Éxito!

A foreigner who has been working in Costa Rica for many years gave us some advice this week. In order to get anything done here, it requires ¨slight but constant pressure.¨ We think that is the best description we’ve heard yet. We’re walking this tightrope between trying to accomplish things in a reasonable amount of time and not bugging people to the point they won’t help us again. We’re slowly learning how to keep this delicate balance and it is paying off....we’re picking up our construction permits TOMORROW!!!! Yes, six months later, we have success. Tomorrow the construction crew will be out there cleaning the lots, marking the houses, and building a shed for the materials. Next week, we’ll have our materials and they can start building.

This morning we had to tie up the last loose ends and the process was comical to say the least. We went to the main offices in Santa Cruz because they were missing one piece of paper to approve the permits. A quick description, this building is divided into little windows, almost like bank tellers, where you can apply for all types of permits, pay taxes, declare land, etc. The final papers we needed for the permits were all in this one building, mere feet from each other. Apparently, plastic dividers are enough to cease all (work-related) conversations between these offices so we had to run between each one to obtain the last requirement. The person at the permit window told us to go to the next window to get a stamp on another piece of paper so she could give us what we needed. Well, the lady at the second window asked us to go to a third window for yet another sheet of paper. The third lady needed us to go upstairs to pick up another piece of paper so she could give us the other paper to take to the second window to get another paper to take to the first window and so on. Absolutely ridiculous. It’s no wonder people get so confused here, keeping up with so many pieces of paper for the same thing. While waiting at each window, we amused ourselves by people watching. A personal favorite, the man who walked in carrying a pigeon on a leash and each time he needed to talk to someone he would step on the leash and the bird would try to pull free. Pigeons? As pets? In government buildings? Like we said, extremely amusing.

All that matters now though is that we’ve made it through our first set of permits and learned a lot in navigating the Costa Rican legal system. Hopefully the subsequent permits will be quicker and easier now that we know where to get each of the requirements (and the five requirements needed for each of those). Two more visitors were supposed to fly in today, but their flight was cancelled, so well have more fun stories to tell next week of our adventures with them.

Huge hugs,
Team Wander