We were all geared up ready to get this thing done and so Roger got here early Tuesday morning and off we went. Our first stop (after delivering Pixie back to her own home, of course), was to pick up our tax evaluation papers and pay our taxes on the car. We got there and were directed into a different office than the first one we had visited the week before. There were some people in front of us so we had to wait…naturally. But it was a relatively short wait.
This office had a lot more stuff in it but very few amenities. There were 2 desks, each holding old Smith-Corona manual typewriters…now when I say old, I mean really, really old – “old” like what you find in the antique stores old. There were stacks and stacks of paperwork piled upon a wall of old open faced wooden shelves. There was only one beat up file cabinet and a black plastic double-heart framed clock propped up against one of the piles of paper on the wooden shelf.
It was dark and dismal in that office but the ray of sunshine that brightened the place was revealed in the middle-aged woman clerk who had the sweetest smile and very kind disposition. She was a joy to just be around. She finished typing our documents in duplicate, using a well-worn creased piece of carbon paper and then handed us the finished papers and told us we needed to go down the hallway to pay the taxes.
It was dark and dismal in that office but the ray of sunshine that brightened the place was revealed in the middle-aged woman clerk who had the sweetest smile and very kind disposition. She was a joy to just be around. She finished typing our documents in duplicate, using a well-worn creased piece of carbon paper and then handed us the finished papers and told us we needed to go down the hallway to pay the taxes.
We went to the appropriate window to find out that the sweet clerk had made several errors in paperwork and we had to return to her office to have it corrected. She very kindly made the corrections and we returned to the window in the hallway to pay our taxes. Let me assure you taxes are just as painful to pay here as they are there! But, we were getting the car to be totally in our name!
After leaving the tax place, we had to go back to the Transito to get our car inspected. Yes, another inspection. Of course, this isn’t an instantaneous process so after waiting in line to get our paperwork validated there, we finally got our inspection to validate that the car’s numbers matched our tax paperwork. While I waited to get the completed paperwork, Jim took the car and went to find a place to park. We still had a lot of business to conduct at the Transito. Thankfully, Jim had a small tool set in the car and after a lot of grunting, groaning, twisting and turning, he was able to remove the rusty old screws and washers from our old license plates. Roger and I stood in the shade and looked on, all the while being very supportive of Jim’s efforts. We took the set of plates with us and headed back to the cluster of offices.
The next stop was at another building in the Transito complex to get the paperwork to get our new license plates for the department of Managua. Roger had called a Christian friend of his who works in that office to make sure we had all the correct paperwork with us. When we walked in to the office, I couldn’t believe the line. The process seemed to be that one would go through the line to end up before a young woman who would validate the paperwork and then direct the applicant to a section of chairs to wait until it was the applicant’s turn to go to the next open cubicle to get their plate paperwork.
As we were standing in line, Roger saw his friend, Francisco. They greeted one another and Francisco told Roger to go ahead and stand in the line for his cubicle. I stayed in the non-moving original line while Jim and Roger went to Francisco’s line with the paperwork as we weren’t yet sure of how this process worked. We waited about 20 minutes and then it was Roger and Jim’s turn to give the paperwork to Francisco. At that point, they motioned for me to join them as he told them we wouldn’t have to wait in the long line at the door. Francisco did whatever it is he had to do with the paperwork, stamped it and then had us go to the next cubicle where additional paperwork was then filled out by another officer. By the time it was all said and done, we were there for only about 45 minutes and then were able to go to the next step. As we were leaving, I realized that the line I had been standing in had advanced only three people in that 45 minute time frame. Francisco had saved us at least 2-3 hours of time in that one office alone. That office visit amounted to 200 cords or approximately $10.00.
The next stop was at another window in another building. We turned in our plate request paperwork and then had to take a seat. This was in an open air place which made it nice as it wasn’t so hot outside as it was in some of the offices. We waited there, listening carefully for our name to be called, while Roger ran to take care of some business in another office and after a relatively short amount of time, we heard them call out the name of “Ha-maes”. We waited and watched but no one got up to get their plates. I thought that was a strange name and all of a sudden, Jim said that he thought that was for us. It dawned on me that in Spanish, the letter “J” has an “h” sound and that they had made two syllables out of “James”. Hamaes and I hurried up to the window to get our plates. Again, we had to wait a few minutes while they validated the paperwork and finally, we had our windshield sticker and two brand new shiny plates pushed through a little window to us. Jim signed the book that he received the plates and we went off to find Roger.
The next step was back to the very first place we had gone when we first started this entire process… the mechanic’s garage a few blocks away so that we could get another mechanical inspection. Again, it was necessary as the car had changed hands as far as the paperwork was considered. So, we waited to get our twice-previously inspected car, inspected yet again! The best part of this visit was going back to the tortilla lady to get three hot off the griddle tortillas…almost too hot to handle but so good to eat!
Got the inspection and then had to return to the Transito place to have…can you guess what? Can you? Yep…another inspection! Why not? Even though we had just had it done a few hours earlier, we had to have another one because of the paperwork change. Go figure…what a racket this car thing is! But, I’m thinking that God knows Jim and I learn best by experience so maybe these were procedures we needed to experience several times over to become familiar with them. Whatever. We’ve already decided we will never buy another car from another department so that we don’t have to go through this again.
