Passport, safe conduct and the trials of the immigration office

Generally speaking, I'm not the fondest proponent of the public services in Costa Rica. I gather every country is the same most of the time but in my case these services feel like they were stablished only to prove that the accumulated store of human patience does indeed run limitless. As does the infinite abyss of bureaucratic paperwork. 

Today we are trying to do the paperwork for my son's passport. It really started months ago when we began the process of asking for an appointment online. 

This is the thing, just because you have an appointment it doesn't mean you actually have a set time that you will be tended to. 

The appointment is more of a guideline. More on that later. 

Once we got here we begin the "Security clearance" dance. 

Empty your pockets, show me your hands, walk through the gate.  You beep. Oh you still have your belt on. Yeah love along. 

A kid with a stroller walked in behind me. All metal. He beeped to high heavens. Yeah let's not check him. That would be harassment. Clearly if you want to smuggle big quantities of metal your best bet is to hide it in crutches. Just saying. 

Inside though we make it on time for our 8:15 appointment. That actually means we had to be here by 8. Only to be told at 8:20 that the queue is so far ONLY for appointments that are scheduled before 8:05

That's the queue at 8:39. They are still serving people from before 8:06. 

The little LED sign though? Totally useless it tells you what paperwork you had to bring in to be here. I mean once you are here, what good is that when 90% of the paperwork can NOT be obtained in this building?

I guess it helps in filtering out those people that were clueless enough to be here without even the most basic of requirements, but I believe it would better serve by stating <Now serving XX:XX>

It does beg the question though, how can this be the case EVERY single day at the immigration office?  If it is always this packed has no one really asked how to reduce the times, increase efficiency and drive costs down?

Probably they did. And since this is the government got summarily dismissed for questioning the status quo. 

8:45, queue has disappeared. I'm told it's because they asked everyone that had to be here after 8:10 to sit the hell down. 

As such people started queuing again immediately afterwards. Again. 

Family stories and histories in the making

I had the good fortune of meeting my grandparents while being young and impressionable, and due to the way I was raised I not only enjoyed visiting them but grew up yearning for the stories of their childhood and life before "everything".

I was even luckier than some, that I met my great grandma on my mother's side.  By the time my generation waltzed in, we were allowed to call her "Grandma" anyone before my set HAD to call her "mama", not because she was in some way ashamed of her age, but she felt she was more of a mother to my mom and her generation than a grandma, different times I guess.

Back then, when I was a tiny tot (different from being a tiny adult now), she was very open to sharing stories as well.  You know how some parents will read kids fairy tales, and go over Cinderella 9000 times in their lifetime, well Granma didn't waste time going to books, HELL no, she had lived fairy tales that enthralled me eternally.

One of my favourite stories, was about when being a tiny child herself (she didn't remember if it was closer to 5 than to 10) she was taken by Leprechauns.  Well, I call them that, but she called them "duendes".  Apparently not the same though similar, little people, definite Fae folk.

She used to play outside (all kids did, outside was the place to be of course, nothing happened inside but chores!) and while walking the fields and enjoying the wonderful day, she saw a child that beckoned her to follow.

She used to lean into us kids while telling this part, and her "grandma finger" would pop out of her tiny (and yet so all encompassing and caring) hand and say "But it was no child, as the child had a tiny beard on him, like an old man but small!" and our eyes would widen and silence would prevail during the rest of the telling.

Grandma Rosa knew not to go to strangers, and back then, stranger were not people that lived across the road (like today), strangers were far off people you never ever saw, but this strange child made her comfortable somehow and she followed him down the fields.

Two weeks was grandma lost following the tiny fellow, to her? She said it was no more than a couple of hours, just walking down the fields but as we all are very much aware, the Fae make time go wobbly wobbly and stuff behave differently.

Here, we were all worried, as most children close to her, listening had NEVER ventured further away than a few hundred yards on our own, and being separated from our parents for days? Inconceivable!

