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