Ecuador Day 38: Horrible

Let's start with the nice stuff for the day- the fun pictures before I get to the horribleness of what was this day. 

Aunt Jen brought some fun crafts for Mishell, including those make-your-own potholders (remember those!) and she had a ball with them.

All of Jace's dreams came true and he got to go to Mr. Joy again today!

Looks like Emma loved it too!

And of course they had to have their daily ice cream...

And back to the ice cream. I am apparently too lazy these days to sort pictures

Papa Johns for dinner is a must on Tuesday (2x1 day-yahoo)

Taxi riding. My mom thinks riding in taxis is hilarious and likes to take pictures.

Of course Jace wanted his picture with this thing. Lion's Club Quito

Okay. Now onto the amazing events of the day for Mishell and I. Where to even begin. I posted on Instagram that it was the 5th worst day of my life. That may not be true now that I am out of it, but at the time it felt surely like I was going to be swallowed up by the very depths of hell. It felt like we had a huge wall in front of us and that there were problems at every turn. I am pretty sure we had run-ins with all of Quito's meanest people today, and that is saying a lot since I generally feel that Ecuadorians are pretty friendly as a whole. 

So let's summarize (and I will try not to get too long-winded, but you know me). 

We were picked up at 6:30 AM by Ramiro. Another super early day. He has Pico y Placa on Tuesdays so that means he cannot drive during peak traffic hours, from 7 am to 9:30 am and from 4:30 pm to 7:00 pm. So, he picked us up early enough that we could be outside of city limits before his restrictions started. Then we were off to get MJB at her house and on to the Civil Service Registry again. UGH. Just the thought of it....

So we got there about 20 minutes to 8 and were about the 2nd people there. As soon as they opened, MJB marched herself into the office and talked to someone that looked important. She emerged a while later, saying that everything was great, but there were two problems. She loves to start with "everything is great" before launching into why things really aren't great. Anyway, the problems were this: 1) The system for printing birth certificates was down and there was no printing happening. Period. No one looked too alarmed about this and moved slowly about their business. No rush to get it fixed, ya know. 2) When the new birth certificate printed, it would likely have a new number that was different than Mishell's current ID (cedula). All Ecuadorians have a cedula, no matter their age. So Mishell already had one, but in her old name. The problem with the two not matching, as per MJB's description, was that the system would think that Mishell stole someone's identity to try to obtain a new number. You'd think that this would have come up before in our conversations, because as per this description, this would happen with EVERY adopted child, no? Also, you'd then think that they would have some system to deal with it properly, but again, apparently not. So. Problems abounded first thing in the AM and when you get up at 6:30 to hopefully get everything done quickly, that's not a good start.

Another problem: We had to leave the Civil Service Registry by 9:30 am because MJB had court at 11 with another family that is here. She needed to be there by 10:30. So, 9:15 rolls around and someone announces that the system is back up. MJB does what she does best and runs to the front of the line and just starts talking to the nearest lady. Apparently there are only 2 in that whole office who issue birth certificates, and the one we got was a REAL gem (sarcasm). If we didn't have enough problems already, she greatly added to them. She took a look at all of our plentiful documentation and then announced she would not provide any birth certificates to us because I did not have my marriage license with me. Yes, my MARRIAGE LICENSE...seriously. Let's discuss the problems with this. A) nowhere, never has there been any word that I may need my marriage license, so do I have it here? NO. B) MJB said this has NEVER been required. The adoption decree clearly states that Devin and I are married and this is signed by the judge, stating that Mishell is now our child. If she needs to know that we are married, it is right there in the decree. C) the decree clearly states that we are her parents now. Since when did it matter if parents are married or not in order to be issued a birth certificate? Right. I know. We ARE married, but I am positive that most birth certificates in that place are issued to unmarried parents. So, yeah. D) Devin signed a Power of Attorney in front of that $300 notary (remember that?) that clearly states that I have the power to make decision for him, INCLUDING in obtaining a birth certificate for our child. 

Did any of this matter to this nice lady? Not a bit. MJB demanded that she talk to someone else and the lady disappeared WITH all of our documentation. She was gone so long I thought MJB might have a heart attack on the spot. Remember we were supposed to be gone by this point. Finally, she found someone else and told her to retrieve the other lady to get the documents back. Lady 2 got Lady 1 to reappear, who then told us that she was going to confiscate our documents until we could come back with the marriage license. Yeah right lady. MJB snatched those documents right out of her hands and went running. We had sense enough to run after her. When we were clear, she said that she was certain that we would be able to go after her court appointment and get the birth certificate in the Civil Service Registry in the north. The news that there was a Civil Service Registry in the north was definitely news to me, and even more news that we could use it? Why in the world haven't we used this one to this point? Remember I was under the impression that we had to use the one in the south because they are the big on that issues ALL birth certificates. Still don't know the disconnect there, but there you are.