"Grandma, what did you eat?" -"Weren't you cold?" - "what did your parent's do!!"

She used to quiet us all down and say "To me it was just a few hours, by nightfall I was found, but my parents were really worried and looked for days and days!"

"Back then, people used to believe more and they knew about the Elves and their ways, so they were certain one had picked my trail"

"But elves have a way of getting you lost even when you think you know you have them corralled, their feet are put on backwards you see!"

(At this age, I took that for being an eternal sign of mischief, now I wonder that if people knew about this particular physical characteristic, why would they not just follow the trail on both directions to cut time....)

Grandma told us that she asked the little "child" to let her go, that she knew she was further from home than she was supposed to be, and her mamma would be livid when she got back.

The child offered many sweets and toys, toys like you wouldn't believe!  Little carts and trains and things with wings like birds; crystal flowers and sparkles, but grandma declined saying that she had to head back, and being reasonable for once, the child said "then just go back" and grandma was woken in the fields by family and friends that had kept looking.

They covered her in kisses and hugs, and took her back home and had her relate the tale of the last few weeks.

Today we can say that she was probably abducted, or got lost in the woods and a very many things that could be entirely "truer" than being hoodwinked by leprechauns and walking miles in dream land.

But grandma would have none of your lip, she would not back down from he story for in reality it was HER reality of the time.

I couldn't go back and ask anyone about this, her parent's had long passed away, her children had heard the same stories once or twice in the past, and truth is; I don't think I would have wanted anyone to prove them fantasy.

Today, we don't go out as much, our neighbours are as strangers as people that live countries away and we can't be bothered to trust stories anymore.  Our fantasies have to do more with bigger houses, bigger cars and faster things than with alternate possibilities of reality.

I hope these stories don't die with me, I'll tell Junior about them and hope others in my line (cousins and family) share them as well, I know I wasn't the only one listening.

Politics, preliminaries, past and pretence.

Certainly, age does help one gloss over facts and forget things that now would have outraged every single cell of our beings.

I grew up during the 80s and well to be honest 90s too.  I was born in 1980 and this actually allowed me to experience both decades in ways not everyone was able to back then.

I have pretty good memory, and it happens that recalling specific times in my life is no real hassle, it just involves association and suddenly images pop into my head to fill in those years gone by as weird tv-town flashback sequences.

Today I was trying to recall how my life changed during this time for, better or worse in areas that to a child are alien as the landscape on Pluto (not a planet anymore :() but that for grown ups are as decisive as what careers we will pursue.

Back then, I came to life halfway through a president's tenure, and by the time my memory started kicking in, he was still there; things changed.

I remember when the TV had a dial, and on that DIAL there were all sorts of funny numbers.  Each number pointed to a frequency but really meant that those frequencies could be populated by channels, not all of them were transmitting of course.

If I am not mistaken, we had Channel 2, 4, Six and Seven.  One was (according to my memory) dedicated to soccer and sports and boring things like early morning Aerobics classes, One had Music at times in the afternoon and Kung-Fu movies on the weekends, the next one had silly shows and Little House on the Prairie (and news, lots of news as told by moustachioed men that could've impersonated our favourite Italian Plumber now a days) and Channel Seven had a little bit of everything back then.

So you see I am not really making stuff up:


We had these for less than half a day, some started earlier (like the Aerobics) but others had static all the way through lunch time (at first).

Politics, were also different back then, as TVs were not at all a household appliance back then (people HAD them, but they were in reduced scope for some reason) we had more live presentations with politicians and their own gangs.

You could tell it was voting season because (where I lived) houses were painted, either green and white or red and blue, not joking here, people actually repainted houses on Elections year.

You could see flags pile up on roofs and walls, posters inundate any vertical space they could and officially people fighting each other (and sometimes maiming them) over the political preference of their families.

