Goodness Gracious

I hesitated to post this knowing someone out there is gonna say, "I told you so!" But in the interest of full disclosure I am going to share the latest development with you all. So last I told you, our lawyer had advised us to go ahead and report M's passport lost so he could get a new one and come here to Spain. Basically she doesn't see us getting it back from the embassy anytime soon and they are nearly impossible to communicate with, easiest thing to do was report it lost and get a new one.

So M went to the police station and reported it lost and got a report and took that to the passport office in San Salvador. And it bears repeating, San Salvador is NOT AROUND THE CORNER. So this is now his third or fourth visit to the passport office. He brought all our Spain documents hoping to get his passport expedited as well as the police report and his birth certificate.

Here I am going to divert the story and take you back to 1983. El Salvador is in the middle of a raging civil war. The village M is from was destroyed during the war and many people from the north of El Salvador crossed the border into Honduras as refugees to wait out the violence and destruction. So it goes that M was born in Honduras to Salvadoran parents. Over the summer, we visited Honduras and tried searching out his Honduran birth certificate but didn't have any luck. M is positive one exists, positive that he's seen it. Then before I left El Salvador, we visited with his mother who told us that his birth was registered in Honduras but that we visited the wrong place. Needless to say, we haven't been back to Honduras to look for it yet. So when M was two years old, his family moved back to El Salvador and they began repopulating and rebuilding their town that had been destroyed. M's birth was registered in Chalate at this time, as being born in El Salvador.

Now your guess is as good as mine why they said he was born in El Salvador instead of Honduras. Probably they didn't have the paperwork from Honduras and it was just easier. So M gets to the passport office and the lady there is basically questioning his birth certificate, asking why it wasn't issued until he was two years old. M, beyond frustrated, explains to her that he was born in Honduras during the war and his birth was registered when his family came back to El Salvador. Well I guess this set the lady off cause clearly the birth certificate says he was born in El Salvador. Now they are launching an investigation. Investigation doesn't sound like expedite to me. I can only imagine what an investigation through Salvadoran government channels entails. At this point I can only laugh. I'm telling you, doesn't even phase me anymore. The fact is, even though he was born in Honduras, he was born to two Salvadoran parents and is a natural born Salvadoran citizen and still entitled to a Salvadoran passport. It's just a matter of getting the logistics worked out. Thank you for all your prayers and well wishes. Even though we're separated we're doing ok. No different really than if I was back in the US. And we're leaning towards doing the second year in Spain. I've had some questions about coming to Spain so my next post will probably be about what we had to do to get here. Even though one of us isn't here!