I need to clarify an earlier mistake: I do not, in fact, have Italian residency. In fact, at this moment, I am probably in Italy illegally. Given that it is 5 degrees Celcius and bucketing down rain yet again, I think deportation sounds okay at this moment.
Bill has his residency, but the kids and I are in trouble.
This morning, we had to go to the Italian Questura, or official immigration office. I was warned that it would be grim and uncomfortable, so to bring my passport, toys for Andrew, and any Valium I could scrounge up. Just kidding. But not really.
The Questura building, yes there is only one, is next to a slum built of garbage. There are no underground stations or train lines nearby. The nearest bus stop is half a mile away. So if I was one of the unlucky people from North Africa, Asia or Eastern Europe, I would have had to walk in the rain.
As it was, we took a very lovely taxi through neighborhoods that one would lock their doors against in America. Hmm.
One of Bill's co-workers was waiting for us when we arrived: Elena had gotten in line early to get us a number, in this case, 160.
We went into the building and I was shocked: Most public buildings are either overheated and stuffy or underheated and cool; this building wasn't heated at all. It also hadn't been swept, mopped or cleaned in an age. And the only bathroom in the building was locked.
Yes, in Italy you can be expected to wait for hours with no heat and no bathroom in a public building. There were five porta potties in the parking lot, but with three hundred immigrants from Africa and Asia milling about, would you image the toilets to be clean inside or routinely cleaned by anyone? I didn't either.
In the center of the Questura ceiling there is a lighted billboard that illuminates each number when it is called, and a corresponding window number. There were 20 windows available, but only a few were being used. In fact, two windows had a broken desk abandoned in front of them.
Elena explained to us that the Questura is only open from 8:30 until 11:30. At 11:30the doors are locked and the people who have been un-helped are given new numbers to wait in line the next day.
I looked over the crowd of 200 people in the building and knew this wasn't going to be good.
To make a long story shorter, nothing good did happen. In spite of having certified copies of everyone's birth certificates and marriage licenses and certified translations of each document from the Italian Embassy in Pittsburgh, the Questura decided that I am not myself, because I once had a Maiden Name. OOOHHH!
Apparently in Italy, women only take their husband's name superficially: there is no official name change and they are known throughout their lives under their original family name. The feminist in me derides this as an obvious attempt by a patriarchical society to deprive women of the right of jointly owned property. The realist in me knows now that no woman in Italy would waste years of her life standing in line to get documents changed.
The police man, yes, just a simple copper, said that the Italian Embassy didn't certify that I, Rachel Married Name, had given birth to two of my children, whose birth certificates have listed, Rachel Maiden Name. I could be attempting to kidnap two of my children. How, when their father was present at the Questura and also named on the birth certificates, I could kidnap someone else's children and try to smuggle them into a foreign country and pose them as mine, I don't know.
I suspect that there are only three people working at the Questura, and this entire show was a perverse exercise in job security: if you repeatedly send people away who HAVE to come back to you or face deportation, they will come back over and again and you will never lose your job, regardless of how stupid you are.
And in fact, I am now off to the US Embassy, not because I desperately needed a stroll down Via Veneto, but because I need the United States government to certify that Rachel Maiden Name is the same person as Rachel Married Name; and I am the mother of two of my children; and just because some state government listed my middle name as an intial instead of in its entirety on my third child's birth certificate, that does not mean there is a third person with the same birthdate and similar name married to the same man in one house.
Are you confused? I am.
As for the deportation bit, when we came house-hunting over Thanksgiving, we were never told that the kids and I, holding US passports, couldn't return to Italy within the next 90 days. Since we returned to Italy on December 24, we are in violation of Italian immigration policy. However, since the immigration people didn't stamp my passport upon entry in December, I am probably safe, as we are outside the 90 day window from the stamped November exit date. According to Italy, I am not even in the country!
But I had better not leave the country for Spring Break until they get my Visa sorted out.
