Category Archives: Electricity issues

November 19, 2024 · 7:25 am

Let There be Light – Part 3

With just days left before the contractor’s deadline, Super Prez received a summons from the CFE supervisor. He didn’t seem too worried about it, but I was a nervous wreck. I was just imagining that there would be some further delay or issue that would cause the entire thing to be canceled.

When the supervisor and his posse did show up, it wasn’t nearly so dramatic, although some things needed clarified. Our original grant included 40 casas + 3 lots which would have muretes installed. The bajada (line connection), meter, and CFE contract were included. Not surprisingly, we’d exceeded that number. So, the meeting was to clarify that only 43 properties would have electricity installation. The additional 22 muretes that we were still scrambling to install, would not be included in this grant but could be added on. Super Prez said that they would be able to get their CFE contract at no cost with a letter from the association. Okie dokie!

We also asked about the houses that were just past the line CFE installed. The supervisor explained the procedure for requesting another grant and said it would take about 15 months for approval. He also said there was a way to apply for a small project, and he could fast-track it, and it could be done in 28 days. CFE would pay 70%, and we would pay 30%. My thoughts were we could do the fast-track mini-project at our cost and then apply for the remaining sections of La Yacata through the grant process so that these homes with people actually living in them could have electricity by the end of the year.

We also tried to get a firm end date for the current project by promising birria (goat). The supervisor wasn’t willing to give a day, but he did say that he would be back on Tuesday to install the meters and might have a better idea of the timeline. The holdup was that the main connection at the intersection would need to be a “live” connection, and that would require three different crews.

He left his work crew in La Yacata and zoomed off. FINALLY, they arrived on our street. Our house and my son’s, sister-in-law’s, and father-in-law’s houses were given the “bajada” (line connection) and meters were installed.

My son said he didn’t want to get too excited because there was STILL no electricity, and it was like a mirage. Just when you thought you’d reach the oasis, there it was, still in the distance.

Tuesday came around, and the supervisor said he would be there at 10 am. Well, that came and went. Then he said he would be there by noon. Super Prez had an appointment in Morelia and couldn’t stick around, so that left lil’ol’ me. Half past noon, the supervisor arrived. I waddled my butt down to the first street with all the solicitudes for the 43 connections, and we were off.

The first road had four houses and a murete on a lot. The supervisor would take a picture of the meter and write down the numbers on the solicitud that corresponded to the location. Then, we would move on to the next one.

I did my best to entertain the guy by sharing tidbits about the owners and various animals we encountered on our trek. These stallions weren’t friendly, and it was best to walk far from them, but this stray dog was nice and just wanted some attention. This was the first house built in La Yacata, and the owner had waited almost 30 years to finish it. This house wasn’t well constructed and likely to collapse at any minute. These people have pigs right next to their bedroom and watch where you step. Yuck! This woman had tried several times to live out here but found it too difficult to do so with her kids and was renting. She was so excited to be getting electricity. Those two houses were just outside the line, and those two over there were owned by widows who were desperate to stop renting in town. Watch out for the next house; a furious chihuahua guards it. And so on and so forth…

One murete had not been installed and still lay forlornly on the ground. I confirmed that without that one, there were 42 solicitudes, and I wasn’t sure when the murete hadn’t been set. The supervisor called the contractor and asked if all 43 meters had been installed. The contractor said yes until the supervisor asked specifically about the murete that hadn’t been installed, and the contractor had to backtrack and say, well, yes, there was one that hadn’t been done. The location of the meter was confirmed (in the contractor’s possession), and arrangements were made to get it done.

It was a HOT two hours trudging around. My head hurt something fierce when we were done. The supervisor said that he’d be in contact on Friday to confirm the connection date and so we could schedule the convivio (community gathering).

The next day, the contractor’s crew was out with the truck that had the winch. They came down to ask exactly where the murete was to be installed, and I trekked up the hill with them. There were several holes on the lot. It appeared the rocky soil made digging to the required depth difficult, and there were multiple excavations. I called and sent messages to Super Prez to see if he could shed some light on which hole was to be used. He didn’t answer–out of the area, I suspected. So I waved my hand generally to the pit closest to the main road and pronounced it good. That’s where the post was planted.

The contractor’s crew then became scarce, although we had 15 more muretes to set. Super Prez was informed that these could be installed without cost, but another set of requirements would need to be met.

