TICO TALES
Living with Unbridled Bureaucracy
When nobody tells you anything!
Here in beautiful Costa Rica, life is simple, beautiful, and unhurried. If something can’t happen today, perhaps tomorrow the planets will align. This is part of living la pura vida.
As of 2 August, I have been here one full year, so one would think I’d be accustomed to waiting for things to happen. Well, yes and no. While mostly very pleasant, part of pura vida is not being able to get information, nor returned calls or emails, nor an answer to any “Why?” or “Why not?” And for me, ignorance is not bliss.
However, this day brought a couple of pleasant surprises.
How to get internet in the countryside.
I’m a writer, and I earn my living (if you can call it “a living”) on the internet, working remotely. In addition to many other reasons, I chose Costa Rica because it’s a modern country with fast internet available almost everywhere. Here, even howler monkeys can surf the web. With one exception: the internet cable, the one that serves everyone else along the main road near my casita, stops 50 meters from my house.
“Nothing can be done. Sorry.”
“But what if I pay for the cable to be brought to my house?”
Shaking his head, “No. It’s not possible.” End of discussion.
Claro, Liberty (aka Movistar), and ICE are the primary cable providers in this region. There are several satellite providers as well, but the cost for any of those services is prohibitive for a pensioner. So what’s a girl to do?
Fortunately, before I left the USA, I set up unlimited data and international calling with ATT, from whom I bought my iPhone. With this plan I also receive 50 gigabytes of hotspot data per month, which I thought would be more than plenty for the web surfing I would need to do. Spoiler alert: It wasn’t. Not even close.
I could access my email, do social media stuff, send and receive texts, and most other normal things normal people do all day long, but trying to run a cell phone hotspot, with a cell signal weaker than a gecko sneeze, was mind-bogglingly slow, erratic, and sometimes just not there. Often when I would host a Zoom call, the screen would simply freeze and that would be that. And that was if I could get the call started in the first place.
And forget Netflix movies.
It was completely unacceptable. Nevertheless, I’ve completely had to accept it for nine months now, supplementing internet access at friendly restaurants nearby when I really, really needed to be online.
Reminds me of the old days of internet cafés.
Until today. After nine months of me begging him to help me find a way to get internet to my house, my Claro muchacho figured out a way to cheat the system. He then let me purchase a modem that converts cell signals to wifi, but only after I signed about 10 pages of contract, all in Spanish. In so doing, I probably left him and his offspring the deed to my house and access to all my bank accounts. I don’t even care. It will be worth it.
Voilá! Now, no longer like a two-year-old on the floor in the cell provider office, flailing arms and legs in a frustrated tantrum, I am cruising on a strong signal as I write this, having a glass of wine in calm celebration. Ah, la pura vida.
How to get a passport renewed
Most of us expats who’ve been here a while know that we should only plan to get one major to-do-list item accomplished in any given day. There are long waiting lines, snarled traffic, torrential rains, car troubles, sloths crossing the highway, and any number of other unpredictable blockades to progress.
Today, my first agenda item was to go to the post office to inquire about the status of my passport renewal. I had sent my passport to the embassy in San José about seven weeks ago. According to both the post office clerk and the embassy website, I was told to allow five days each direction for the mail delivery/return and two weeks for the new passport to be generated.
Three weeks from now, I plan to catch a flight to California to visit friends. The embassy’s instructions stated that I would receive an email when my passport was returned to the post office. However, yesterday, I received the regular monthly embassy email announcing, among other newsworthy items, the creation of new links to enable us expats to communicate directly with the “right person” for our issue, whether it’s visas, passports, appointments, or other questions.
Cool! I hopped onto the new site, clicked on “Passport Status” and sent an email with all the info they needed to identify me and the package. Instantly, a standard, auto-generated message snapped back saying it was not possible for the embassy to return a passport before they received the post office prepaid return postage receipt.
Wha-a-a? I sent another email, same response. This is not what I would call “improved communication.” Determined, I planned a visit to the post office with the tracking information the very next morning. Maybe they could find out something. (P.S. I still have not heard back from the embassy.)
The post office opens at 8:30. I was in line outside the door at 7:50, behind about 50 other hopeful customers. This is typical in this country, also in banks and other larger institutions. Always be prepared to wait a while. While in line, it’s a good idea to eavesdrop on Tico conversations to practice understanding Spanish.
One of the wonderful things about being a senior in this country is being given priority seating, once inside, and an express line just for us oldsters. Finally, I approach the customer service desk (no English spoken here!) and struggle to explain that I just want to know where my passport is.
The clerk consults with another clerk, more questions for me (which I hope I understood and answered cogently), another conference in the hallway, and finally the clerk disappears to a back room somewhere. Many minutes later, he returns with a tiny package in hand.
Oh! What’s this? I feel butterflies in my tummy. Could it be…?
I ripped open the envelope and found both of my passports, old and new, within, and nearly leaped for joy.
Hmmmph. Crazy gringa.
I was told that, if a renewed passport is left at the post office more than 30 days, it is returned to the embassy. I was just in time. But how would I have known it was there? Both the embassy and the post office have my phone number and email, and it would have taken someone a few milliseconds to let me know. But no.
But how can I complain? Somehow The Force gave me the idea to investigate on my own. Or, maybe it was just the extreme level of rising panic about the whereabouts of my identity papers. Who can say?
Estamos en Costa Rica ahora. Words to live by.
