Monday, March 16 - cell phone research

While Scott has his US phone turned on for our duration here, since his work contacts all use that as his work phone, I've been without a phone.  So not only do I want to get one, but Scott also should have a local number for this local project.

The company Movistar is the one that has coverage on the airbase where Scott's working.

After many unsuccessful attempts to find Movistar on Saturday when we were with the kids, I managed to find at least 3 store locations on Monday as I journeyed around the center of town.  I met Belinda, an employee, at the 2nd one and she was incredibly helpful.  Our conversation was 100% in Spanish (thank you Mom and Dad for paying for my college education and letting me major in Spanish).

She taught me that there were multiple steps to setting up a no-contract mobile phone with Movistar.

• Visit #1 was learning what was needed
• Visit #2 Scott joined me after we had set up our bank account and we brought in our Spanish bank account information and our passports.  At this visit we also selected our phones.  We're trying to go with basic internet-compatible phones that we can use while here.  Back home, Verizon will want us to stick with their phones.
• Visit #3 - we're now waiting for Movistar to approve our application.  We're not sure what this approval involves.  We hope to have word today that our application is approved and that we can pick up our phones and start sharing our local number.  

People seem to use WhatsApp here and I look forward to getting on it with the various people I meet.  In fact, yesterday I met a very international mom at the school, who has a daughter in the boys' class, and she said that there's a whatsapp group for just the class.  

Fingers crossed that we'll have local mobile phones soon.