Permanent Residency, or Perpetual Tramite?

(Note: Find a definition of "tramite" here.)

I realize this is the second post in a row about frustrations we are facing in our current city and culture here in Iquique. So before going any farther I want to post a disclaimer that we really do love it here, headlights or no headlights, tramites or no tramites. Really, we do! :)

Some of you might remember that on August 14, 2008 we applied for our permanent residency here in Chile. It was a little crazy, but we did it (see part 1 & part 2 here.) Six months later we submitted our paperwork to receive our residency documents but received the first of many extensions instead (see previous post here.)

Just for fun, let's review the process:

August 14, 2008 applied for residency

February 16, 2009 received first extension
April 16, 2009 received second extension
June 16, 2009 received third extension
August 16, 2009 received fourth extensionOctober 16, 2009 received fifth extension

Now the kicker is this: We received notice that our residency documents were issued in Santiago well over a month ago. Since earlier this year when we moved to Iquique we did the necessary steps to transfer all of our documentation here, we naturally expected that we would received the residency documents at our local office. However, when we went to the office the first week of September, we were told that our documents had been issued in Santiago and were waiting for us there instead! Since the documents must be picked up and signed for in person, the options we were given were (a) to fly to Santiago and pick them up or (b) write a letter to the governor of Iquique requesting that she contact the powers that be in Santiago and have our documents transferred here.

Naturally, we chose option (b) for the sake of time and money. I wrote a letter to the governor and Pedro delivered it to her secretary on September 10, 2009. The secretary told him that we should get in the line at our local office the following Wednesday to receive our documents. And so we did. I joined the hundreds of foreigners who wait daily for documents and stood for three hours waiting to squeeze through the tiny door at which three lines converge. Finally I sat across the desk from an agent, only to be told that the governor's secretary was obviously misinformed and that there was no way our documents would arrive for at least three more weeks!

I think I was polite. But I was fuming. I explained our situation in detail and calmly inquired as to why the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing in this office. (I'm afraid I shouldn't have said that. I tried to do it nicely. But I didn't get a clear answer.) I asked whether I could get an appointment when I returned in three weeks so that I didn't have to wait for three more hours for no good reason. Appointments are reserved for those beginning their paperwork and the agent said, "Oh, you wouldn't want to do that." I said, "Actually, I would." And I did.

So last week Pedro and I arrived on the appointed day and at the appointed time, waited an hour since they were running late, and once again we sat across from a (very nice) agent. She expressed surprise that we would think that our documents were here, even after we painstakingly explained that someone in this very office had told us that they would be. She checked online and discovered that indeed the documents are still in Santiago, and she nonchalantly remarked that often the Santiago office simply forgets to send these things. She wrote them a reminder e-mail and told us that she had already prepared another two-month extension on our paperwork ... the only problem being that the governor had been otherwise engaged this week and had not been able to sign them.

So, you guessed it ... Come back next week! Only this time she said we could come to the front of the line with Pedro's passport and she would hand the papers to him. Should have been simple, right? Unfortunately when Pedro returned today to do this she first got us confused with our colleagues who are having their own paperwork issues, and insisted that one of our children's passports is expired (it's not.) Then she finally handed him the paperwork and he left, only to discover that she had only returned documents for three out of our five family members!

Needless to say, today was not a happy morning in the Garcia household. I tried to call the agent to inform her of the mistake, but I think they were just picking up and hanging up the phones this morning (it would ring and ring and ring, then the busy signal would start.) The only saving grace is that the missing paperwork belongs to two of the kids instead of to Pedro and me, since it is important that we have these documents if we are ever stopped by the police here. We've decided to wait to track down the other two because after all ...

We were told to come back again next week. Aargh!!