***

Read about how it all began in La Yacata Revolution–now available on Amazon!

Let There be Light – Part 2

Months and months of slow-moving activity followed. Well, it was 120 days, but it felt like a terribly long time. Days would go by, and there would be no sign of the contractor’s workers or CFE. Then suddenly, there would be a flurry of activity and a small advance towards electricity, causing me to hope again—just to be brutally disappointed when no one would be out here working the following day.

We also had such a hard time getting in contact with the contractor or his CFE supervisor to ask questions or express concerns. I say we, but for the most part, I let Super Prez do the phone calls. I don’t hear well, and then trying to convey myself in Spanish on the phone—whew, not my fav activity.

Originally, the project covered a good section of La Yacata, although not the entire area. Two entire sections with houses where people were actually living were left out. The project gave us 40 house/construction connections, including the mufa (meter and pole combo) and 3 additional muretes (a base designed to be placed on lots without construction). So I started having people come and fill out the solicitud (application). Our only requirement was that the lot must be in good standing. That means it was properly registered with a registered ownership certificate, and the first-semester aportaciones (fees) were paid. These amounted to $3900, and we’d been requesting them since February.

The solicitud was short and wouldn’t have taken but 5 minutes per person if there weren’t so many “concerns” at each interaction that I needed to address. The first-semester aportaciones were due in July, and here it was September, and people were just now trickling in to make their payments because of their “concerns.” Mostly, they wanted to know what the money was spent on. Well, we had that taken care of. Not only was this information posted in the community Whats App and Facebook groups, but an illustrated poster was in the glass case that served as a community message board at my son’s house. Additionally, each lot had a printout at the end of July that detailed its standing when it comes to aportaciones and money yet owed. This document also had the breakdown of every single item we spent money on in the first semester, the total paid, and the amount due per lot. Some items were less than 2 pesos, while the derechos de agua (water rights) were $3000 per lot.

Unfortunately, due to the poor literacy rate in La Yacata, a good portion of the colonos couldn’t read the lists. For those individuals, I would go through the printout, line by line, and explain what each item was for. Thus, each solicitud session lasted about 20 minutes. Then, many had to return with a copy of their IFE (voter’s registration card), a requirement for the solicitud.

We ended up with 22 lots that wished for electricity connections and 37 fincas/casas, which exceeded the 40 + 3 total given to us by CFE. Super Prez spoke with the project’s coordinators, and they agreed to connect any lot with a murete and even help install muretes. However, that didn’t turn out to be completely true.

Many of the applicants were women whose men were in the US and not available to make their murete. My husband was hired for two; each one took a full day, and we were running out of time. A few more individuals were able to hire someone to get their murete up, but the vast majority weren’t able to. Super Prez decided that we would order some from a CFE-approved company and have them delivered.

CFE worker installing one of the purchased muretes

The first order was for 12 muretes. I collected the money, gave a receipt, and went to the bank to deposit the cash upon delivery. Then there were others who wanted muretes and the second order was originally 5, but 2 backed out, so it was just 3. Again, I collected the money, gave a receipt, and went to the bank to pay for the delivery.

We had all the muretes we needed, but now there was an issue of digging holes to accommodate and set the muretes. Super Prez had two guys already out daily in La Yacata clearing off the sidewalks (something that hadn’t been done in 20+ years). He switched their task to hole digging, and after just one afternoon, the guys quit. A few colonos had someone come out and dig their holes, but again, a lot of these wives and mothers weren’t able to do that.

Now we were on a deadline. Things would NEED to be done before October 20 or the contractor would have to pay a fine. October 16 came and went, and there were still holes to be dug and muretes still to install.

***

Read about the original La Yacata Revolution–now available on Amazon!

Let There be Light – Part 1

Way back in July, at the very end of the pozo (well) update, I mentioned that CFE paid a surprise visit to La Yacata. I haven’t posted anything about it since. I really didn’t want to jinx it, and even now that the initial project is done and over, it’s still something of a miracle. But let me start at the beginning.

About a month after the letter to the governor, someone came a’banging on my door to tell me that CFE (the electric company) was down the road and wanted to talk to someone in charge. Um, well, I guess that would be me.

So I hurried my fanny down the road and sure enough, there was a CFE vehicle and two men holding what appeared to be plans. I approached and they gave me the astounding news that we were one of three neighborhoods that the federal government would be providing electricity in the next few months. Say again???

