The Thursday before Carnival was a big day. After spending our first week in Belém gathering paperwork, getting special pictures taken, having things notarized, paying fees and getting certificates that showed we paid those fees etc. . . I was finally ready to take my mentees to the Federal Police to be "registered" as a foreigner living in Brazil. This has to happen within 30 days of arrival or there are heavy fines to pay. The Federal Police in Brazil are known to be maddeningly picky and I had several rough experiences last year. This year, thankfully, all my mentees got through with little or no problems and received their stamped card to proceed to the next step - a visit to another police station the following week for a full finger-printing work-up. My process, on the other hand, did not go so well.
Since I had been here last year, I had to show them my previous registration card. They looked me up in the system and because of a "glitch" or some miss-entered information at the Federal Police last year, the clerk needed proof that my mom with her married name is the same person as my mom with her maiden name. I thought I was prepared for these shenanigans (when going to the Federal Police here you should bring any notarized copy of every document you can think of). I showed them my notarized birth certificate which has both of her names on it but she wouldn't accept it saying that the notary has to be from a U.S. consulate or embassy. After significant discussion (my coordinator was there with me too and was equally flummoxed but significantly less surprised than I was) my very unappealing options were to get my mom's birth certificate and marriage license officially translated into Portuguese and notarized at an embassy or consulate or go to the nearest embassy in Brazil for an interview and purchase of an official translated document that states who I am and how I am related to my mom (with both names).
It looks like I'm probably going to have to fly to Brasilia, make an appointment with the embassy, pay for an official interview and notarized certificate and then try again at the Federal Police. Keep in mind that after March 13 (my 30-day deadline) I'll be paying a daily fine for being late. Fulbright is trying to help me out as they have many contacts but when I called the embassy they told me that it was pretty much my only option. Awesomeness.
Since our excursion to the Federal Police took the entire morning, I dropped my mentees off at Portuguese class and then took off to the bus station to buy bus and boat tickets for our group excursion to Cametá for Carnival. I was met with complete chaos at the terminal. As this was the day before the holiday officially began, it seemed that everyone else had the same idea. After standing in line for about two hours, I finally reached the agent and explained what I wanted. Because of the extreme noise and my mediocre Portuguese, this task felt, at times, impossible and was made even more unpleasant by the surging, pushing and jeering line behind me. Purchasing the tickets for a bus and two boats each way for 10 people took quite a long time and my ears picked up many not-so-nice things said about me from those behind me who had also waited over two hours. After stamping and making hand-written notations on each of the 60 tickets I was told that I could only pay for the bus tickets with my card and that I needed to pay the rest in cash - which I didn't have enough of.
I had to leave the bus station and head next door to a bank to wait in another hour line for the one working ATM to take out enough cash to go back to the bus station to wait in line to buy my pile of tickets. Buying multiple kinds of transportation tickets for a group of ten gringos on the day before the biggest holiday of the Brazilian calendar year is definitely not recommended and I hope I never have to do it again.
It was about 6pm when I got on my bus, sat in traffic for another hour and finally made it back to my home stay where I collapsed in bed. Some days the adventure of being in a new place is really fun and other days one simply has to admit defeat and "embrace the suck." Well, "Suck" - consider yourself embraced.
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