After smooth-sailing our way through our doctor's appointment this week, we set off with high expectations this morning on our way to have our blood work done. How naïve! And a real reminder that we have so much to learn.
We arrived at the laboratory at about 7:10 a.m. The sign on the door listed their business hours at 7:00 until 4:00, but the metal security shutters remained locked tight. After killing a little time walking around the block, we returned to find the office open for business.
A man in a white coat greeted us as we approached the counter and handed our doctor's order. In my most polite, friendly voice, I asked "¿Cuanto cuesta?". (In English: How much will this cost?) Without responding, he exited to the back office and held up his index finger when he returned, sans paperwork. A few minutes later a woman appears with a calculator, which she turned in our direction so that we could see the numbers. It read 86,650 colones.
We made a quick calculation, converting the amount to U.S. dollars (approximately $158 of them), thanked her and left. Gosh! Last year I had my well-woman exam done at Clinica Biblica in San Jose for a total of $380 and that included x-rays and the whole works! So our first reaction is that we had just encountered the gringo tax and not knowing what to do about that we approached the problem in true Tico spirit, deciding to deal with it manana. Well, maybe not tomorrow manana... but later, for sure. Tomorrow we have something much more important scheduled -- our immigration appointment.
As with all things Costa Rican, nothing is quite as simple as it might appear. Until yesterday, we believed that we had met every requirement and that all the pieces were in place for this all-important meeting. That was before a call from our attorney's office alerted us to the need to obtain my Caja carnet (national healthcare system ID card) - something we thought was only a priority if I actually wanted to use the system. Huh! More proof of our naïveté after two months on Costa Rica soil.
Here's how it works. We have qualified for temporary residency here solely due to the pensionado status of mi esposo. As far as migracion is concerned, I'm just along for the ride. Furthermore, a new immigration requirement stipulates that all residents, permanent and temporary, are required to join Caja. Hence, we assumed that as long mi esposo has met all of the requirement, e.g. he has a Caja carnet and proof that our premiums are paid up, that we were set for our appointment and could deal with my ID card ... well, whenever. (A little aside here to clarify that the premiums are $40 per month per family, so if he's paid up, I'm paid up.)
So, off we went to navigate the Caja maze once again. This time, though, we knew both our destination and the process since mi esposo had been down this road a few weeks ago.
The first step with any bureaucracy anywhere is to stand in line. It's the rule and has nothing to do with whether anyone is in line in front of you. Fortunately, we're getting quite good at it. And this time, we were in fact the first and only people in the line for the affiliation office at the Caja clinic. After about five minutes we were called into a small office where I proceeded to produce every piece of paper I believed to be required:
Passports (mine and that of mi esposo)
Marriage certificate
Comprobante de Cita, the document that declares that we have been granted temporary residency
Carnet for mi esposo
This was all good, but the nice young woman behind the desk wanted the document containing my Cost Rican social security number.
Oooops. I didn't have one - mainly because we didn't know I needed one!
And drats! This was a really big deal because to us it conjured up visions of us needing to hop on the next bus destined for the Caja office in San Jose.
Finally, whew! That fear was quickly squelched when we picked a few words out of the rapid-fire espanol explanation that indicated this could be obtained right here in Palmares.
Now all we had to do was to find the oficina de Seguro Social. She drew us a map that didn't make much sense to us, but we took it and headed out for the next leg of this marathon scavenger hunt.
We turned right because that's the direction she pointed. Three buildings down ... nothing. Hmmmm. Stopped to ask for directions. No entiendo. Walked a little further. Asked again. Received a personal escort down two blocks, turned right and there it was...a non-descript building with a small sign that read Seguro Social. Again a short wait, even though no one was in line in front of us. It's rule, remember. You always have to wait. But as short as these waits were, I'd be hard pressed to complain!
After more fumbling with papers and the tapping of computer keystrokes, I was handed a paper with a number highlighted in yellow marker. This was my new social security number.
Back at the afiliacion desk at the Caja clinic, we repeated the earlier steps, this time with all of the required documentation. We managed to understand questions like, father's name, mother's maiden name, our address... and then we were done.
On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd rank it somewhere in the 5 or 6 range. And to listen to some gringos who have gone through the process it could have been much, much more difficult, so we are feeling pretty good right now. This is not to say it was painless and without stress. Conducting business in a foreign country, without fluent language skills, and without the breadth of societal knowledge a person gains through osmosis during a lifetime of living in the country, will never be easy or comfortable. But it was manageable. At this stage of the game, we'll take it.
Pura Vida
