a typical day in our lives.

today, jenny and i took a personal day to go apply for a new passport at the US embassy in tegucigalpa. this was something that we've known we should do since we got our temporary passports in costa rica, and we were excited about missing school today to do it, as it means a 5-day weekend thanks to some honduran holiday.

when we got in the embassy, we were again pleased to see that being north americans, we had no line to wait in. neat.

but that's where our luck ended. we were talked to first about not having the proper official identification (note: we DON'T HAVE ANY). that problem seemed to resolve itself and eventually we got to the part where he let us apply for the passport. things were looking good, and he even let us sit down to wait for our interviews. but then just as he was letting us sit down, he pulled out a hole puncher and a stamp and mutilated our temporary passports. (note: as i mentioned before, we have NO OTHER identification)

we were slightly concerned about the state of our identification, but then we forgot about it for awhile as we were interviewed and told we could leave. but then we realized, without a honduran residency card, a united states passport, a united states driver's license, a birth certificate, or any identification at all, we're very much out of luck. the atm cards that are on our way? we can't get them because we need ID to be able to pick them up. residency cards? forget it--i'm doubting whether they will ever show up. we spent a good 2 hours in the bank trying to figure out how we could even access any of our money from our accounts. the answer? we can't.

it's so frustrating, because there seems to be no reason for killing our passports this morning. we paid good money for those, and they're still valid for about 8 months. people get new passports while having non-mutilated passports in their possession all the time. agh. i don't think the US embassy knows how much trouble they've caused.

here's a (censored) picture of my poor little fake passport.


(i can't figure out how to rotate it and i've just given up. turn your head.)