Back then, it was just a silly place, like Monty Python sketches gone seriously awry.  We, as kids were asked to stay indoors during some of the Sunday Matinees due to the fact that people would start fighting with whatever they had at hand, and back then, our roads home were unpaved so having an idiot start a stone fight was common as well.


Over politics.

Today things are quite different, for one, TVs are not really that hard to come by, most houses definitely have ONE, but quite a few may even have one per room of the house (enough to cope with every inhabitant and then some!) and yet political coverage has been toned down on some of the more traditional media.

Last time I saw a public demonstration of political support, the way of the "Plazas Publicas" of long ago it felt like a shout out to a relic of times gone by.

My Step-Dad used to say that when he came here and lived through the 80s he was always reminded of Spain in the 60s, and mostly about how Spain had been after Franco's not so timely demise.

Economy was harsh, if you needed travel money (as in NOT colones) your best bet was to go to the black market exchange, banks here wouldn't really treat you right, that is also if you found a bank that didn't have a queue of about 3 hours to just get to a teller.

Fun times for sure.

I am sure people older than me will remember different things, while those younger than me will probably recall completely different stories.

Regardless of it it would do us well to document the past properly and apply hindsight to what we've seen rather than ask the magic 8 ball of destiny for hope on things.

Just a bit of a soundtrack of one of the songs I most enjoyed with my mum's favourite band:

It was a very Good Year.

I dread change.  I welcome different seasons, I embrace gradual stepping into position, but sudden change?  Not happy about it.

I dread as well, my New Year's post.

Not because I hate the year change.  A day is a day is a day... to brutally misquote and plagiarize Gertrude Stein, but because this year, there was so much to change and adapt to that I simply didn't cope with it as well as I lead people to believe.

I like drama, not the stupid Hallmark Shows where the main character suffers insufferably (sic) for ages while realizing that "better things" will come and meanwhile is introduced to a series or pitfalls that simply would break anyone.  No, I mean drama as in acting, pretending showing different faces and characters.

Isn't that what we are though?  Characters in a never ending play  that is life?  In the words of the timeless bard:

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.

This year I gained and I lost.  I lost my comfort zone on various levels, but I gained experience, friends and totally unexpectedly, Family.  I am grateful for said changes, who am I grateful to?  WHO cares really.  I feel that change was needed and while it definitely was more than I bargained for, it is that way all the time, with life of course.  You choose a price and that price is paid in full, but whatever choice you made, you may have bargained for a better deal.

“I bargained with Life for a penny,
And Life would pay no more,
However I begged at evening
When I counted my scanty store;

For Life is just an employer,
He gives you what you ask,
But once you have set the wages,
Why, you must bear the task.

I worked for a menial's hire,
Only to learn, dismayed,
That any wage I had asked of Life,
Life would have paid.”

― Jessie B. Rittenhouse 

And even failing to ask for more, I was given more than needed, a wonderful family, ample time to enjoy it.  Great friends and a stable position in my current job.

Very important people were no longer with me by the middle point of the year, and others came and went as side-characters in the charade and performance which my own performance was employed, but others?  Others have been luminaries, the beacons of hope and preferred roads where the current story travels, as best described by their own actions and  selfless behavior in which I was involved and amazed by.

This evening I made a minor error when filling my daily soundtrack, the music that I choose to be an example of how I feel, and left a song there that blew open the floodgates of feelings and restraint I had, so far, been able to keep in check, it's a Duet, a weird one to be sure where Robbie Williams plays half an age and Frankie (the Chairman of the board no less!!) fills in for the later age.

 I am closer to 35 than to 21, and I feel that my life is fuller than expected.  A lot of chance occurrences have given me experiences worth mentioning, and tales to be yarned and composed still.

I look forward to being 35, I have plans and ideas, and means of change.  Do I want to be a catalyst for change?  

Let this year help me decide, for now my background performance in life seems to be stepping closer to the limelight, a more robust character in a performance that will culminate in whisper at the end.