Working backward, this is what I need to get in and out of Brazil:
1. A travel visa from the Brazilian government. For that I need...
2. My carte de sejour or a récepissé (temporary carte). For a temporary card I need...
3. Proof of my trip. i.e., plane tickets. For that I need...
4. The travel company to book my trip. And they won't do that until I have...
5. A signed travel request from the head enchiladas.
All I got done today was #5. I rushed the travel request to the travel coordinator, who tut tutted my emergency (it seems I'm always begging her for last minute travel arrangements) and said she'd do what she could.
At 2 p.m. I had to leave to make it to the prefecture before they closed, and I still didn't have #3, the tickets. But I had a signed letter of intent, so I thought I'd give it a go.
David dropped me off at the prefecture and I eventually found myself in the right line. I waited for over an hour before the exhausted Frenchman behind the counter was ready to see me. The first thing he did was tell me: "I'm closed."
I immediately launched into a whine. He shook his head and said "No. I'm joking." Although he wasn't smiling and it wasn't funny. He said something else that I didn't understand and he changed to bad English: "Where are you from?"
"The United States."
"Which one?"
"Huh? Michigan."
"Ah. The country?"
"The. United. States."
"No. The country. The trees, the farms...the country."
I hate it when people assume that the US is New York City, Los Angeles, and a big field in between. It reminded me of college when I used to get all riled up when rich kids from Chicago thought that Kalamazoo was full of nothing but corn.
But I was at the mercy of this guy and I had to play along. I smiled and said "Right. La campagne". The countryside. Whatever.
He asked what I wanted. I started by saying that I had to go to Brazil and he nodded and took my carte de sejour. He poked some numbers into his computer, exchanged a few words with his colleague, and pointed to the date.
"This is old."
"Yes, I know. I have two pieces of paper there verifying that I have requested a new one."
"Yes, but the dossier is lost."
The dossier? Folder? What was he talking about? I didn't lose anything. He kept pointing to the expired date, telling me that the dossier was missing, and for the life of me I had no idea what he was telling me I had lost.
And then I realized that I wasn't the one who had done the losing. The paperwork I had submitted for my new carte de sejour was lost. Maybe it would have helped if he'd used the pronoun "we". I wondered if he'd been trained to avoid accepting blame on behalf of the prefecture.
He got up from his chair and started hunting down bits of paper. I recognized the collection of forms from my visit to the prefecture in January, when I requested my new carte the first time. I was going to have to do this again?
"So you won't give me my récepissé."
"Come back with these forms, give them to me, and I make your récepissé."
I already had a bad vibe about this guy and did not look forward to our reacquaintance. I muttered something about thanks for losing my paperwork, to which he answered that it wasn't his fault. I can imagine that poor guy gets comments like this all day. I felt bad, so I answered, "I know. It's France." and left.
So tomorrow I have to go into the office and collect the proper paperwork again, then revisit the prefecture. Hopefully my tickets will be delivered by then, but by the time I get that done the French at the Brazilian embassy won't be accepting visa applications until Monday morning.
On my way to the metro station to go home I called my boss and hinted around to see if he was considering canceling the trip (for reasons completely unrelated to me). Ever the optimist, he gave me a little pep talk and told me to start packing.
No comments:
Post a Comment