Adventures on the Costa Rica Civil Service
I got a divorce almost four years ago. Recently my ex-wife contacted me via IM and mentioned that she was moving to Panamá. A few years ago she had mentioned in passing that she had a spot of trouble getting a civil status certification – I didn’t think of it at the time, but now my spider-sense started tingling. What if she moved to Panamá and I needed to start sending documents back and forth via DHL?
Being a paranoid with a nice strong distrust of other people’s ability to do their jobs properly, I decided to verify. I sent Harold, my bike messenger, over to the Registro Civil to get me a certification of marital status. After standing in line for 1/2 an hour to pay 50 colones worth of stamps, plus 2 hours on the main line for certifications, a civil servant told him that he couldn’t issue it, because my status was in process. He wouldn’t disclose any information, since Harold wasn’t me.
We were both rather surprised at this, since I’ve been divorced for three years, and have the Registro-stamped paperwork. Harold himself delivered it back then, and requested a certification just to make sure. I call my attorney to ask him if he knows anything about it, and now it’s three of us who are confused.
Cue Ricardo standing in line for over two hours to talk to someone, while reading The Machinery of Freedom, which I had brought along as a prank from my subconscious. When I get to a human, he insists my status is “in process”. He checks a lot of personal information to make sure I’m me, and then repeats himself.
-
“Yup, you’re in process.”
“Why?”
“I can’t tell you”
“But I’m me. You just saw my ID.”
“Yeah, I know. But I can’t tell you.”
“I just answered all your questions.”
“The system won’t show it. You need to go to a different window.” He scribbles a number on a piece of paper. “Show them this, ask them what the problem is. The line is back there.”
“Can’t you check?”
“Nope. Separate system.”
I leave, since I’m not only about to shoot somebody but have a meeting that I’m late for, and return two days later carrying a Call of Cthulhu book this time. Visions of a shoggoth gurgling through the throngs of people dance in my head. After a long wait, the gentleman at the second line is more helpful. Sitting behind some thick plate glass, he insists the other guy’s system is wrong and shows me the screen: there, in big bold letters, it states I’m DIVORCED. I already knew this, I say, and I have the paperwork to prove it. He suggests I go back to the other line and talk to the first guy again.
I try to strangle him through the glass.
Seeing that I’m serious about this, he takes the piece of paper and disappears for 20 or so minutes. When he returns, the piece of paper with the number in it has a lot more information, all unintelligible by laymen.
“Take this”, he says, “and go to Document Delivery.” Seeing me reaching through the small window again, he is quick to mollify me. “It’ll be quick, there is never anyone there. Tell them you have a ticket stuck in 2A but I can’t see what it is from our system. He should explain.”
Lacking any other recourse I go to Document Delivery, where surprisingly there is no line – only a public official speaking to his wife on the phone. He promptly hangs up (promptly in this case being anything under two weeks), and checks on the third system yet what my status is.
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“So you have a ticket?”
“So they keep telling me”, you bunch of useless fucks, the director’s commentary track adds.
“When did you register the divorce?”
“Three years ago”
“Three months ago?”
“Three years ago. And change.”
“Well, let’s see…”. He loads up my profile. “Yes, you married Hellen Carrillo, then divorced her. Let’s see this ticket… Ah, here it is. You married her again.”
He says something after but I don’t really hear it, with all the voices in my head screaming at the same time. I manage to beat the reptilian brain into submission and ask him to repeat.
-
“The paperwork is missing. That’s why you’re in process.”
“Of course it is. I haven’t even seen her since.”
“Since what?”
“Since I registered the divorce.”
“Ah”, he smiles, understanding, “It’s one of those. A basura. Don’t worry, it’s quite common”.
He proceeds to explain that the system throws up these little garbages all the time, so they’ll just clean it up. Not right now, of course, but until after they’ve done a proper study to see if it’s truly a basura, and not just that I remarried three years ago, within days of my divorce, and forgot to file the documentation.
You know, since I was too giddy in the second honeymoon.
And so I run through the gauntlet again. I had to send my bike messenger several times to check out on the status of the clean up – he started asking people whom he spoke to for their name and ID, because the issue wasn’t being fixed – but I’m finally back to divorced.
For now, of course, until the Registro’s system decides to change my mind for me.