Immigration Day #1

Reams of papers! Including (see second picture) every blank page of each of passports in triplicate and I have two passports! I have no idea how our attorney can keep all of the paper straight and carry it all around and be so petite. But, she is a hero. She even carries a stapler and other supplies in her briefcase with her.

We have answered questions like: When was your first trip to Panama? What airline did you take at that time? Why do you want to open a checking account in Panama? (By the way....the answer was not to spend money. Rick tried answering it that way and that was frowned at and the question was repeated.) We submitted FBI background checks that then had to be authenticated, marriage certificates that then were authenticated by the Secretary of State, same with our birth certificates, information on our coffee farm, health certificates, tax documents, letters of good standing from financial institutes and I am sure that I am missing some documents. All of these documents had to be new, fresh documents dated within the last 3 months or 1 month in some cases, or we had to re-do them.

Oh...and my actual card picture looks even worse than the passport picture on that paper!

​But....all of that is done. The reams of paper have been officially submitted and we were issued our temporary cards today. Our next hurdle is figuring out the driver's licenses. With the visas, we now have a 90 day clock to get them, or so that is our understanding. We will have to figure that all out tomorrow. Today, we just need to be glad we made it through this first step.

 Now, on to more sad news. Our dryer seems to be on the fritz. This is tragic for me for me right now, since it is the rainy season and I could not even line-dry the clothes if I wanted to, not that I want to. My poor husband is trying to fix it after our already long day at the immigration office. So if anyone knows a genie that can just make my dryer start working and wants to help us out.... :)