the replacement

Last June I wrote about a rather important document that I had lost, my Ecuadorian residency card, and how I worried about leaving the country without it. I finally got around to replacing said document last week--I'm not leaving the country anytime soon, so it wasn't high on my list of priorities. But with last weekend's trip to the beach, I felt like I should replace my card so that I could carry it instead of my passport.

Replacing a document (or doing anything semi-important for that matter) is rather complicated here. Last Wednesday, I went to the police station and stood in line in a small back room to make a denuncio--an announcement--that my card was lost. This involved me being given a form that I had to take to the copy stand in the entry and pay to have two copies made, then returning and filling out the form with the exact events of the lost document. I started to write the wrong date on the top of the form, scratched it out, and then was told to take the mistake-free copy back to the copy stand and ask for yet another copy. (Mistakes--not even scratch-outs--are not allowed.) Then I had to present my correctly-filled-out form to another person at another desk, and wait for them to stamp my paper.

Thursday afternoon, I took my passport and my denuncio to the Office of Immigration, where I was given a number corresponding to the document I needed. I made a copy of my visa and the first page of my passport at yet another copy stand, and finally my number was called. After all the runaround, the actual replacing of the residency card was fairly easy. After two days, five copies, a lot of waiting in line, and one very unflattering photo, I finally had my new residency card.

I guess I can leave the country now.