Author: Ryan

It’s now been 48 hours. Since I knew I had permanent status. It’s either a little unsettling to have this status, or this is just a little run-on anxiety, a tiny bit of anxiety residue, and I’m connecting it to the perm status. As if the resolution of uncertainty has unsettled me. When in fact it’s just residue. Fainter residue now than what I had yesterday.

I got permanent status here. I’m in a state of partial disbelief. It was, by the standards of my existence, a psychologically challenging final 72 hours. Due to some late complications, and multiple confusions in the gov’t office, there was a great deal of suspense, in my mind, especially during the final 24 hours. During which I was to some extent crazy at times. There are some real cultural differences that this process has highlighted, morseo than anything else I’ve experienced here. Amid ambiguity trust/faith are sometimes crucial, sometimes all that’s left.

In this country a great deal of importance is placed on whether you use your middle name or initial in paperwork. People here are genuinely confused and deeply surprised when I tell them use of a middle initial is common in America even in important documents. And really their way makes a lot of sense, a great deal of sense, because we can’t rule out the possibility of someone having a one-letter middle name. I kept telling them it was obvious enough that First M Last is the same as First Middle Last. And yet it obviously isn’t the same. I’m only this moment realizing why one of the immigration workers was genuinely perlexed that the use of (only) my middle initial on my passport did not cause me concern when the passport was first issued. I told him it never crossed my mind, and felt quite sure that there was no reason it ought to have crossed my mind. But, stricltly speaking, rightly speaking, the name on my passport is wrong. Because my name isn’t First M Last. It’s First Middle Last. I do not have a one-letter middle name. I just don’t. And there isn’t even a period after my middle initial on the passport… which would at least explicitly signal that the letter is an initial and not an entire name one letter in length. This was not nearly the only confusion that occurred in the final week.

Multiple times in the process I had to throw myself at the care of strangers. Every time I did, it worked extremely well. This included two different lawyers in two different businesses on two different days, to whom I did not pay one cent. It took them no more than a few minutes each to assist. One did so by physically accompanying me into the gov’t office (across the street from their office) to get clarification on one particular piece of paperwork that I had forgotten. I believed it was a standard and crucial part of every visit to the office. It was listed as a requirement on the website. I had remembered to bring this form to literally every other immigration appointment this year, but somehow did not bring it to my final and most important appointment, by far, of the year. The answer, fortunately, was no, that piece of paperwork is never required in this city, only in certain of the country’s other immigration offices.

Thursday night I slept very badly and at around 4 in the morning was reviewing Guatemala’s immigration requirements. Because today, Friday, is the last day of the year the gov’t office is open. The final day before a holiday is not a great time to get things done. There was some risk, I thought, that I might not have even temporary status beyond Dec 31. If yesterday had been a complete fail, my plan was to go to the border on Dec 30 and get a tourist visa so I could stay here for perhaps a month longer while I dealt with things like getting my security deposit back, packing, making the final decision on Guate vs Ecuador, etc.

The fear greatly subsided at around 9 a.m. local time yesterday because I saw there was someone working the desk who I knew understood my case well. So I was not going to have to try getting someone up to speed on the situation. I was dealing with someone who knew everything already. So then I felt pretty optimistic.

The proceedings involved two payments, one for the commencement of an investigation of some sort, and the other payment if you pass the investigation and are awarded permanent status. And I understood that the investigation rarely results in a rejection, because I think they actually do the investigation before they take your first payment. But I wasn’t sure. So I did not really relax fully until they were asking for my height and weight, etc. I knew that meant a card was being issued. And in the same breath they said something about taking my second payment, so then I knew with complete certainty. Though today I still had some afterimage of doubt in my body, along with nervous system fatigue, etc. I still don’t believe it fully. One more night of sleep will get rid of this residue.

Yesterday evening I thought to check if the card has an expiration date. It doesn’t. I find that difficult to comprehend, as virtually every other card of any sort that I’ve held in my hands has had an expiration date. But there really is none. It has my birthdate on it, and an expedition date, which is the date when you were granted permanent status. 18/12/2025.

I don’t want to jinx it, but they tell me I can apply for permanent reside/ncy next week. I’ll believe it when it happens. Or I’ll believe it 24-48 hours after it happens.

At some point in 2024, I think I knew I would be able to apply this year. But then somehow earlier this year I got the idea I couldn’t apply until January 2027. Then earlier this week I reviewed the immig/ration policies here and for 15 minutes or so, I was thinking I couldn’t apply until January 2029. Then I saw that I could apply immediately. And yesterday I went to immig/ration and confirmed this.

They do get confused sometimes about their own policies. So I’m not 100% confident. At first yesterday, they told me I didn’t qualify, and I had to point out that specific policy that suggested I could qualify immediately. Still, the immigr/ation worker resisted. We went back and forth about it and finally she went to the back room, presumably to speak to a supervisor, either in person or on the phone. When she returned, she said I was right, that I could apply immediately. So I made the necessary appointment for next week. It involves an appointment.

Two days until my appointment to renew my reside/ncy card. For whatever reason this is the threshold for me to believe Mexico will let me stay. Because when I was initially granted residency it could have been an oversight. If they renew, it’s intentional.

I made my first attempt last week but there was an issue with an address change… which we’ve since resolved. The people at the immigr\ation office are serious but also forgiving. If you make a mistake they sometimes have workarounds.

