Hi all,
I woke up at 8:00 today (yes, that's 8am, believe it or not) to take care of what should have been the last step in my visa paperwork. But because of the never ending bureaucracy-fest that is Argentine government, I'm no closer that I was when I went to bed about 6 hours prior. To fully convey the humor of my morning, I have to back the story up a bit. If you already know the beginnings, my apologies. It's going to be a long one.
In the interest of time, I won't go into too much detail about all the types of visas, but there is a tourist one given automatically upon entry that expires too soon, and a student one that requires my school have an exchange agreement with an Argentine school, which it doesn't. The one remaining option was to gather a ton of my papers and get the permanent resident visa (in the US, it's called a green card). The trials of climbing the bureaucracy ladders in three states to secure all the required documents is a story in itself, but you'll just have to believe me, it wasn't easy.
With forms in hand, I proceeded to the Argentine embassy in Los Angeles without calling beforehand. Of course, they close at noon, they're on Argentine time. And thus begins my love affair with Latin American bureaucracy. Second trip: An hour long wait just to find out that I'm missing a form. This particular form was never brought to my attention on any literature about obtaining visas (this theme will continue). With a month remaining before my trip, I left a self-addressed FedEx envelope (and all my papers, including my passport) at the embassy telling them that I will send in the last part. I stewed for almost a month as I wondered if I was going to get my passport back in time. Two days before I left, I finally received my passport with a large, worldly-looking visa on one of the pages. It came with two envelopes, and of course, no instructions. "Oh well", I thought, "I'll figure things out there".
Upon arrival in Buenos Aires, I went up to the immigration agent and hand him the two envelopes and my passport with a big, dumb look on my face (that translates internationally). He took the larger envelope and I haven't seen it since (I think it had my birth certificate in it, I hope I have a copy!). When he hands me back the smaller one I try to ask him what I should do with it, but he just looked back at me like I asked him if pigs fly. Looking back at how bad my Spanish was at the time, I probably did. But I wasn't deterred, I was in Argentina and everything else would take care of itself. Ha!
After literally weeks of asking anybody with a government job (including our postman) what I was supposed to do with the envelope, I finally found out where I should take it. So I went to a very well hidden government building and wait in line for an hour to learn that this particular department no longer does the paperwork for foreigners. The desk clerk tells my this as if it's common knowledge. Ok, at least I found out where I could have gone last month, that's a start. Before leaving the office I asked around until I found the one person who seems to have known who takes care of it now. Bueno. Problem is, I have to go before 1:00 in the afternoon. By now, I think you all know what precious activity that's bound to interferes with. Crap. After two weeks of procrastination, I squeak out of bed in the wee hours of the late morning and take the 45 minute train ride to a distant part of town. From blocks away, I see a huge line and know that with my luck, it's where I need to go. Of course. This time, though, I ask a security guard if I'm in the right place before I go through the hassle of waiting in line. I am, that's a good start, but I need to get a certificate of residency. Again, I'm told as if I should know this. So I ask him how one might go about getting this certificate of residency? As for his response, Charlie Brown's teacher would have been easier to understand.
Thankfully, this form is a lot more common, and my host mom told me I have to go to the police headquarters that presides over our neighborhood and ask them for it. So I go, pay the $3 fee and am told that I can return the next day between 2 and 6 to pick it up. Wow, that was too easy. Where am I? As you all should have picked up by now, there's going to be a catch. I returned the next day, gave the clerk my name and waited a few minutes. She comes back in a bit and simply tells me that "there isn't one here in your name, NEXT!" Pissed, I leave the police station, it's the last place I want to make a scene. I go home, and guess what's waiting for me, my certificate. Somehow, I managed to mistranslate the instructions. What a surprise.
Hang in there, we're almost done.
I had to allow a few days to recover from the early wakeup before I could go again, but I had renewed excitement. It turns out that the type of visa I got allows me to receive an Argentine ID. It looks like a small passport and will make quite a nice souvenir. So now we get to today and I switch to present tense. I wake up at the ungodly hour mentioned above and trek my way downtown. I'm not quite awake enough to be upset, but I definitely wasn't happy. I go to the same office as before to turn in what should have been everything, and there's not even a line, how nice! There is however a single poster hanging on the gate that I now see is locked. Uh oh. A rough translation is as follows:
"Attention all suckers, starting today, Sept. 1, 2005, we will no longer be processing the paperwork for foreigners at this location, call this number after Sept. 12, 2005, to figure out where it will be handled then. Not like it matters, though, you're missing a form."
M