Mishell and I had a little lunch while MJB went to court with the other family. She was gone about an hour and then we reconvened in Ramiro's van for our second attempt at the birth certificate. Lo and behold, the north office is approximately 5 minutes from our house. I kid you not, walking distance. Remember, we were driving an hour to the other one, two days in a row. UGH. When we walked in, MJB immediately got excited as she found a friend who she was certain would help us. And sure enough, she did. This lady had no problem issuing us birth certificates to our hearts' content. I have 8 copies now. That was the first good news of the day. It felt kind of like a blow, though, that it was THAT easy in the OFFICE NEXT DOOR TO OUR HOUSE with the nice lady. Anyway, that's neither here nor there, apparently.

Our next stop was the cedula department next door. With birth certificates in hand, we were ready to take that on. However, remember the problem with the ID and birth certificate not matching? Well that one came to fruition (of course) and we were left with two separate numbers when we needed them to merge. MJB knows people and for a *slight* bit of money, she said they could fix it that day. Otherwise, I could take my chances and see if it was fixed by Thursday. We could have gotten the cedula just fine; it was just an issue of the numbers needing to be rectified in the system before we get the passport. So, I opted to have the friend help us get it fixed today because you know that without that, nothing would be done by Thursday, most definitely. We jumped right to the front of the line for the cedula too (MJB's speciality) and got that done in okay time. 

By this time in the day, I felt like I had jumped through hoops of fire. We'd get one thing handled and then another would crop up. It was really exhausting emotionally, plus we were really tired physically from all the late nights and early mornings. But alas, our problems were not over.

We then arrived at the passport office, which was supposed to be the easiest stop ("15-20 minutes, tops!"). Well, that just can't be, right? We got there and there was no line. The man at the window had to check all our documents before letting us into the building. We provided the following 5 documents to him: 1) Mishell's birth certificate 2) Mishell's new cedula 3) my passport 4) the adoption decree and 5) Devin's Power of Attorney. The man took a quick glance at them, shoved them back to MJB and told her we had to leave because we were missing documents. She tried to ask what was missing, but he kept shoving them back and telling us to move out of line. She asked to speak to a boss and he ignored her. He moved on to the next people in line who presented 1) their cedula and 2) NOTHING ELSE and on they went. If the person had an old passport, they presented that with the cedula and nothing more. SERIOUSLY. I was about to lose my marbles at this point. Or sink through the floor and just give up.

MJB, being the persistent person that she is (she has many fine qualities and this is most definitely one of them), found a side door and went on in. She left us hanging out outside for a good hour before emerging. I have no idea who she talked to or what she did, but we found ourselves inside the passport office soon thereafter. However, if you think our problems were solved, you'd be wrong. The next person we encountered was just like the first, only worse. He was rude as all get out and insisted that he would not see us nor help us because Devin was not present. MJB presented the Power of Attorney for him to read and it CLEARLY states that I can obtain a passport for Mishell without him there. He refused to look at it. MJB sent Mishell to sit down somewhere and I tried to creep on out after her, but she held me back. Pretty soon the two of them were in a yelling match, and the man was throwing our documents back at her. I was about to cry at this point. I knew we were losing hope and fast. I did the only thing I could do, which is pray silently that this man would change his attitude and would help us. I don't know what changed or what MJB said, but pretty soon he finally opened the decree and the power of attorney and read a bit. He took out his highlighter and started highlighting sections (thanks, guy for doing that to our originals). I guess he found enough satisfactory evidence that we could proceed, because he finally let us move on. But that's not to say he was nice about it in any way, shape, or form. 

The next stop was photos. They do them right there in the office here. Again, the same thing. This guy was more subdued than the last, but for some reason, he felt the need to go through all the documents with a fine-tooth comb and find fault with everything. I am pretty sure it was just his job to take the picture, but who am I to say? I wanted to just shout at him to take the dang picture and move on! But yeah, he took his fine time and was unpleasant about it too. Finally, we moved on from there and encountered the third man in the place. He was the one to issue the passport and guess what? He was actually very, very friendly. What? A friendly government employee? Can it be?

We finally emerged about 4 pm with the passport in hand. So, while I can't really call the day a success because I think I'd almost rather spend a few days in jail than re-live that day, I guess we accomplished what we needed, so I'll take it. Progress. Forward progress. We dropped the documents off at MIES for them to issue the Article 23. We likely won't go Friday because of a lack of flights. So hopefully we can get it all done Monday. Pray for us.

FINALLY. I have never been so relieved in my life. ID-check, birth certificate-check, passport-check. THANK HEAVENS.