One of my favorite things is returning home to Mexico from the USA. I’ve done so twice now.

On the way I mentally review whether and why Mexico will let me back in. I review it a few times.

The light rail trip to the border in SoCal is magical.

Both times they’ve let me back in without hesitation.

I went to get my residency card renewed today for another year but it looks like I have another thing I have to do there first before I can do the appointment to get it renewed. But importantly they said nothing that would suggest I won’t be allowed to renew. I can apply for permanent residency in January 2027. Thirteen months from now. Citizenship is possible in January 2030.

Yesterday in some property listings I spotted a meadow for sale on the edge of town, to the east. 10,000 sq feet for $35k. I decided to get on my bike and go. See if I could get there. Manifest this meadow in my day. Though I hadn’t envisioned buying such a rural plot. I saved a mental image of the map and headed north and east.

This trip would take me further into the eastern reaches of the town than I previously had ventured. Further east means further uphill. The town is surrounded by hills on three sides, so if you look to the east at night you see the lights of all the houses reaching up the hillside. But I learned yesterday it’s not one continuous hillside, as it appears from a distance. Instead you climb a large hill and from its crest you see… the rest of the town. Like, there’s a whole other half of the city over there. Really I don’t know what’s over there, because I could only see to the next hilltop.

At times I was pushing my bike up and down steep hills. Or down and up. I started navigating according to the grade, in the manner of a goat, rather than by compass direction. I became disoriented. I never reached my goal. When I doubled back, I spotted what looked like it might be an unpaved road, a very chunky road with large eroded rocks, branching off from the paved road. It appeared more of a walking path than something cars could use. I looked at Google and it was there, on the map, an official road. It seemed like it might get me back to the flatter part of town more efficiently, so I pushed my bike into this more functionally and culturally ambiguous territory, a dirt road through a wooded ravine near a dried up stream. I remember it as wooded. And there were a lot of people living along the road, and nearby, in the grade above it, in improvised shelters. Cinder blocks, tarps, corrugated metal. And a lot of dogs in the road. Groups of dogs socializing. I rode and pushed my bike past many dogs, hoping none would be overly protective of the ravine and its inhabitants. They looked at me, but didn’t bark at all. I must have passed twenty unleashed dogs on that road, and none made any show of aggression at all. They adhered to the pattern elsewhere in town, where dogs behind fences bark loudly at you, but dogs roaming free are usually mild mannered.

A ways down the path, it turned up a steep hill, and a few cars made their way downhill toward me… they lumbered very slowly down the hill, steering around exposed rocks and deep ruts. I pushed my bike up that last hill and then a short ways after that I could see that the road was indeed connecting back to the less organic, more familiar parts of town.

I biked home, had another look at the map, and realized there are two separate communities in Ensenada where the streets are all named after South American countries, and the one I had set out for was not the one with the meadow for sale. The one with the meadow is substantially further east. I think I’ll try one more time to bike to it. The distance itself is not the issue. I need to choose a flatter route.

My record of not yet having talked to any gringos here was broken in early October. I was at the business where I pick up my U.S. mail, and there was another customer there who said something to me about the weather having recently cooled off. I agreed. That was the extent of the exchange.

It’s come to my attention that I have a blog. I was able to remember the domain, and by some miracle, the password.

I yet exist in this town. It’s my 323rd day in Mexico. I’m going to go outside in a minute, I mean, outside the property.

It’s been extremely nice here subsequent to the temperature inversion, which ended Thursday night. The inversion happens for a week or so every November, I have learned. I learned what it was about 24 hours before it ended. In the normal order of things, air closer to the ground, closer to the earth, is warmer. But this town and much of the coast between here and Tijuana experiences an inversion each November wherein a layer of cooler air gets trapped below a layer of warm air. This has the effect of worsening the air quality somewhat dramatically, as it puts a lid over the town and traps whatever pollution the town itself generates. But the inversion unraveled sometime Thursday night, and for the first time in a week the PM2.5 concentration was in a good range when I awoke on Friday. I have a meter. And then Saturday, air quality went from good to great, and then the past few days it has been extremely good. The immediate consequence is visual… the visibility is incredible. Whereas at times last week I couldn’t see the hills just 1/3 mile from here. I mostly stayed indoors during the inversion, where I have a filtration device and air quality is always good.

For the most part I wouldn’t have noticed the poor air quality last week if not for its effect on visibility. And the meter reading. I’m not sure I would have known from the smell/taste/etc. Maybe in some moments.

You can set up camp near town, on a nearby hillside or wherever. If you want. You can build a shelter there, live beneath tarps, etc.  After you occupy that land for three years, it’s yours.  When the government eventually apportions lots in the area you occupy, whatever lot you happen to live on is your lot. For free. This info is based on one conversation — I’m not sure I have the details right.  You’d need somewhere to put your poop. Some kind of composting toilet, or tank.  I presume. I don’t know how that works.  I’ll ask my Mexican friend.  It seems roughly analogous to buying a house in Detroit for $1.  I don’t know the details about that either. People who set up on unclaimed land, in the hills for example, are called “skydivers,” he said. I came upon one myself when I tried to hike up into the hills, but I didn’t know it at the time. Presumably when the area is developed you would then have a connection to the sewer.

take walks.

errands don’t count as walks.