The "Cedula"

Today we spent most of the afternoon working on the piece of paperwork for Nathan that I was dreading the most - his "cedula" - an identification card and number that all Ecuadorians are required to have for anything he might want to do - including having a bank account, travel or purchase anything like a car or house. At this point, we mostly need the cedula so that we can get Nathan's Ecuadorian passport so that we can travel with him. So this was really important, but we also knew that it would be a long drawn-out process that neither one of us really wanted to do.

We can say that all went smoothly - without a hitch. However, it took a long time - we arrived at the civil registry at 12:30 pm. We knew that the window to get a ticket didn't open until 1 pm, but we thought we should get there "early" - we were almost the last in line! And they only accept and process a certain number of applicants at a time (I think I counted around 50 people when the man stopped taking any more applicants for the afternoon).

From there we had to go stand in another room to have someone look at Nathan's fingers (for fingerprints later in the process). And then it was the LONG wait while someone typed all of the applicant's information (parents, date of birth, location of birth, etc.) into the computer. Mind you there was only one person doing this and one computer for this to be done. And supposedly Nathan's information was already in the computer system somewhere since we had already been to the civil registry shortly after his birth to get a birth certificate. But I guess they still need to type it all in again.

Then once the man typed everyone's data into the computer, we had to then wait to have our name called (in the order that we had stood in line outside) and wait to have Nathan fingerprinted (they only did his index finger thankfully) and then wait again to have his photo taken for his id. And then wait once again until the id was laminated and then wait again until they called out people's name in the order we had stood in line (the original one). Have I said "wait" enough? We finally walked out of there at 3:30 pm.

And we can also say that Nathan behaved himself very well! He was thrilled because there were people all around and he could watch, observe and smile at anyone who gave him the time of day. He even made friends with another little girl there and tons of fun laughing with her. She was a little more serious and wasn't sure how to respond, but Nathan sure enjoyed it. He even took a nap in the midst of all the people around him.

We are glad that this task is done! Santi assures me that getting his Ecuadorian passport won't be nearly as long and drawn-out! We will see! Once we get his passport, we will be basically done with all of Nathan's paperwork! YEA! And able to travel with him.

Below are some photos - to see more photos, click here (you will go into an on-line album)

Here we have the line of people outside the civil registry when we arrived. We thought we were arriving early!


For those of you who can figure out Spanish, here is the instruction sheet posted on the wall on what paperwork you need for the process of getting your "cedula" (you can click on the photo to make it larger)



I couldn't resist snapping a photo of this school-girl standing in line in front of us . . .


Nathan entertained himself by trying to take his socks off


And then he got really excited when he found a friend who was just his size!



She wasn't sure what to think!


Nathan is checking out his hard-earned identification card! I promised Santi that I will guard this card with my life because we don't want to go through that process again anytime soon!