After that mechanical, we then had to go back to the bank that’s on the compound there to pay the fee to receive an exit permit for the car. That line was also long. Why not? The bank trip took about 30 minutes or so. We paid the fees and got the receipt and then went to the copy place a few doors down. This is still all in the Transito compound. We made our copies of all the necessary paperwork and then we had to go to yet another building to go in to an office to apply for our permit to leave the country in our car.
This office was crazy. There were lots of desks crammed together with people shoulder to shoulder pushing and jostling to be first at the front desk. The lady there probably hasn’t smiled in years nor does it appear that have any of the other workers, but after watching how the people pushed, shoved, argued and demanded, I think that maybe expecting “perky” from the front desk might be expecting too much! The lady yelled out that it was necessary to have a number in order to be served and then proceeded to hand out little scraps of paper with handwritten numbers on them…which resulted in more shoving and pushing.
We got our number and took our place in the Section of Treacherous Seating…wobbly plastic chairs that were loosely attached to bent metal frames. Every time someone moved, the chairs would tilt one way or another, making me feel like I was on a slow-moving bucking horse that was ready to go to the floor at any time. The number of people in the room never seemed to diminish. As one group of people would leave, another group would take its place. Finally, our number was called. Roger explained to the lady that we wanted a permit to leave the country with our car. She then handed us a form to fill out and sent us back to the seating area. Jim filled out the form and back we went to the desk, waiting behind more shoving, pushing people. 45 minutes after first entering the crowded room we were able to leave with a little scrap of paper telling us we could pick up our permit on Thursday after 3:00 p.m.
We were finally through with the conglomeration of services at Transito and left. We were ready for the break in time but were anxious to get this process done…our time was growing short.
We were finally through with the conglomeration of services at Transito and left. We were ready for the break in time but were anxious to get this process done…our time was growing short.
Thursday came and after spending some time catching up with Susanna and having to relinquish Pixie to her again for a few days, Jim and I drove to the Transito to pick up our exit permit. Roger stayed home as we all figured we could handle this by ourselves without any problem. After all, what could happen? All we had to do was to squeeze past the crowd in the permit office, get a number, wait our turn by trying to stay upright on the treacherous rocking plastic chairs and then go to the desk when called. Well, that we managed and managed well. We even signed the book, took our paperwork, smiled and thanked the cranky lady at the desk and exited after only a 10 minute wait. We were feeling pretty smug that we handled this little task on our own.
But then, I had to spoil it all by actually trying to read the documents given us. There seemed to be a problem. Jim’s name was nowhere on the paperwork and it was all in my name and only my passport number. We weren’t sure what it was supposed to look like but we were both pretty sure that what we had wasn’t right. So, we thought about whether to go back in and try to deal with the unfriendly lady at the desk or to call Roger. That was a no-brainer. Thankfully, Roger answered his phone!
We went back inside the office and while Jim was on the phone with Roger, I managed to finagle my way to the desk and told Cranky Lady #1 in my best Spanish that there was a problem with the paperwork. She stopped working for the briefest of moments only to scowl at me and then Jim handed her the phone and we asked her to talk to our friend. She never said a word, looked back down and handed the phone over her shoulder to another similarly cranky lady who had the desk behind her. The first lady never looked at us again and the second lady only glared. She finally finished talking with Roger and rattled something off so fast that I couldn’t even get one word that I understood. My glazed look of ignorance only served to irritate her even more so she just pointed to the Section of Treacherous Seating. We dutifully went and sat down, thinking that
she would take care of the correction in quick order and we could be out of there. Not so.
Our paperwork sat on her desk for awhile as she continued to glare and be rude to other folks. She eventually gave the papers to another officer and he walked out of the office with them. That didn’t make me feel any better. At least I could follow their non-progress as long as they stayed within eyesight but watching them disappear out the door made me a bit uneasy. About 20 minutes later, the guy came back and gave the paperwork back to Cranky Lady #2. She tossed them on her desk and continued to do other things. It was after 4:00 p.m. and we still weren’t getting anywhere. I was really getting nervous knowing we were leaving for Rio Blanco the next day and were supposed to leave for Costa Rica the following Monday. We were out of time for this paperwork.
Cranky Lady #2 finally looked at us and motioned for us to come to her desk. We signed the book and she gave us another set of papers, completely different from the first set but at least it had both our names on it. We could only hope that this set was right. Jim thanked her as we were getting ready to leave and she ignored him. I have to admit that got under my skin so I turned back around and thanked her again. She wouldn’t look at me but she did acknowledge our words of gratitude. It was 4:30 p.m. when we left the Transito. Drained but elated the process was over.
For the last two weeks, we had spent almost every day trying to get the correct paperwork so that we could leave the country with our car. It was a huge ordeal but we had so many things to be thankful for in each step, not the least being the friendship of our precious brother in Christ, Roger. We met some really great people. We were constantly put in a position where we had to choose whether to be impatient and irritable or patient and pleasant. I’m so thankful that Jesus reminded us of that every step of the way and that as a result, we are able to say, even with the last snafu in the office of Cranky Ladies and Treacherous Seating, we chose the latter of the attitudes. We have two weeks’ worth of new experiences, a few good pictures and wonderful time of fellowship with Roger. We were blessed! So, as the paperwork trail finally came to an end, so does our story of In Pursuit of Paperwork. Thanks for tuning in.
A side note...I had told you about the copy place where we met Alejandro and the lawyer's office on the street...when we went by, I took a couple of photos for you...the first one is the copy place and the others are lawyer's offices...
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