Permesso smarrito

I like to think that my blog is a positive place to visit. I try to keep my complaining to a minimum, partly because I don't like to bring people down, and partly because I need this space to be positive. I have good days and bad days, and some really bad days, but I when I focus on the positive aspects of my life, it becomes more than just livable. But today there's no way I can't write a negative post. I am the angriest I've ever been since moving here. This is long, but bear with me.

N and I married at our commune in July of 2006. After that, we went to the Questura in Caserta, the capital of our province, to request a permesso di soggiorno per motivi familiari, or a permit to stay in Italy for family reasons. I had entered Italy as a tourist that May, and the permesso that they gave me at the end of August was valid for one year from my date of entry. That annoyed me because I'd heard of non-EU spouses of Italians citizens who had been able to start off with a permesso that lasted two years, or even better, a carta di soggiorno that lasts five years.

That November, N and I went to Rome one weekend because I was in a funk about Thanksgiving. On the train ride back home, my purse was stolen. Inside it were my U.S. passport and my permesso di soggiorno. When we got back home, we tried contacting Trenitalia on the off chance that someone had turned the documents in. The next step was going to the police and filing a denuncia about the lost permesso and passport. When I asked them about getting a new permesso, they told me I'd need a new passport first. My new passport arrived after three weeks, a few days before Christmas. At the police station they told me to come back after the holidays. For most of January, I played phone tag with the officer in charge of issuing the permesso. When I finally managed to speak to him, I was told, "Sorry Signora, now you have to go through the post office."

At the post office they knew nothing about requesting duplicates. They insisted we go to Caserta. To save a trip there, we called the Questura to ask what to do. They told us to go to the Post Office. On and on it went. Finally someone at the Questura had the genius idea of telling us how to explain to post office officials that it could be done. He also reprimanded me for letting the problem go on so long. At the beginning of February, I finally managed to file the request for a duplicate. I checked the process online for months, and as May approached, I realized I was not going to see it before the permesso expired. Then I tried to file a request for a renewal. At the post office, they didn't want to accept a request for a renewal without the original permesso. They told me to go to the police. The police suggested that I go to the Questura. We called the Questura and they told us that the post office had to accept the request as long as there was a copy of the denuncia attached. Back at the post office, no one considered accepting that solution until N began threatening them that he was about to get very angry. They decided they would accept the request, but only with the original denuncia. Well, there was no way I was about to let go of what seemed like the only evidence that I'd ever had a permesso (little did I know, that's exactly what it was, read on.) We went to the police to explain the problem. What problem, they wanted to know? Just send a copy, they told us. That's the problem, we told them again. After a truly frustrating ten minutes, we managed to convince them to make a couple of photocopies of the denuncia and then stamp and sign them. At the post office, they reluctantly accepted one of the authenticated copies, but only after they became aware of how persuasive N can be when he's furious.

So then I waited, checking the status of my request online every week. There was never any indication of an appointment, just a note about incomplete documentation. Which document, I wondered? Was it the denuncia? Then last week, I received a convocation letter telling me to go to the police station here with four photos, my passport, the originals of the documents supporting the request (i.e. the copy of the denuncia and a Stato di famiglia, which shows that N and I are still married.) At the appointment, the first thing the officer asked for was the original permesso. I gave him the denuncia and explained that the original was lost and that I never received a duplicate. He told me that I needed to go to Caserta as there was nothing he could do for me.

Monday morning I went back to the police station. I wanted the name of someone to ask for at the Questura di Caserta so that I wouldn't have to wait in line for hours (a reasonable concern for a woman who is six-months pregnant, I think.) The officer I spoke to wasn't there. I begged the one who was to help me and after a quick glance at my abdomen, he said, "Signora, let's try to resolve this problem here." He worked on my case for more than an hour. But then he came up against one problem after another in the computer system. The officer began to ask me questions I found odd: what was my date of entry, what was the number of the original permesso. He called Caserta six or seven times, trying to find someone who would help him. Finally he got through to someone willing to talk him through the procedure. They tried to fix the problem together for about twenty minutes. Then he told me, with obvious displeasure, "You have to go to Caserta." I asked him who I should ask for there, to avoid waiting in line and having to explain the problem to yet another person. He gave me the name of officer he had worked with on the phone.

That morning, I had intended to go to the Anagrafe to request the only document we didn't already have at home, a valid abstract of our marriage certificate. N and I wanted to bring every possible document with us in the event that at Caserta there were ever more problems. But I spent more time at the Polizia than I had planned, and I couldn't get to the Anagrafe, which is open only in the morning, in time. I called N to update him and he suggested that we go to the commune to request the document the next morning before leaving for Caserta. I was afraid of arriving there too late and suggested asking the woman who we'd be dealing with exactly what documents were necessary. N agreed, so I called her, explained who I was and asked her what to bring with me the next day. She told me to bring just the documentation that I had brought to the Polizia for my appointment. In our brief conversation, I asked two more times whether there were additional documents I needed to bring. The answer was always no. Then just before closing the call, I said, "So I only need to bring the documents listed in the convocation letter." Exactly, she said. I called N to give him another update and we decided to go directly to Caserta the next morning.

When we arrived at the Questura, we asked for the officer I had spoken to, but were told that we needed to wait in line at the immigration office. There we found complete chaos: one hundred people in a room made for twenty-five, and none of them with numbers. Every seat was taken. Everyone pushed and jostled to get close to the sportello. After about a half hour we managed to push our way closer, and when a couple of carabinieri exited the adjacent door, we asked if one of them (a woman,) were by chance the one I spoke with the day before. Unfortunately she wasn't, but when she went back into the office she must have told her colleague that we were there, because we were called to the sportello after another ten minutes. Once there, everything started out fine. I presented the letter and all the documents. But then she wanted to know why I hadn't brought a marriage abstract. I reminded her that I had brought the stato di famglia. I didn't understand why she even needed the abstract, because the stato di famiglia is a document that states that a marriage is ongoing, not just that a ceremony has taken place. She and a colleague continued to shuffle papers and insert information into a computer for a few minutes. The other officer came to the sportello with a receipt to sign, and then told us we could come back in a month to pick up the permesso, but that we had to come back within the next two days with the abstract. We took the receipt and made our way for the door, but then N turned to me and asked, "But we had to give them the abstract when we applied for the first permesso, why do they need another?" I waited while he went back to ask at the sportello. When he came back, he was already in the middle of a tirade and I had to ask him what they had said. Then he told me that they lost my file and all the documents in it. They had no record that I had ever had a permesso.

Now it all becomes clear. And to think I was beating myself up for not having made a photocopy of the permesso. I can't tell you how many times throughout this ordeal I've been reprimanded by public officials for having made that error. But who is there to reprimand them for theirs? They lost my file, and as N later told me, hundreds of others. But this has always been my fault, because I didn't know how to take care of my documents. One officer even suggested that only an American would commit such an error, and that other foreigners, more grateful for the chance of living in Italy, would have been more careful.

There is one positive aspect to all of this: when I finally do manage to get this permesso, it will last five years. N and I have already decided that in the meantime, I will be applying for Italian citizenship. Of course, that won't solve much- I'll still have to deal with arrogantly incompetent public officials, but there will be one less line I'll need to stand in.