locking yourself away from anything and everything that goes on in a city. As I've said, there is a lot to enjoy if you know how to go about it. For instance, the best and fastest way to get around is the Metro. But you should avoid rush hours because if you are squeamish about being midst a maelstrom of 6 million people rushing off to work or school early in the morning, you should not get on the Metro from 7 to 9 AM.  If you have ever heard the expression, "The crowd poured out of the...", well a pouring of crowds is what happens at peak hours in the Mexico City Metro system. In fact, it can get so hectic that at certain times of the day, certain cars and passageways are designated as "Women and Children Only".

But, if you use the Metro between, say, 10:00 AM and Noon, or between 3:00 PM and 6:00 PM, you will find it a clean, efficient, and FAST system. A string of metro cars comes by our stop every minute or so, with even shorter times between trains at peak hours.

Unfortunately, I had only a few days to enjoy the good company and hospitality of my friends as well as the festive spirit of the city because, to coin a phrase and mix my metaphors, I had a "bigger fish to fry", and said fish was my pension.

I had recently turned "turned the corner", age-wise, and was now walking down that golden road called Avenue Sixty-Five Years Old, and heading for that pie-in-the-sky address we call our Pension Fund.

THAT is why I had come one month ahead of our scheduled January to May stay in Dolores Hidalgo. I wanted to get the paperwork started and maybe even finished.

In Mexico, there are two government-run pension schemes for all Mexicans. One is call the 77 scheme because it was put in place in 1977 and it states that you only have to work and pay your Social Security contribution 500 weeks to be eligible for a pension. Of course, the amount of pension money you get depends on the level of contributions you paid. The more you put in the kitty the more you get in your pension check.

When the government found out that it would quickly run out of pension money if people only contributed during 500 weeks, they upped their hedge and now younger generations have to contribute during 1295 weeks, almost three times the amount of us older folk. PLUS, they asked employees to put aside a bit of money from their pay that would be invested by banks in a scheme called AFORE (Administradora de Fondos para el Retiro, Manager of Retirement Funds) and for employers to contribute as well by matching the employees amount in said Funds.

This complicated form of providing retirement funds to pay for workers' pensions is complicated enough. But, it is no match for the incredible boondoggle that one has to navigate in order to get one's pension approved.

The paperwork, the running around between banks, clinics, government offices, Social Security delegations, state run offices where official papers such as birth certificates are issued, and so on, is as the French say, le parcours du combattant, an obstacle course!

If it were not tragic it would be comical as you two readers of this blog will see when I describe my adventures in Pension Land in my next couple of blogs. It is tragic in the sense that one sees a poor man who has worked all of his life, and who lives is some far away collective farm having to come all the way to the big city to confront the uncaring, cynical, incredible incompetent government workers who run the Social Security System. AND it is funny because, as you will read, I took the thing by its bureaucratic horns and defeated it.

We´re Off To The Land Of Pottery And Strange Ice Cream

Monument to the priest Miguel Hidalgo who started the movement for the independence of Mexico

 The next blog entries after this one will come to you from our favorite place in Mexico.

Dolores Hidalgo, billed as the "birthplace of Mexican independence", is a quaint town of about 40,000 people, although it seems far smaller. Set between its more famous brethren cities, San Miguel de Allende, a mecca for American and European ex-expatriates, and Guanajuato, a city declared an historical site by the UNESCO and home to the world renowned cultural festival, the Cervantino, Dolores seems to have been left behind not only in the scramble for tourism dollars, but also in the mad rush toward "progress". Of course, all of the above suits me just fine.

We discovered this colorful town a couple of years ago when we decided to spend a few weeks touring central Mexico. Claudette had never been across the pond and she wanted to see for herself the many cities, towns, and natural wonders I had been describing in our conversations--you know, those rambles through nostalgia one embarks on when far away from what was once Home.

 So, a few years ago, we decided to do a road trip through central Mexico as a sort of exploratory venture in order to find a place where we might stay for a longer period of time. Claudette's request, on the later point, was that we find a small town that would give her a taste of what the "real" Mexico was like; she had no desire to stay in any of the well-known resorts and beach towns, or in any of the major cities. I traced out a route that would give her a sampling of small and large towns.

I had thought that perhaps among the smaller villages south of Puebla we might find something that would appeal to her. I also included a city such as Querétaro that, although it is large and prosperous with commerce and industry, it is still a very charming place and very liveable as large cities go.

Finally, I thought that she should see San Miguel de Allende, where a large ex-expatriate community lives in "authentic Mexican" splendor. From there, we could also explore the surrounding area which is known for its quaint and colorful towns: Guanajuato, Pástzcuaro, and Dolores Hidalgo, among others.

