Boquete Oct. 13, 2022, Residency Visa Application + Internet
Another big day. This morning, we took accumulated paperwork from the FBI (clean records), Social Security (showing we have a qualifying income), the State of Washington (more clean records and wedding license), bank records, tax stuff, passports, and a partridge in a pear tree, and we went to visit a lawyer in David (don't forget to say Dah-veed) to initiate our application for a residency visa.
Currently, we are on a tourist visa, and that is good for six months, which means it expires on March 16, six months from our arrival on September 16. Residency visas routinely take six months, which means we can expect our request for permanent residency to complete within a week or two of April 13. The good news is that the worst that could happen during this process is that we exit the country for a few weeks and re-enter on new tourist visas to complete our residency process, but the likelihood of requiring that is not high. One benefit of being on a residency application process visa is free entry and exit during the 6 month period, so that may cover the few-week gap; time will tell. Our lawyer is not concerned, so I am not, either. This entire journey has been filled with layers of magic interlaced with serendipity (serendipity is like the strawberry filling between the layers of magic); reminds me of Isabelle Allende.
Our lawyer, Javier, was recommended by Panama Relocation Tours and Maury. Javier speaks excellent English, is well organized, and was impressed that we had our paperwork organized, notarized, and apostilled. He sent our papers off with his assistant to get started processing while we each received a long form that he walked us through: "Answer question 1 by printing your last name as it appears on your passport, then on question 2, print your first and second names as they appear on your passport. On question 3, mark YES. On and on through question #42 - but quickly - where we signed as on our passport (I did mine wrong, as Mary Beatrice, and had to re-do it as Mary Bea to match my older passport).
By 10:30, we were done, and at 10:45, another staff member, Lucy, whisked us away in her car to a shop at the America Mall for our Immigration photos (no smiles, no smirks), which we took next door to the official Immigration Office to submit the photos with our immigration applications that Javier's office assistant had prepared, applied with freshly witnessed thumbprints and passport-matching signatures. Then Lucy took us to the next office to pay the application fee, then across the lobby to receive a little square of perfectly cut paper towel to clean our thumbs before departing the building and marching back to Lucy's car. A sedate drive around town to a notary's office, and then we were off on back streets for a return trip to Javier's office where our taxi driver awaited us, and Lucy's next clients awaited her escort on the immigration tour.
At about 11:30, we re-joined our taxi driver, who had waited since dropping us off at 9:50 and he hauled us back to Boquete, dropping us at our perfect rental mansionette just before 12:30.
Where we were just in time to wait for the Cable Guys. In some things there are no cultural differences;
Everyone waits for the Cable Guys.
And just as the promised 12:30 - 4:30 window set in the west, the Cable Guys appeared on the horizon. And the fastest internet available in Boquete became a blinking possibility over the next hour.
Flowers bloomed brighter.
Vultures, still lingering from Hurricane Julia, sought other prey.
And the shopping list for our move lost one item but gained five because we had lots of time to poke around the house. Maury knows where to get everything we have on our list, and what should be on our list, but we haven't thought of yet (like a clothespin bag - when is the last time I needed one of those in the city?); how to arrange water delivery so they actually bring it into the house, where to find kitchen towels in the giant Super Baru store, where the generators are at the PriceMart/Costco, and how to get the most done with the least walking. So we are spending Saturday on a shopping trip.
We can move in on Sunday!
MaryBea y Miguel
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