Smouldering Coals of Inspiration

Since I've been on the road to recovery from my stupid torn tendon, I've had a lot of people ask me if I'm still writing. For me, it's a pretty loaded question. In my head, I'm almost always thinking about an aspect or idea of/for a book, but writing is a discipline and when I was in enough pain that I couldn't concentrate on TV, let alone the creative process, I disconnected from that particular skill and it's really hard to get back. Add to that a middling review and my creative flame is out.(Yeah, I thought I was made of stronger stuff, too.)

That's the bad news, but the good news is that somewhere deep down in where ever the words come from are the embers that have burned since I knew what a story was. So, somewhere in me is another book, maybe more, if I can just get back to the discipline of it. I've got three on the go, but that can't continue, I've got to focus on one  and get down to business.

I wish is was as easy as stating that, but we've got trips to plan, an apartment to organize for visitors and the daily grind of chores, exercise and, of course, socializing. (Not to mention training for our Camino de Santiago walk.) Sometimes, getting coals to reignite, takes more effort than others, but I'm willing to put in the work, just to satisfy my soul.

Here's to a brisk wind, coming from the right direction, to aid me along. I must remember:
"You may not write well every day, but you can always edit a bad page. You can't edit a blank page." Jodi Picoult

Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here...

...at least at the Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y Movilidad Humana (MREMH) in the Azogues offices.

I believe that in my previous post I mentioned that that particular office has a horrible reputation amongst immigrants to this lovely country. The issue that we came across can be fairly easily remedied, if you have friends at your financial institution. I'm pretty sure we could get Ron's visa transferred with fairly little fuss now. 

What can't be overcome is the necessity for yet another marriage certificate, duly notarized, stamped as official by the Canadian government (the DFAIT, to be specific), and translated either here, or authenticated by the Ecuadorian consulate in Canada...for a fee, of course. It must also be no older than 6 months. This is according to an immigration lawyer here in Ecuador. As I'm an "amparo" or dependent, we have to prove that we are still related through marriage.

Actually, he suggested that there might be a solution, but doubted that it would work in the Azogues office. You can obtain a certificado biometrico (a biometric certificate) that lists everything that's happened in your life since you became a resident of Ecuador. This should highlight the fact that no divorce has been registered between myself and Ron. This solution has a very small percentage of working. The good news is that we can enter the country using the visa in our old passport. The lawyer says we can do this indefinitely, but we've heard otherwise. I'm sticking with the legal opinion, at least for now.

There is a solution to all this ridiculousness! But it's only for those who can meet the marriage certificate criteria...I'm talking to you, people in the process of applying for residency visas with a (spousal) dependent.

We did learn a way to avoid this horrible red tape. Register your "foreign" marriage in Ecuador. This also requires the marriage certificate and all that goes with it, but if you were to do it right away, while in the process of getting your residency, you'd have a permanent record of your nuptials that would show up on the biometrico. Of course, no one even hinted at this when we got our original visas.

So, what did we learn? It's better to go to Quito or Manta or any other office other than the one serving Cuenca. My base instinct tells me to fight the injustice, but perhaps I need to choose my battles wisely.

Back to the Drawing Board

Well, we went to Azogues to attempt to transfer our visa to our new passports and, as all things go, it was pretty standard Ecuador. The transfer did not happen. (Okay, probably not a big surprise.) What did take us by surprise was the reason. 

Ron's pension statement comes in his day-to-day name, meaning "Ron", not Ronald. What's that commercial for men's hair colour? Reee-JECTed. When we actually received the visa, the pension letter was addressed to Ron (not Ronald, nor any mention of that). They have the letter in their files, verified by the Canadian government, notarized and duly translated. Said file made no appearance on the desk of our agent, almost like it doesn't exist or they don't know where to find it.

How I felt about it all

We didn't even get to my paperwork...what's the point? It really felt like the agent was just looking for a reason to reject us. Another couple who had been in the foyer had issues, too. Their agent said they wanted an original letter from their health insurance company stating coverage in PERPETUITY. (What private insurer is going to issue THAT?) I'm starting to wonder if we're facing a bit of racism. The one person who actually managed to get their visa transferred had a Latino name and really solid Spanish. Paranoia on my part, perhaps. It might be coming from the bad taste in my mouth.

There's nothing like having someone make you feel like you're stupid or treating you like a criminal. We can't quite decide what to do next. Perhaps we'll worry about it once we're back from our trip. Hey at least we saved ourselves $300USD.

Red Tape and Trauma

Call me jaded, but dealing with Ecuadorian government process can be stressful. We received our new passports and are ready to try to get our visa transferred over to our shiny new travel documents. We've heard that it's quite straight forward. (Cue the sigh.)

I'm probably borrowing trouble, but I can see all sorts of challenges. There are two places on the Ecuadorian immigration site that outline what you need to bring with you to get the transfer completed, but of course the lists are (slightly) different. (Sigh...oh did I do that already?)

We do have a lot of what we need and the other things are fairly simple to get...depending on which list you go by. Well, we'll just have to see, won't we? We have our appointments and (hopefully) the required paper, once we make a few stops over the next week.

I'll drop an update once we find out how it all turns out.  Keep your fingers crossed for us.

Oh Canada!

It's a big birthday, for our big sized, little populated country. We've made it to 150 years of confederation. That's pretty young, as countries go and, while our history has terrible stains, as does any country with an empirical past, we've been trying to make amends, which, I feel, says a lot about us as a people.

I'm a proud Canadian, even knowing our history of subjugation of our aboriginal founders, the treatment of Chinese-Canadians who helped build the country, the rejection of immigrants off the west coast and internment of both Japanese-Canadians and aboriginal children. We have many kilometres to go to make our indigenous communities equal, we are still struggling to make peace and reconcile these groups, but, like I said, at least we're trying. We still have to address issues of racism, sexism and general prejudice.  but people who spew that, from my point of view, are in the minority and unlikely to fade completely, sadly. Human nature won't allow complete peace, I'm afraid, but we can try to get as close as possible.

I lift my head a little higher, as we have one of the best immigration programs in the world, that we were the final stop on the Underground Railway and that multiculturalism is the bedrock and defining character of how most Canadians see themselves - more so than even hockey! We invented zippers, basketball, peanut butter, Nanaimo bars and butter tarts. We're the home of poutine, the largest producer of maple syrup in the world, and some of the best wild salmon ever caught and produce an ice wine that would make angels weep with joy.  We're the birthplace of amazing comedians, actors and musicians, not to mention hockey players. There's a long list of things to be proud of, impressed by and jealous of, to be sure.

For me, this idea of being Canadian is not just about the maple leaf on my passport or it being home, it's about freedom from hate, intolerance and bigotry. It's about being welcomed warmly in almost every country I've entered that makes me feel so strongly about where I come from. It's about not being afraid to accept, help and give to others without fearing that we will lose something ourselves. Do we still have work to do? Yes, and the sooner the better, but that doesn't mean we haven't come a long way already.

Happy Canada Day!