The Residency Process Begins

and driving here is...interesting

Nov 30, 2024

you know, just pass wherever you feel like it, it’s probably safe

What’s up, y’all!

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Not really a thing here, just your normal Thursday. However, everyone is gearing up for December 8, which is the day they celebrate the Virgin of Caacupé (click the link to learn more about it). You may have heard me mention Caacupé, it’s the largest town near here.

It’s not just a party, it’s a pilgrimage. People walk to Caacupé to pay their respects, some of them from more than 50 miles away, and they’ve been doing this for centuries. The roads in all directions are being prepared for the tens of thousands of people who will be arriving. It’s the biggest event of the year, so we will not be going to town that day! 🤣

Some people will be passing right through our town, too, though most of the foot traffic will be coming from a different direction. I plan to walk out to the main road that day to see what I can see. It should be interesting.

We do have to pass through Caacupé next Wednesday, so I expect we’ll see some pilgrims on that day, since we’ll be travelling to Asunción. I normally would just skip driving that day, due to the number of people that will be on the road, but it’s an important day: we’re going put in our residency application!

It will be our third trip to the city to get this accomplished, we were there all day yesterday (which is why the newsletter is out today instead). So I guess it’s time to tell you about the residency process in Paraguay.

We had some documents to gather before we left the United States. Though I suppose it would be possible to also gather them after you left the country, as long as you have a mailing address here.

First, we had to get copies of our birth certificates and our marriage license. Naturally, due to the nature of our existence, each one of those documents was located in a completely different state. 🙄 After receiving those three documents, I had to turn around and mail them back to the state where they came from, but to the Secretary of State’s office to receive an apostille for each one. I’d say for both the copy and the apostille, it cost about $50 each.

I’d never even heard the word “apostille” before this, but I know it well now. It’s a certificate of authenticity. Apparently, a certified copy of a document is not enough, it also has to have a separate apostille attached to it.

The final document we needed to obtain was an FBI background check. So we went down to our local sheriff’s department and got fingerprinted. Then we mailed the fingerprint cards to the FBI. There is also an option for electronic fingerprints, but this method worked for us. ($10 each for the fingerprinting, and $18 each for the FBI submission.)

We waited for the background checks to get mailed back to us, and it came down to the wire. We’d already set a date of October 3 to begin our journey to Paraguay, and the background checks finally showed up a few days prior. The other documents all came back very quickly, no wait for them.

But, you guessed it, the background checks also needed an apostille. ($20 each) I paid a little extra this time, and sent them to an agency to handle it for me, since we were leaving the country and I wanted to make sure that it all went smoothly. Because this was a federal document, it had to go the State Department for the apostille, and they currently have a 3-4 week wait.

So that’s why we didn’t apply for residency as soon as we got here - we were missing one crucial document. Eventually, it came. I had it shipped to my sister’s house so she could mail it to me. It arrived last week, so we were finally ready to begin the residency process.

And that brings us to this week. The documents from the US aren’t all that is required, there are also some documents we needed to get here. First, all of those US documents, plus our passports, needed to be translated into Spanish by an official translator here. We also needed a couple of copies of our passports that were notarized by a Paraguayan notary. This turned out to be the most expensive part so far, $150. I know that there are cheaper translators out there, but this one was convenient, so I went with it.

On Wednesday, we went into Asunción and dropped all of the documents off with the translator/notary, because I found someone who could do both. Their office was located in the World Trade Center, did you know there are World Trade Centers all over the world? They told us to come back on Friday and everything would be ready.

After that, we headed to the Toyota dealership to get some new tires for the truck, and some other parts. Y’all, this was the coolest dealership I’ve ever been to. They had a cafeteria, and we had a nice lunch while we were waiting. We picked up some other parts around town that gnob had arranged prior, and then we headed home.

LOL. I make it sound like an easy drive, but it’s still insane to drive around the city. There are red lights at major intersections, but that’s about it. Everywhere else, you fend for yourself. For example, if you’re trying to turn onto a different street, you just go for it. You can’t wait for the traffic to stop, it never stops. You make them stop when you pull in front of them.

There aren’t any dotted lines to tell you which lane you’re in - there aren’t lanes at all! Depending on how people are feeling, sometimes there’s one lane, and sometimes there are four. You can pass on the left, or the right, whatever you feel like, as long as there’s room. And sometimes even when there’s not room! I took a picture to try and describe it a little better:

Traffic is pretty light in this picture, FYI. But the white truck on the left is still moving. He finally stopped when he decided that we weren’t going to. If you zoom in on the street ahead, you’ll see the cars are everywhere, there aren’t lanes. What also isn’t there are traffic control devices of any type.

We’ve decided we actually like it better this way. There’s no sitting at a red light for no reason. And, because there is no one in control, everyone is in control. There is much better situational awareness from all drivers, because there has to be. I really enjoy watching the motorcycles. They do whatever they want, weaving through anything and everything.

But back to the story.

Yesterday, we got up early and went into Asunción again. This time, I made arrangements with a fellow US citizen to park at his house, and we took an Uber everywhere. Much less stressful when you’re not doing the driving!

Our first stop was back at the translator’s office to pick up our documents. Then, we went to Interpol for another background check. We found out when we got there that we needed to provide a couple of photos of ourselves, but there was a photoshop right across the street, so only an extra five minutes and five dollars.

I expected Interpol to be really huge and busy, but it wasn’t. We filled out the application and waited in line for about ten minutes. Then, they took our application and our money ($27 for both), and told us to wait. After another half hour or so, they called us back and took our fingerprints. Then, they said the documents would be ready next Wednesday, which we were expecting, because we knew it took 72 hours for this step.

We left Interpol and went to have lunch at a place someone recommended to me. I finally got my hands on some chipa so’o, which, if you’ll recall, is like a chipa and empanada combined.

I’m glad I had some, but to my surprise, I think I prefer the two things separate. Still very good, though.

After lunch, we went to our final stop, the National Police. Here, we needed to pick up a certificate that states we don’t have a criminal record within Paraguay. When we got there, there was one person ahead of us, who we’d also seen at Interpol. He was German, and getting his residency papers, as well. Getting the certificate took five minutes, and cost $8 each.

So that’s it! Now, we go back on Wednesday, pick up our docs from Interpol, and take the whole package to the Migrations Department. Once we turn it in, they’ll issue us a paper that says we’ve applied for residency, so we’ll be eligible to stay here past the 90 days that our tourist visa allowed. Word on the street is it takes three months to get your actual residency paperwork, but we’ll see how that goes.

One other thing I wanted to mention. We did this whole process by ourselves and with my basic Spanish. There are people here who offer to help you through the process, for a fee. The German guy we met earlier had someone with him that was handling all of the interactions with the various officials.

We considered doing this at first, but it costs anywhere from $1500-2500, per person, for this service! For $3000, I’m going to take my chances with my bad Spanish, know what I’m saying? And now, though it was an insane day, we got nearly everything accomplished by ourselves, and I’m glad I didn’t spend the money. Though some of those people say they can get your residency and your cedula (which is the next step in the process after residency) really fast, because they have connections.

The people here are trying to improve their situation, and I don’t think it’s very helpful for foreigners to come in here and contribute to the corruption by paying bribes to get their paperwork quicker. So I’m not doing that. However long it takes to get our documents, it takes that long.

Besides, we’re not going anywhere, so there’s no rush.😊

I’ll leave you with this silly picture of Lotus.