Getting Those Blasted ID Cards

     Not so long ago, in a far away land, two girls wandered through the bustling streets of Temuco, Chile. The buildings rose around them, with a few of the taller buildings standing out against the skyline. The cathedral beckoned them, as it always did, towards the city centre. Its sleek grey exterior that ended in a pointed roof would always be the most useful landmark for them as they tried to navigate the maze of a city. The clouds were a dusky grey, not threatening rain, but making their presence known. The cool temperature and grey sky pleased the girls as it reminded them of home. The air was a mix of car fumes, popcorn and nuts but the early hour made the air seem fresher.

    As it was the first time the girls had been in Temuco in the morning they noticed how things were different. The street vendors and markets were setting up their wares and the people were bleary-eyed heading to work. The street dogs were bathing themselves or lying curled up, trying to ignore the pounding of thousands of feet, so that they could have a nice kip. Shops were opening and the queues of people waiting to begin their shopping day shifted impatiently. At a crossing, an elderly couple made it safe for lots of people to cross, as they shuffled slowly across the road, holding up all the traffic. Outside one shop the girls saw a street artist who was spray painting canvases to sell. After only a few minutes he would hold up the finished painting to the amazed crowd.

    The girls neared the city centre (their fast English pace going unnoticed amongst the busy commuters) and saw the central plaza that was to be their first reference point in their journey. There the statue of a Mapuche woman calling the men to war stood tall in front of a cool, blue fountain. Here people had to guard against palm-reading swindlers who would take people for every peso they had – as one of the girls had unfortunately found out.

    The girls turned a corner off an adjoining block to head towards the registration office that was their goal. They kept firmly in their minds, the directions it had taken them so long to acquire before. The block system itself, though simple in theory, was difficult for the English girls to wrap their heads around. Coming from a country of twisty, bendy roads where the future was always around the next bend in the road; the linear block pattern was very difficult for them to find their way around. They made their way past the banks and expensive shops that lined the streets close to the city centre. Past the people talking on their phones and the people carrying their babies that were swaddled so much you couldn't see a single part of the child itself.

    As they neared the office they began to pray that it would be open so that their journey into the city hadn't been futile like the last one. The bus journey though relatively cheap, was not the most entertaining way to spend forty minutes. Jumping onto the small buses (they only seated 29 people leaving the rest to stand uncomfortably close together) was strange because passengers paid at the end of the trip not the beginning. This led to many occasions where the girls had to run back to the bus after getting off without paying.

    Those final steps held the hopes of finally getting the whole business sorted out so that they could finally pay their kind Chilean mum for her hospitality. The need to have a Chilean ID card to live and receive money was annoying and was taking a long time to sort out. Having tried so many times before to pick up the cards and the office being shut, it was beginning to get rather tiresome just to talk about them.

    And...

    It was open!