sin resolucion, INM, Mexico, temporary resident visa, waiting time,
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My resident status in Mexico is still pending

February 28 I applied for my ID card for a temporary resident at the INM office in Cancún. It seemed like a pretty straight forward process. The visa was pre-approved in the Netherlands, they ask a huge load of paperwork for the application and took the sweet time of 2 weeks to invite me to visit the consulate, and grant me a temporary resident visa. I only had to change it to a temporary resident ID card within 30 days upon arrival in Mexico.

Now I am stuck in Cancún. Waiting for that card. I can’t go anywhere, I can’t even leave the country without written permission and God knows how long that will take to process.
I feel trapped. Nobody ever told me that it would take so long to process an ID card. Even in the Philippines where Immigration services are slow the maximum waiting time is 2-3 weeks. Here it has been what? 6 weeks now?

I know immigration services get a shit load of work every day, and especially here in Cancún some days the cues seem endless and it must be an awful lot of work for the offices to process al the paperwork, but if it is that busy than extend staff. Either temporary or permanent.
One day I waited for over 4 hours, just to hear at information a “no” without further documentation or explanation, on my question on how long it would take, she shrugged and said 2 months? And I asked her: from this day or from the start and she repeated: 2 months……..so I know nothing.

I can check online my status, but it keeps saying my paperwork is being processed and is “Sin resolución”.

It is not that I do not like Cancún, but the city is very expensive and when you are not in the hotel zone there is not very much you can do. Some days the water is unswimmable because of the seaweed, and I have to sit on the bus for an hour to get to a beach, and going back I get stuck in traffic sometimes for over 2 hours to go home.
Everything you touch here is costing you gold. Excursions start at 70 US$ and I do wonder how people can afford to pay such prices for a week’s holiday that already costs a fortune. I simply do not have that kind of money.
And besides all that, Cancún is turning into a warzone slowly. Only last weekend 10 executions within drug-related crimes, because cartels want to control this area.

Although I do feel safe, and the shootings are far from my home, this morning I saw it is approaching the area where I do my shopping and rent a house. I do not go out late at night, try to be home around 8, for most violence is during the late hours when the clubs are open. But that limits me in my Mexican experience.

That is it: I feel limited, I feel trapped. I am waiting for an organization to finish a standard procedure that has been done 1000 times before and I can’t go anywhere.

I feel limited and the lease on the house is ending

The lease of the house is ending, what to do? Do I extend another month? With the risk of the card being ready in a week or so?

I really have no idea of what is wisdom at this point Holy week is approaching rapidly, with lots of public holidays so when the card is not processed before that I think it will take even longer because of that. And the tourism board announced a scary half a million tourists for Holy Week. And the city is one big traffic jam already.

Needless to say, I am not too fond of touristic areas and I prefer rural life over city life, so I feel like a fish outside the water.

Ah, writing this down gives so much relief. I was holding back soo much on this subject. Gosh….I hate being in nothing-land. I hate my in-between-status, I am a black and white kind of person. That is why I suck at dating for example. Dating is in between, uncertainty and as a control freak, I want to know. I always need to know. Same with this, I want more information than “sin resolución” I want to know where I am in the pile? Is there a pile? And is someone working on the pile? How are things processed? Do they do it here, or is it being sent to Mexico City? And how many people work on those temporary resident cards?

Because of the lack of information I kind of sit in the dark and wait for someone to turn the light on, to turn the ‘sin resolución’ to come pick it up tomorrow!

While waiting I try to entertain myself, I go to the beach to sunbathe, I shop a bit, I cook my own meals on a stove with hardly any gas and only 2 frying pans available. I try to visit markets and learn more Spanish. But it also makes me bored, lazy, uninspired.

Lucky the house I rented is nice. I feel at home here and do not mind staying in all day reading a book, listening to the birds, watching the green parrots play in the trees and feed cookies to the neighbour’s dog downstairs.
IT is probably the ugliest dog I have ever seen and home alone a lot, like me, kind of trapped in the concrete backyard without any view on the world around him other than looking up watching me throw cookies at him.

I wish someone would throw me a cookie.

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