Musical Chairs

Well, we now have Costa Rican driver's licenses! Fortunately, we had a delightful relocation agent at our side to step us through the process, because there was no way we could have managed the labyrinth by ourselves. Perhaps we should not have been surprised, but like many things in Costa Rica, getting what you want is less about following directions and more about having a frame of reference.

Our agent picked us up at 8:30 and drove us to the north side of San Jose (Uruca is about 30 minutes away during rush hour) where we parked in the last remaining spot and proceeded to walk about a mile to what was we were told was a clinic to have our blood typed. The word Clinic must not translate directly. This place was more like an abandoned apartment turned meth lab that someone decided could front as a legitimate business and launder money by pricking fingers. 40,000 Colones later (that’s $80 in case you’ve forgotten), we had our fingers pricked and our height and weight taken and eyes checked. Afterward we wondered if we could have saved the money and told them our blood type, height and weight. At least we now know our measurements in metric. Nancy likes that her weight is “under a hundred”.

We then trudged back to where we had parked and proceeded to wait in the “foreigner line” for 2 hours. The line started outside, where we had to leave our guide, then moved to one row of chairs in a lobby, and then to another row of chairs in the lobby. Then Nancy got lucky and stood in a staircase for 45 minutes while Jim relaxed in a chair. At the top of the stairs were 3 more chairs to shift through. As Nancy finally ascended the stairs, she counted 6 people whose job appeared to have involved standing around and chatting outside of their offices.

When Nancy finally made it to “the desk”, with me still down stairs in my comfy chair, she found what I later described as “take your mother to work” day. The “document checker” looked over Nancy’s papers and then read off the passport information to the other woman (aka “mom”). “Mom” then wrote the information into a ledger. Quality professionals in the readership will note that when “mom” made mistakes, she sometimes scratched them out while at others she just over wrote. (No need for GDP here – no one’s ever going to crack open the log again).

The two ladies examined Nancy’s passport to find the last entry stamp from immigration. The April 26th stamp (from our house hunting trip) made them think that she was over the three months requirement to get licensed. Nancy tried to say something intelligent in Spanish, but ended up motioning that there was another stamp from May 30th. They looked at it and then at each other and shrugged. When the immigration guy stamped the passport on May 30th, only half of the stamp came out, making it impossible to read the date that she entered the country. Nancy once again start to stammer in Spanish “mi esposo” and point down the stairs. Luckily, I had been given permission to get out of my chair and ascend the stairs. I gave the ladies my passport and they made a copy of my May 30th entry stamp and put it with Nancy’s papers. Then they started to write down more information in their book.

They laughed at Nancy’s maiden name “Dundon” (said as if it were Done – done) and then tried to spell Broge. “Ba” (mom writes down a V). “No, no Ba, Ba” (mom scratches out the V and writes B). “Ahrro” (mom writes down an R). “Oh” (mom says, “Si, Ahrro”). “no, Ahrro, Oh”. “Hey” (incredibly, mom writes a G). “Eh” (mom writes another G). “eh, no hey”. “Oh, eh”.

We noticed that mom spelled “Minesotta” incorrectly but fortunately the error was missed, or we would never have finished the story.

After the ledger, Nancy move down another chair to the computer guy, who took her papers and entered information into a computer, while continuing his conversation with someone else using Instant Messaging. After entering our address, he motioned to me and asked if I was Nancy’s “wife”. Then he gave us slips of paper that to take that to the bank (back on the other side of the complex) and to pay 4,000 colones apiece.
By this time it was 11:55, so we had to wait 20 minutes for the teller to return from his lunch break. Then we returned to the other building and waited to have our pictures taken and finally receive our licenses. We arrived at 9:00 and left right before 1 pm, right before the daily rain began to pour.

While this “process” was challenging, at no time did we have to prove that we knew how to drive or that we could even read the Spanish road signs…which seems to underscore our observation that the signs are suggestions.