We arrived in Mexico City and stayed with my friend Armando and his wife Kim. I have known Armando for many years and he and his charming wife were a boon for us. Like true Mexicans, they were generous in their hospitality and very helpful in their advice and ideas.

The first surprise for Claudette was how charming and interesting Mexico City can be. She had the idea of a crowded, bustling, dangerous place. Instead, she found the neighborhood where our friends live to be peaceful and friendly, with a lovely park near-by and every service and convenience at hand.

She was amazed at the cleanliness and efficiency of the Mexico City Metro and delighted when we went to the "historical center" where on a Sunday the Alameda is filled with every kind of street vendor you can think of and the Zocalo, the main square, and the surrounding streets are like a country fair.

We stayed a week with our friends, then we left on our road trip. As one more of their many gracious gestures, our friends lent us a car so we could avoid the cost and hassle of renting one.

Our first stop was Puebla, a bustling metropolis of nearly two million people, known for its great food, unique tiles and crafts, and religious fervor. We stayed in a very traditional hotel in center city; it was very colorful with a center patio open to the sky and lots of flowers and leather covered chairs in its open corridors. The only annoying thing was that we had to keep our room door open so that the WiFi network would work and we could keep abreast of our email--and indispensable thing for us when we are on the road.

Like many cities and towns of central Mexico, center city in Puebla is a mixture of the old and the new.We found a whole market dedicated to computer products, software, and computer repairs. It came in handy when Claudette's computer went on the blink.

But, just a few blocks away, the Museum of Arts and Crafts was closed for "repairs"; a lone guard was sitting on a pile of crates. He informed us (or rather didn't inform us) that he knew not what sort of repairs were being done to the museum, when those repairs would be finished, or if the museum was likely to open in our lifetime.

"Its been closed for several years," he said. He knew exactly how long because he had been coming there to "watch over" the place for six and a half years. What he watched over I do not know because the museum was just a shell of a building with nothing inside but dust and piles of bricks.

Walking through the busy shopping area of downtown Puebla means having to wade through a cacophony of of music, vendors shouting, cars and trucks noisily vying for space in the crowded streets, and street vendors loudly hawking their wares.

It seems that every store has a huge loud speaker at its door blaring music. The young sales girls sway and sing to the music and the customers have to shout their questions at them.

We visited a few of the many churches, looked at the tile covered historical buildings, went to a couple of the wonderful restaurants the city has to offer, and then we went south looking for a quieter place to stay.

The towns to the south of Puebla are small, very beautiful, have perfect weather, but much to our dismay, are rather lacking in services--mainly Internet connectivity. We found this strange, believe it or not, because Mexico is one of the most wired countries on this planet. I have gone to some really out of the way places and have never failed to find at least an Internet café. I think that the lack of young people is these towns is the reason connectivity has been slow in reaching them. Most of the young in these towns go to large cities looking for jobs so their home towns become ghost towns where only the old remain.

Nevertheless, we were delighted and amused at the little towns and villages that we found. One had a huge pine tree growing through the roof of it church, another had a wooden kiosk, painted in bright colors and designed in the Russian style with elaborate carved wooden posts.

We left Puebla and headed toward Querétaro. On the way we went through a couple of cities (Pachuca, most notably) but Claudette was not taken with any of them. Outside Pachuca, though, we did stop at a place where a man was grilling chickens over mesquite wood. We has a marvelous meal there.

We stopped in Querétaro and found a very nice hotel mid-town. As soon as we were settled, off we went to explore the city.

Center city Querétaro is beautiful with its handsome cathedral all lit up and the arcades surrounding the large plaza very lively with outdoor restaurants and cafés.

The next day we took a tour on the tramway with car wheels that weaves through the narrow streets of the old town and winds up on the highest part of town which has a magnificent view of the city and of the famed aqueduct.

Nice as it was, Claudette pronounced Querétaro too big for her taste.

We finally reached San Miguel de Allende. This city too has been pronounced by the UNESCO as a patrimony of humanity. It is really nice, perhaps TOO nice. It clearly caters to the tourist trade and the many galleries, craft shops and so on, are expensive.

So, after a repairing round of cocktails, we pushed on to Dolores. We immediately loved it. We stayed at a hotel called "Casa Mía", a rustic but nevertheless interesting place that the owner has enhanced by buying up the doors and windows of old houses and installing them in the rooms of the hotel.

We liked Dolores so much that the following year we returned. At first we stayed in a house where out of town students were boarding. Our room was--how shall I put it---eclectic. It was a large bedroom, one side of which it was all windows that opened into a large balcony. But the bathroom was the unique feature of the place. It had a jacuzzi the size of a pool. It had been set up so high, that we had to literally climb into the thing to take a shower.

