Special characters

When Kirk and I got married in New York in 2012, we had three choices of last name. 

Choice number one: I took his name or he took mine. 

Choice number two: combine the two names into one. This was Kirk’s choice. He wanted “Laward”. He liked it because it was “going toward the law.” I vetoed it because it sounded like “lard”.

That left the third choice: hyphenation. That’s what we went with, to our future consternation. On reflection, I should’ve taken his name. You would think that, given the large numbers of people that hyphenate, there would be no issues. 

You would be wrong. 

It’s confusing to people and businesses in general. Filling out forms raises questions. Manual data entry by clerks is always hit and miss. Also computer systems are generally not set up consistently to deal with the hyphen. So online, sometimes I was hyphenated and sometimes I wasn’t. If the site didn’t accept a hyphen, you had to leave a space. Unless the system wouldn’t accept that. Which made me Lawrencehoward. 

The problem was tangentially exacerbated when we moved to Reading. Our address had a slash for 15 1/2 Street.  And if I thought the hyphen was a problem, the slash was even worse. I was 15 and One Half Street all over the Internet.

Which brings me to Ecuador. It’s very common here, even universal, to have two last names. And a couple of first names. But nobody hyphenates. 

When my temporary visa was issued here, the visa computer system allowed for special characters. That matched my US passport, which also had the hyphen.  But the cedula (a cedula is your ID here in Ecuador), in a different system, did not allow for that. So my cedula has my first name, middle name, and both last names. Four names. No guion en mi cedula. 

That’s actually perfect, because every last Ecuadorian has four names. And so do I! I love it. For the first time in a very long time, I’m officially like everyone else.

Fast forward two years. I have applied for my permanent visa here in Ecuador. They have a new visa system to improve things. It’s all online and streamlined. Except that what used to take three weeks now takes, I’m told, eight weeks. I apply 12 weeks in advance.

12 weeks later, my visa has expired. I’m told by my visa agent that there is a backlog and not to worry. As long as the application is in, I’m legal.

And then, I learn the reason for the delay. The guion comes back to haunt me. The new visa system, online and streamlined, you guessed it, does not allow for special characters. This evidently explains the delay in processing my permanent visa. They don’t know what to do with me. And so, we have to have a Microsoft Teams meeting with all concerned, to discuss my problematic guion. 

I’m glad I hired a visa agency, Gringo Visas, to handle all this. They have made the whole process painless. And they know all the players and the ins-and-outs of an ever changing and sometimes obscure process. Not cheap but worth every penny. 

We met in their office and the Teams meeting went smoothly. It was solely to document my agreement with the omission of my guion. I held up my passport, stated I had no objections, and that was that. 

A lot of gringos here complain about the excessive bureaucracy. I try to look at it from a local perspective. Yeah there’s lots of government and process, but that also keeps a lot of people employed in a country where the vast majority of university graduates are underemployed or unemployed.  Not to mention people with lesser qualifications. One of my good Ecuadorian friends has a 4-year degree and pumps gas on rotating shifts.  So really, a meeting to document and confirm everything is fine with me. 

My visa agent confirmed that our contact’s supervisor received all the original paperwork and my guion confirmation, and that the supervisor could issue my visa and the order for my new cedula. 

And it took three more weeks for a total of four months. But it finally happened, and I am now a legal permanent resident of Ecuador. 

Citizenship is an option. I wouldn’t really need it, but it might be nice to have a second passport. After you are 65 you don’t have to take a citizenship test; you only have to do an interview in Spanish. Age 65 would also coincide with the five years I’d need to be here to be eligible for citizenship. 

I’ll cross that bridge later. Right now, I’m just happy to be secure in my adopted new country.