Hi Everyone!
So, it’s been a bit of time since I wrote, but I’ve been pretty busy. My sister Di was visiting Angela and me for a few weeks to pick coffee, and Angela and I were both looking for jobs. Well, Di got her coffee (about 45 pounds of it), and Angela and I got jobs (one each). We’ll be working for a company called Sykes in Heredia, which is between here and San Jose. We’ll see how it goes. It’ll be a departure from teaching, but probably a good departure that we both needed at this point. I will also get a security badge, which I’ve never had before, so I’m obviously pretty excited about that. Also, it appears they have free coffee, which will about double my take-home pay at the end of each month.
The only downside of getting a job (besides having to work) was the continuing Battle Against Bullshit Bureaucracy, which flared up again when we got the jobs. We both had to get a thing called an hoja de delencuencia, which is basically a paper that the courts here give you to prove that you’re not a criminal (you know, guilty until you can prove you’re innocent). In any case, the sheet is very basic and it’s actually just a computer printout, but to get it you need to go personally to the court and request it. And it takes a week. And you also need to bring a photocopy of your national ID card and a kinda stamp called a timbre for 20 colones. Now, I don’t expect you at home to keep up with the exchange rate between the Costa Rican Colón and the US Dollar, but right about now, 500 colones is around a dollar. That means the stamp costs about 4 cents (I think…I studied German, not math). Still, good deal, right? Wrong. Oh, so very wrong.
It turns out, they don’t even sell these fucking stamps at the court, and you have to go all the way back to the Civil Registry building in town to get the stamps. For some reason. And, at the civil registry, they don’t have the stamps, either. But this asshole that waits outside out the Civil Registry does, and he’ll sell you four 5-colon stamps for only 100 colones. Not that that’s a lot of money, either, mind you (uh, 20 cents, right?). But what pisses me off if the inherent recockulous stupidity of this bullshit bureaucracy, all the way from the places that provide services that don’t take your money, to having to pay some arrogant asshole (and arrogant he was…ask Angela) 5 times the price for some stamp that’s bullshit to begin with!
Anyhow, I think I start Monday, so me and Angela are hoping to go to the beach at Jacó tomorrow to celebrate our new jobs. Hope everyone’s doing well. I’ll try to keep updating more frequently now, and I’m also still working on getting updates to www.ryansitzman.com. That’s going a bit slow because I’ll be using a new web design program and there are blah blah blah!
Surf’s up!
Sitzman
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Good times. We can relate. However, we made our final trip to the Federal Police last week (well, at least until 2016 when we have to renew our “Permanent” visa). The trip was our last one because they finally had our ID cards waiting for us (after 2 years of being on order). We no longer rely on a thin slip of paper to prove that we’re here legally. That calls for a party! Enjoy the beach. Pape