Mission: Urban

Monday was the first day of school for Malachi.  There was supposed to be some sort of opening ceremony for the year but it rained so they did not have it.  Instead they had the kids in the classrooms…and Malachi did surprisingly well.  It took some warming up to the teacher, but he did after some coaxing with cool toys and yummy snacks…she was irresistible for him to warm up to!  They only stayed in the class for about an hour and a half.  The second day and third and fourth day all went smoothly…NO Crying, no clinging, no whining….NOTHING!!!  Amazing!  We were terrified of what might happen, and so far, not even a hiccup…we’ll see if that continues, but so far we are amazed!  I relay all of this to you second hand because I’m not the one who took him to school or picked him up from school this week.  Thats was Tara.  See her post for some more details and some pictures.

On Monday I couldn’t make it to the school with Malachi because Rich and had to go into Buenos Aires to start the next step of our paperwork process.  We have to get national identity cards/papers in order to live here long-term (longer than what our visa allows).  We left La Plata at 6:15 am and did not return until about 4:00pm.  It was a long day of………..waiting and more………waiting, and then the exciting part…………more waiting.  Actually when he first got to where we were supposed to go it was pretty interesting and exciting.  We had to go to the building where all immigrants/foreigners have to go in order to get these papers.  We had already been there once just to get our special Consulate envelopes officially opened to be officially told that we needed to return in order to get an appointment.  And in order to get an appointment we had to get there between 6-8am to get a number so that we can officially get our appointment.  We were told there would be a huge line of people but that as long as we got in by 8:00am we’d be ok.

So we got there a little later than we wanted and when we walked onto the street it was bustling with all kinds of activity (by the way it was still pitch black at this time, which surprised me, but the lack of light added to the craziness).  We had heard about a long line and we saw one immediatley so we made ou way to the end of it.  And as we made our way there we noticed people handing papers out to people, like some sort of instructions, and there were other people yelling out information and other instructions.  As soon as we got in line a lady came up to us and asked us if this was our first or second time here, and then asked if we had our pictures and the photocopies.  We didn’t have those, we didn’t know we needed those, but this lady seemed to know what she was talking about.  She screamed “Miguel!” and a man in white shirt came running, “Guard their space in line.  Maria!!” A lady over on the oposite corner in a green shirt came running.  “Take these guys to get pictures and photocopies, and hurry, there’s not much time until 8!” So the lady in the green shirt bolts up the street and bids us to follow her, so we go running behind her.  She takes us up the street to a corner store with a little photo place and photocopier in it.  They quickly get us in front of a blue background..snap, snap.  “That’ll be $30 pesos”.  Ok…now we were shuttled into the photocopy line.  Time is ticking away, it’s now 20 till 8.  Two other men come up to us while in line for the photocopies and after trying to understand each other figure out he’s asking us if we’ve gotten our pictures yet, but by this time he’s taken us out of line and pulled us back to the photo place.  Who, after seeing us again, give us our pictures (we were to get out pictures after the photcopies), and these guys realize we didn’t need them.  We then tell them that we don’t have the photocopies, but they say we don’t need them…huh!?  It is now about 10 till 8 so they say to us, “Don’t worry we can get you in, just pay us $50 pesos and we’ll get you in before 8am.”

Don’t forget there are people flying all over the street, the activity at this point was nuts.

While in the line to get photocopies Rich and I were starting to wonder if all this was a scam.  When these guys tried to get 50 pesos from us we realized that it probably was and decided to get back in line.  I told the dude that a Miguel was holding a space in line for us, and he said he was Miguel and proceeded to bargain with us asking for 20 pesos each.  We remembered the Miguel (if that was his name) that was told to guard the line had a white shirt and this guy had a dark blue shirt.  So we got back into the line, at the end of the line.  I found the lady that told “Miguel” to hold our spot.  She didn’t want to talk to me, and when I asked here where our spot was she said at the end of the line…yea, we’re scammed.

So we resigned oursleves to having to come back on another day, when I decided to take a chance and go see what was happeninig up at the front of the line.  It was about 5 till 8 at this point.  There was a crowd of people trying to enter and exit this building, all having to pass right in front of this line where a man is handing out numbers and a security guard is trying to maintian order.  I finnagle my way up to the front and ask the security guard about how to get in and show him my Consular envelope, he looks at it asks me something, I say “Yes”.  And he says “go on, pass through”…Wha!  “Oh, I have a friend” I quickly say.  He then asks me if he has the same kind of papers, yes he does, so he allows me to go and get him.  So I go out to the front of the steps and yell down the street “RICARDO !!!”  and motion for him to come.

So we get in with about 3 minutes to spare.  We were given numbers 44 and 45.  Great! it won’t be that long!  Come to find out, the numbers go through 200 and then get recycled through, so we actually had 244 and 245.  Ouch. We also noticed a sign on the desk of the officials we were to speak with, “$5 for 2 pictures”..hmm, we just got taken for $30 pesos!  Yup, it was a scam.  How interesting to see something like that go down…ignorant naive immigrants (Rich and I), not knowing the language that well, not knowing the process, in a strange land, naively trust someone who sounds like they know what they are doing because we don’t have a clue!  And they know that, and they take advantage of that.  Unfortunately, most of the other immigrants don’t have much money, so to lose $25+ pesos on photos and photocopies is a big deal.

It took awhile, but we got our appointments and the appointments for the rest of our families.  So February 25th, 2010 we have an official appointment to….do something.  We’re not excatly sure what will be done.  We just know we have to be there with all our documents.

It was a long day, but especially fun to be able to experience it with a friend.