Bolivia/Spanish Vocabulary 101
To help you better understand what part of our life is like, and some of what we deal with every day, I thought we could share with you some Spanish words, that also have some special significance.
Trámite - A long governmental process. Typically involving significant amounts of paperwork, normally a lawyer, and about more forms than you could ever imagine necessary for any particular task. A true trámite will have no end in sight and will not go right the first time. Most often a trámite will involve the request by a government official for a "refresco" (which literally means "a little drink"), which is their way of asking for a bribe. The more people you know in the government, the faster the process goes. If things go right someday everything will finally be finished, and you will feel like you spent two months of your life to do something that you think should take 10 minutes.
Here are some examples:
1) Buying a phone line. First, the phone company doesn't just give away phone numbers here. There were a limited number of phone lines initially sold to individuals. Now the only way to get a normal phone line is to buy one from another individual. Once you have purchased a phone line you will need to write a legal document for the transfer of the property, you will need to get an official document from the phone company, pay your first few months of the phone bill, pay a transfer tax based on the value of the phone line, and then present all of these things to the phone company. Once this has happened it will take about three months and then you will have the honor of being a legitimate owner of a phone line.
2) Buying a house. Let's just say if buying a phone line is that hard... just imagine what it takes to get the paperwork done for a house! Today I had the joy of trying to finish a trámite for our home that we purchased over a year ago. I got there, pulled number 141 out of the number machine. The TV showed 115. 15 minutes later, we progressed to 116. 45 minutes later we were to 122. At this point I calculated I would be waiting from 3:30 PM until about 7:00 PM to get my turn... at which point the office would not even be open. So I guess I spent 30 minutes to get downtown to take a number, wait 45 minutes, and then drive 30 minutes back home.
Work accomplished: 0. Time spent: 1:45, not including the time spent at the phone company just to drop off a pile of papers. If installing a phone line was only as easy as giving Verizon a call!
Trámite - A long governmental process. Typically involving significant amounts of paperwork, normally a lawyer, and about more forms than you could ever imagine necessary for any particular task. A true trámite will have no end in sight and will not go right the first time. Most often a trámite will involve the request by a government official for a "refresco" (which literally means "a little drink"), which is their way of asking for a bribe. The more people you know in the government, the faster the process goes. If things go right someday everything will finally be finished, and you will feel like you spent two months of your life to do something that you think should take 10 minutes.
Here are some examples:
1) Buying a phone line. First, the phone company doesn't just give away phone numbers here. There were a limited number of phone lines initially sold to individuals. Now the only way to get a normal phone line is to buy one from another individual. Once you have purchased a phone line you will need to write a legal document for the transfer of the property, you will need to get an official document from the phone company, pay your first few months of the phone bill, pay a transfer tax based on the value of the phone line, and then present all of these things to the phone company. Once this has happened it will take about three months and then you will have the honor of being a legitimate owner of a phone line.
2) Buying a house. Let's just say if buying a phone line is that hard... just imagine what it takes to get the paperwork done for a house! Today I had the joy of trying to finish a trámite for our home that we purchased over a year ago. I got there, pulled number 141 out of the number machine. The TV showed 115. 15 minutes later, we progressed to 116. 45 minutes later we were to 122. At this point I calculated I would be waiting from 3:30 PM until about 7:00 PM to get my turn... at which point the office would not even be open. So I guess I spent 30 minutes to get downtown to take a number, wait 45 minutes, and then drive 30 minutes back home.
Work accomplished: 0. Time spent: 1:45, not including the time spent at the phone company just to drop off a pile of papers. If installing a phone line was only as easy as giving Verizon a call!
posted by Unknown @ 5:04 PM
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