...And Bureaucracy Hell

That Brazil has one of the worst official bureaucracies in the world I already knew. But my friend's story about how she got her passport the other day I find really scary! We went for a walk around the Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas and she was trying to comfort me about my trials with my Internet provider by telling me what she had to go through at the Polícia Federal downtown. The PF, as it's informally known, seems to be Brazil's version of Home Security: FBI, Border Patrol, Immigration and Passport Control, they are everywhere. In other words, a gigantic banding together of very efficient (crime investigation) and badly-managed (passport issuing) departments.

Not content with demanding that you bring along a list of documents longer than my wish list at Amazon.com, they only see a small number of people every day. This means that you have to get there at three a.m. and have a bit of luck, if you want to be among the chosen few. She didn't, of course (get there in the middle of the night), and wasted her trip. Well, not entirely. She asked a group of guys standing around what the story was about been admitted into the inner sanctum and one of them told her he would be happy to hold a place in line for her for 80 reais. She replied that he was insane to ask so much money and he came back with a final offer of 50 reais. At this point, she was really annoyed with the fellow, and finding him to be a bit creepy and untrustworthy to boot, she walked away. Further down the sidewalk, she met a nice young man who said he worked nearby anyway and would be happy to hold her place in line for 40 reais (getting there at, read this slowly, one a.m. to guarantee that she would be at the head of said line). So, next morning she arrived at about 8 a.m. to find him sitting on a small stool holding her spot: number eight in line. She got inside, was seen by a lovely young lady, and is waiting for her passport to be ready. When that happens, she has to go pick it up at Rio's International Airport. I suggested that she might want to take a packed suitcase and leave Brazil that same day to save herself some money and another trek out there.

What I find really maddening? The fact that officialdom's ineptitude generates corruption at all levels!

And if you find this unbelievable, O Globo, Rio's major newspaper, recently ran a similar story of passport woes.

The cutiepie above is NOT a Brazilian bureaucrat, but a urubu-de-cabeça amarela, photographed in Brazil's Pantanal by Felix Richter.