The other day we had our appointment at the US embassy to register Arlo's birth abroad and get him a passport. It took 2 hours to get there because early morning traffic in Guatemala City is terrible. The appointment was at 7:30 am. Ick. Anyway, the embassy dude did not automatically believe Arlo was mine and asked for some sort of "proof" like hospital discharge papers, record of prenatal care, something like that. Well I don't have anything like that. I explained Arlo was born at a birth center near the airport with a midwife. Huh? I repeated it again cuz he clearly thought I was nutso. Why would you use a birth center? Then I sorta went into wanting a natural birth and that the midwife does water birth. Water birth?! I had not much more to say than, uh yeah. So you have no record of your birth? I was at a loss of how to "prove" what I had gone through. We did have all the "required" paperwork in hand, including Arlo's official Guatemala-issued birth certificate which we got from another "official" record of birth issued by our midwife and her back-up OB/GYN. I mean geez. What the heck?

Other couples were in and out of the appointment, which took place at the American Services section inside the US embassy. A missionary couple had literally a 5 minute interview with this guy. We were there for 4 hours total. He put our paperwork aside and attended other families. Then another burly American dude came in and had my passport in his hand, leafing through it while shaking his head. I was nervous and I was so deflated. At one point the guy had us hold up Arlo between us to show the resemblance. He was not convinced. Guatemala has major problems with adoption fraud and baby stealing but this was very unexpected. I was not prepared to be "challenged" to prove Arlo was mine.

In the end the guy was like, Sorry for the delay but we'll issue his US birth cert... etc... blah blah blah. I wanted to ask, well WTF? But I didn't, I just wanted to get the heck outta there.

The way things work in the embassy and pretty much all over Guatemala is that you do your business at one window but go pay in another. Like at the mail customs office downtown Guate you have to go next door to the bank to make any payments. Anyway, I paid Arlo's $100 report for birth abroad document then went back to waiting for passport approval. When I went back to pay the $105 for the passport, there were already 2 people waiting in line for the cashier's window. We stood there for nearly 1 hour waiting for someone to attend the window. In the next window there was a woman taking applications for visas (a woman we knew from our visa paperwork trials, not a super friendly lady) and we were like, Can you call the woman who works the cashier. All this woman would say is: Please ring the bell. Uh-huh, we're not morons lady we've rung the bell literally 10 times. And there's sign by the bell that says, Only ring every 5 minutes. ARrrggghh. Ok, so harnessing my greatest patience I stood there for an hour waiting for this ridiculous lady to come back so I could give her $105.

The embassy is the most annoying place on earth! Finally leaving there is always a relief. I didn't think it would take so long so I didn't bring any water or food for myself or Andres. I was trembling by the time we left and couldn't wait to get back to the car to my hot bananas. The sun was shining and it was like a sauna in the truck.

Ok, so we left. And we decided to stop by the Cemaco store (like a Target kinda store  minus the food & clothes) to return a scale we bought. We asked for someone to come help us figure out which scale we needed but every salesperson had to spend 10 minutes reading the scale boxes before offering their opinion. Ok so no one knew anything. Finally we pick out a scale that is $3 cheaper than the original one we bought. Because I'm a magnet to the slowest lines, I get behind this guy who has a "question" about a car air freshener. This takes 15 minutes to solve, meanwhile the longer line is getting people through much faster. *Sigh* Finally get up to pay and the cashier gal tells me the new scale is $3 cheaper and I need to buy something else for $3. I told her, I don't want to buy anything else, and asked her, Can't you just give me $3 or at least a store credit for later? (At this point we just needed to get going because Arlo needed to nurse, change diaper, sleep, I was super hungry, etc.) She says, Nope you have to use the $3 now or not at all. I just stared at her. Fine so I sat down on a bench and nursed Arlo into a nice little lethargic milk coma and we went back into the huge store to find something for $3. We deliberated about getting a new lamp for my desk or a new saucepan. But in the end I told Andres I didn't want to spend over $3 and give this stupid store anymore of my time or money. So we bought laundry soap. In the check out it was about 40 cents over, or Q3. I paid in all my small change - which is truly a feat here since 1 centavo is worth like a hair.

So hungry. So sweaty. So tired. Finally get home. I realized though, as tired and all that as I was, Arlo was totally cool the whole time - fed, clean, happy. I ate and threw myself on the bed for a quick rest but Arlo was all playful and entertaining his abuelita like nothing had happened :) So that's good. Kinda was reassuring to get through a full morning of hassles but know that the ol' boy was a-OK, no worse for the wear.