We Robbed a Bank.

And these are the getaway vehicles.

We had to Western Union money down to buy our motos. I won't say how much in this open forum, but those are ten thousand Q packets. Since the bank didn't have enough B's, they gave us partial in $'s. That's okay,  except Western Union exchanged at 7.2 Q per $, and the bank exchanged back at 7.45 Q per dollar. Current exchange rates have held fairly consistently at 7.3 Q per $. So we lost about an additional $43 dollars because of the banks currency shortage. I wasn't going to bicker; I was just glad to get the cash. The clerks and tellers only spoke Spanish. Besides, the two guards each had shotguns.

We went to the Yamaha shop to pick up Raquel's scooter. The owner's wife  wouldn't accept the cash because it was a "bank holiday"!!! [Hadn't we just come from the bank?!] She let us take the scooter anyway, because Andy, who purchased cycles from the owner previously, vouched for us.  We went to the Pulsar shop -- both shops are owned by Emilio -- so I could pick up my moto. It wasn't ready.  Come back the next day.

The next day, I went back to the Pulsar shop. His assistant there counted out the money, and accepted the dollars without hesitation [first concern], and initially gave an exchange of 7.2Q per $, then she changed it to 7.0Q per dollar. Goodbye another 400Q! [$54]. But I got my bike, and again wasn't going to quibble. I got my bike!🤣

Not over yet. Emilio called that night and said "trouble with money!" Now what? Was some counterfeit? Would his bank not accept $'s? Not accept $20's? Come back tomorrow. Worry all night.

Next day. His assistant [niece], had miscounted and we were 900Q short. I had been somewhat overwhelmed already in those few days, so had never written down the exact amount we had. I should have. But wasn't sure if he was going to accept the $, or if he did, what exchange rate he would give. In the end I trusted him and gave him the difference since he had trusted us and given us the scooter. At last the ordeal would be over. [Andy did go back and talked to her (Betty), and wss going to talk to Emilio also.]

NIT is not neat.

In order to purchase the motos,  I had to get a NIT [neet]. It's a tax ID, basically for yearly license and registration. Friends had gotten one the week before and it took them only about 15 minutes. Fill out a form, give a complete copy of your passport, and your done. Copied my passport after finding a tienda with a copy machine and showing the clerk how I wanted it [put 2 per page and not waste paper!]. Less than 4Q!

Went to the NIT office, waited 15 minutes, and then was told in Spanish I did not understand that they had just modernized and the form could be filled out online at home. He gave me a printout of the announcement with a web address. After some finagling and false starts, finally figured out the Spanish form. What district do we live in? Solola. Why isn't it in the drop down menu? Why is "only the" in the drop down? Oh, yeah. I cheated and had Google translate the online form into English. Solo La means only the. So I got it all figured out, even got the house address off the electric meter outside.

Back to the NIT office. They won't accept electronic copy [so much for modernizing]  and can't print it out for me. What? Print shop next door?  Okay, let's go! Print shop: email it to us. I don't have email on my tablet without internet. Won't allow me to connect to theirs or don't have wifi. I'll Bluetooth to my phone. Now I can email? No, need account password. Not going to happen even if I knew it. Finally they found a phone with Bluetooth and transferred and printed the form.

Back to the NIT office. Wait. Here's the form. Wait, excitedly. No, form is wrong. Where? Just wrong. Do it again. What? Where? Print shop next door. Okay, let's go. Print shop: you can't use our terminal,  but one of workers will do it for you. What's your email password? Don't know. Nevermind. Here's the form. Wait. Type,  type, type. Some questions, some answers. They set up a whole new gmail for me to get my NIT form. Hope they don't steal my identity! Turns out I had filled out my address wrong, substituted "district A" for "Zone 4".

Back to the NIT office.  Everything's fine.  Here's your NIT. Here's also all the copied blank pages of your passport. We just want the important ones.

To the Yamaha shop next door. Here's my NIT.  We need copies of every single page of your passport, including the blank unimportant ones. And we're keeping your NIT.  No your not! Back to the print shop. Copy passort important pages only,  others got back from NIT office,  and multiple copies of NIT.

Back to the Yamaha shop.  Banks are closed. See paragraph above.

That's why I had gotten somewhat careless about the cash. I was just mentally exhausted.  A whole new bureaucracy in a whole new language in a whole new environment. And may have already started to get sick. It was all just too much.

But, I got my moto!😆