Luckily, we went into a hat shop where I wanted to buy a hat. Every man in town was wearing one (the land around Dolores is a farming and cattle growing region), so I waned one. The owner of the hat shop was a very friendly man (as are most of the people of the town). We asked him if he knew anyone who might rent us rooms in center ville.

He said he would consult with a "lady" that he knew might be agreeable to renting us rooms. Said lady turned out to be his wife.

Our landlord is head of a very traditionally Mexican family. They even have a chapel in the house where the family prays in the early morning before starting their day.

But the place was perfect. We had a separate apartment, with its own kitchen and a nice garden. It is just a few blocks from the main plaza. It is just perfectly situated. And from there, we went on to explore Dolores.

More on that in my next blog.

Permanent Amazement

French man amazed that the weather lady has announced snow on the Pyrenees

For all intents and purposes, winter has started in our region. Although we live in the warmest corner of France, nights have been a couple of degrees below zero and the days rainy and cold.

Now if I were living in a sub-Saharan country, a tropical Pacific island located somewhere south of Tahiti, or in the steamy jungles of southern Mexico, this kind of weather would be really unusual, but since we live near the Pyrenees, and these mountains are usually covered in snow during the winter, cold, wet weather is far from being strange in the area. It is even less so in the eastern part of France adjacent to the Alps where people find a snowmobile a more apt vehicle in the winter months than a car.

Typical autumn day in the Alps

Nevertheless, when the weather lady announces snow here in France, the news hounds go out in force to interview the amazed population. What? Snow? In the mountains? The item is treated as if snowflakes had been seen falling from the sky in Timbuktu.

Qu'est-ce que c'est ce truc blanc? 

Tuareg wondering what that white stuff is...

But this phenomena, that is, being astounded by something that happens every year like clock-work, is not reserved only for snow. Rain, wind, an unusual dry spell, or any other manifestation of the weather is treated as if this country had never seen anything other than spring like weather. As soon as a few drops of rain fall, out go the news crews to interview the ladies who have had to do the unbearable, that is, get the umbrella out of the closet and put on a raincoat.

Not only the French but modern society seems to have evolved into a bunch of wimps and complainers of just about anything. Farmers go on strike because the government won't give them aid under harsh drought conditions; then it rains, and farmers complain that the government wont' give them aid to cope with harsh wet conditions.

There was a guy on television the other day complaining of police harassment because he had been taken into custody after he had been stopped for going 160 kilometers per hour in a 90 kilometer per hour zone. Now, this was not the first time this roadrunner had been stopped for speeding: it was the TWELFTH time. AND he had already lost all of the points of his driver's license, for--guess what? SPEEDING! Yet, there he was on television, being given air time by some dunderhead with a microphone and a camera, so he could complain about police harassment.

I remember visiting the little village where my grandfather lived the first thirty years of his life. It was, by any modern standards, very simple and almost crude. He was 19 years old and his bride 17 when they built their two room house out of limestone slabs because there were no trees in the desert like land where the village was. They had children, raised crops, tended cattle and goats, and went about the daily business of making a living from the land with no government aid, and no subsidies from the state. Grandfather then built a plaza for the village, with the aid of the other men in the town, a school where he taught the children to read and write, and managed to run a general store so people could buy the basic necessities of life. He and the other men of the village braved the rushing waters of a near-by river to build a bridge that was still standing when I visited the village 60 years after the bridge had been built.

Throughout the 14 years of my life that I had the privilege of living with my grandfather before he died, I never heard him ONCE say he had had a hard life. In fact, he was one of the most serene, good-natured persons I have ever known.

The other day, I went to a store, which is a few blocks away, to buy bread. It was a nice summer afternoon, so I walked. When I got to the store, there was a man bitterly complaining to the store manager that the small parking lot of the store was full so he had to park half a block away.

The poor store manager listened to the old coot for fifteen minutes and the man was still talking and complaining when I went up to the cash register to pay for my bread. Unfortunately for him, he spoke with an accent that told me he was English. So, I said,

Me: Are you handicapped?

The man: (surprised at my question) No!

Me: Are you ill? Do you suffer from pain on your feet or legs?

The man: (getting annoyed at my questions) No, why?

Me: Think about this: your belly is so huge you probably can't see your shoes, your mouth rattles on so much you are probably wasting more energy than your car. Mister, you should be glad that there was no room in the parking lot because that half-block walk, and your prattling probably burned enough lard from your gut to give you another few days of life.

The man said something about me minding my own business but the store manager smiled and didn't charge me for the bread.

I don't like complainers. There are too many important things to worry about in life without worrying the small stuff, too.