Government Regulations

Dealing with governmental regulations in most any country can be challenging. Ecuador is not an exception to the rule. In addition to applying for a visa to stay in the country, one needs to deal with residency on two levels once you get here.

The documentation resulting from the visa application must be filed in Quito, the capitol city. Our sponsoring organization took care of that for us. I notice the attorney working for the organization charged $89 for the filing fee and his work. This registration resulted in additional documentation which needed to be filed here in Puyo which is the capitol of Pastaza province. You have 30 days to complete these filings.

As deadlines were approaching, the president of the sponsoring foundation decided that Monday afternoon we would file the papers here in Puyo. He took off from work early and he anticipated what we would need in the local office. We ran additional photo copies of our passports and took yet another set of pictures of ourselves. We arrived at the office to find that one of the three persons who must be present at a filing was on vacation in Quito. Obviously, the other two could not cover for the one absent person. We were told to return the next day. (Tuesday).

So, yesterday (the last possible day for filing) afternoon we again met at the local immigration office. Three officials (two men and a lady) began the process of our registration. One man took our passports and entered the information in a computer. The lady wrote the entry of our entire envelop of information in a ledger and pasted a photo of each of us on the outside. This was the sole use of the photos. The absent person took our pictures with a camera connected to a computer, enters more information in a computer and finally printed off ID cards that look much like a driver’s license. The first man took a total of $10 and the last took $15 for a total of $25. We walked out properly registered on just the second try. Had we not been successful, a $200 late fee would have been accessed.

We can not resist telling a side story. The man with the camera required that I take off my glasses and lean forward so he could see my eye color. The very matronly looking clerk was watching this. She had her hair slicked back in a bun and was following some apparent regulation about never cracking a smile while on duty. As I put my glasses back on while still looking at the man who looked at my eye color, I jumped as if surprised to see him clearly with my glasses on. She lost her composure and the face cracked. For the next few moments, she would let out a chuckle, regain composure only to chuckle again. Watching the battle of composure versus mirth was interesting to say the least. It didn’t help when I commented that the picture he took of me made me look like a criminal. They understood that much English.