At the comisería....

Rob and I have started the process of getting our residency. Need a lot of paperwork gathered together. Apostilled birth certificates, yada yada. We have to get a letter of "good conduct" from the FBI, which requires sending in our fingerprints.

Fingerprints need to be taken by the local police station. So.....

We go to our comisería (the police "headquarters" for our barrio), and have to wait about an hour for the fingerprint person, because he is with smeone who has been detained (or so we are told).

Finally, we are taken through the parking lot, into a tiny back room, where four or five policemen are drinking mate and watching the Simpsons.

The officer takes some equipment out of an old cupboard, rolls ink onto a flat thingy, and has me ink my fingers up. He takes my fingerprints while glancing at the Simpsons to see what's going on and joking with the other officers. Same thing with Rob. Then I have to spend several minutes washing all the ink off my hands in a sink older than Moses.

Talk about OLD SCHOOL!

The last time I had a fingerprint done in the states (passport? driver's license?) I think it was digital. Definitely not int he digital age here. It's ink, paper, and who-do-you-know.