sv evi

The process of procuring our visas has been a roller coaster of emotions: feeling hope that we might actually get our visas, and then valleys of disappointment when it seems the obstacles are too great to overcome…

We moved to Ecuador on a 90 day tourist visa (which expires December 9th), because the LA Ecuadorian consulate was not helpful in the least, and it seemed like it would be easier to apply for temporary resident visas once we got to Ecuador. As Riki said, what else are we going to do when we get there?

I reached out to an immigration lawyer in Cuenca whose website I found online, and she wrote me a several page email detailing which documents we needed to bring. So we spent the summer collecting our state background checks, FBI background checks, marriage certificate, birth certificates for all of us, triplex lease. We had to have all these things notarized, then apostilled. I had never heard of that before—it is basically an international notarization process. Of course you have to pay for every service. Oh, the lawyer also offered to help us get our visas—for $1500 per person!! I wrote back that her price was beyond our budget. Since I speak Spanish, I was determined to do the visa process myself, without paying any outrageous lawyer fees.

A week or so after we got here, I went to the same lawyer’s office with my documents, because all documents have to be translated to Spanish and then notarized here in Ecuador. And you can’t translate your own documents, you have to use an Ecuadorian translator. An assistant in the office took my documents, informed me it would be $350 dollars, and also told me that we would have to go to Guayaquil (4 hour bus ride), and stand in line outside of an office at 4 am, in order to get the document that shows we have no criminal record in Ecuador. And that this was a new requirement. SIgh. Really? With 2 young kids and an infant in tow?

I made an appointment online, and the first available appointment was 3 months later, on December 19th.

I talked to other people about the visa process, and another immigration lawyer (our landlord’s daughter) told me to do it in Quito, that she could get me an appointment next Tuesday, but that I needed my university documents (diploma, official transcript, certificate of attendance, all notarized and apostilled) because the lease wouldn’t be accepted.

Pretty much everyone told me a different story about what was required, so I decided to go talk to the visa people myself. Luz and I took the bus to Azogues (40 minutes from Cuenca), where we met with a lovely woman named Diana, who cleared up all my questions, told me we didn’t have to go stand in the 4 am. line, and told me to call her when I had my papers in order and she could help us, even though it was in advance of our appointment. That was a definite peak on the roller coaster. She did say that I couldn’t be a dependent of Riki’s, so would need either my university papers or my lease for our Tacoma house.

I set about getting those papers with the help of our tenant Mary & my sister Susha…

And when I received the documents from the States, and got them translated & notarized, I called her. Of course, she didn’t answer. No one answered for several days, and I couldn’t leave a message. So Luz and I took the bus to Azogues to find her…and she said, next Tuesday, 9:30 am.

Which was last Tuesday, we all went to Azogues on the bus (Tomu and Jade skipped school), with high hopes of submitting our papers. (After submitting the papers, there is currently a two week turnaround, where they let you know if you get the visa or not). The first paper Diana looked at was Riki’s “movimiento migratorio” which states when you entered the country. And there was a problem because it showed he arrived in 2007 but it doesn’t show he left in 2007, because he left via his sailboat via the Galapagos. So she told us to return to the police to discuss that, but she couldn’t process do anything until we got that fixed. Sigh.

She then looked at my papers, and all was good until she started perusing the stamps in my passport. How long were you in Fiji? 10 months, I reply. Oh…well, you will have to get a background check (apostilled) from Fiji because you lived there more than 3 months. Sigh.

When I told Riki about the Fijian background check, he was mad. What the F***? We’ll just have to move back, he said. But I like it here, I responded. Definitely a valley in the ole process. Who knew how long that would take? How expensive would it be to send it to us? If we had known in the beginning (back in July) that we needed that, we could have started to get it…but it’s like we are doing the best we can to try to get all the necessary ducks in a row, but we are doing so without complete information.

We went back to the police, and they said we had to show them a photo of Riki’s old passport, with the exit stamp…so we had to ask Mary to find Riki’s passport in a small box in our basement room full of boxes. (She found it in about 5 minutes, in the first box she looked in—THANK YOU MARY!! Luckily Mary, Jason & their son Emmett lived in Quito for 3 years, so they know what it’s like to deal with Ecuadorian bureaucracy)

So…it seems the Fiji background check process may not take too long. Fingers crossed that we get our documents before the December 19th appointment date. And fingers crossed that it goes smoothly, with no more surprises. Diana said we could come back whenever we get our papers and she would help us…

Some of our papers expire on January 6th (the FBI & state background checks), so hopefully it gets sorted before then, or we’d have to get new background checks.

Basically I try not to worry about it, but it is definitely a cloud of uncertainty hanging over our heads.