So they did, and they showed me the plans, asked about who the president of the association was, and assured me that this wasn’t a prank. The contractor knew Super Prez, so they made immediate contact and set up a time to meet. I took pictures of the plans because NO ONE WOULD BELIEVE ME and did some happy jumping around.

I had a few questions because this seemed almost too good to be true. First, what were we to do with the existing posts and wires that had never been registered and, therefore, could not be used. The contractor said that he could remove them, although that wouldn’t be covered under this grant, which meant the colonia would have to pay him to do it.

The plans also showed several roads that would not be electrified as the roads themselves were in deplorable conditions. What about those? The contractor said he could give us an estimate for finishing the lines after the posts, wires, and transformers that were given by the federal government were installed. Fair enough. Finishing would be a fraction of the cost of starting from scratch, which is where we stood at the moment. The transformers were also small, and he cautioned that, realistically, they could only support 40 dwellings each. We don’t have 40 full-time residents right now, so that would be fine. Then, as the colonia grew, we could petition to have the transformers removed and replaced with those with more capacity.

Super Prez was all for letting the colonos (residents) know about this windfall immediately. I suggested we wait a bit. It wouldn’t do to have everyone’s hopes up and then have it not materialize, so we waited and waited and waited.

Then we got word that the CFE workers were digging the post holes in another of the three neighborhoods instead of La Yacata, which was only discovered when the CFE supervisor came to La Yacata looking for his crew, and they were not here. Obviously, there was some miscommunication somewhere.

Super Prez called the contractor, who assured us that yes, indeed, we were first on the list. He also said he’d send over the estimate for the post removal in the next day or so with the idea that the new posts could be placed in the same locations.

A couple of days after the phone call with the contractor, there was another banging on my door. My presence was requested by the CFE crew, who were sent to dig the holes. I hurried my fanny down the road, and they asked if I could help them locate the lots so they could mark the dig spots. My copy of the neighborhood plans had been given to the contractor, but these workers didn’t have it. I had a miniature copy, but even with my bifocals, I couldn’t make out the lots’ dimensions.

The neighbor lady, the sister-in-law of the now-deceased Chuchi, ran into her house and popped back out with some plans she had. It seemed she had been holding out on us. She claimed that she gave all the paperwork to Super Prez after Chuchi’s death. Obviously, that wasn’t so. Regardless, it was helpful since Super Prez was out of town, and we needed the plans.

These guys had a tape measure that wasn’t long enough to mark the distance between the posts, so the measuring was an estimate. One guy would mark a spot with orange paint and move up, dragging the tape behind him. The other guy couldn’t ever seem to find the mark and spent considerable time hunting it before reading off the new measurement to be added to the first one to get the correct distance.

I traipsed along with the plans, checking the lot dimensions as we went. When we reached the first corner, my husband showed up. He’d been out searching for seed corn to plant. When he arrived, the two guys said they needed his help to line up the posts now that the spots had been marked. So if he would stand on that orange spot, they’d go down to the end of the road and check the alignment.

They hadn’t brought any stakes or anything to mark the spots besides the paint. So what they did was one guy stood at the bottom corner, and the other stood on the first spot, straight and tall, as if he WERE A POST. The guy at the bottom squinted and bobbled his head to see if the two human posts lined up. This process was repeated up the road at each marked spot.

I was laughing so hard at this point that I nearly missed a phone call from Super Prez. I had sent him a message saying we needed the plans. He called the contractor, who said the two guys had the plans. And well, yes, they did have plans, but those plans weren’t the plans for La Yacata. They were the project plans, and there had been some modifications since the project plans had been made, one of which was that the new posts were to be placed in the same spot as the old posts. Nobody had told this to the two guys who were marking on the opposite side of the road.

Super Prez was going to send me to have a new set of the plans printed out, but he remembered he had a set at his house. He called the ‘chacha and told her to expect me. We dashed to his house, picked up the plans, and brought them back to the guys. When we got back, they had moved on to the posts on the main road, the ones that had fallen, and were doing the same measurement skit there.

I have to say that these guys were probably not the most capable electrical road crew I’ve come across, but perhaps they were just the post-hole diggers, and the next group would seem more like electricians. I couldn’t wait to see what would happen next.