Whew! It's been a busy few weeks down here. I finally found a quieter place to live, and I don't have to share it with anyone! My own bathroom, my own kitchen, my own things. No more coming home and finding 5-day old dirty dishes with a swarm of flies around them... ick. I'm finally settling in and arranging things to my taste little by little. Today the plumber is here to change the ancient electric showerhead and install a new sink, and later today Jorge and I are going to buy a bed frame for my luxurious new mattress. The walls are a cheerful yellow and there's a really big closet. Step by step, it's taking shape.
However, getting to this point wasn't without its problems. The move, like all moves, was exhausting and difficult, but that's nothing out of the ordinary. Unfortunately, in this country neither is being stopped by police and forced to pay a bribe.
In Lima, whenever you move, you have to go to the police station and get a moving permit. You have to write out a list of everything you are going to move with, down to the smallest items. Supposedly, this is to prove that your things belong to you and to prevent robbers being able to steal all your stuff and move it in a moving van. However, in reality, few people file this permit because it involves waiting in a long line and paying a not insignificant amount of money. Most people decide instead to risk moving with the permit.
If you are stopped en route and don't have the permit, technically you can be asked to take a trip to the police station and show your receipts for every one of your things to prove ownership. The police don't want to take the trouble, and neither do the people moving. This means bribes.
The driver of the moving van pulled an illegal left-hand turn about 10 blocks from the new place. Big mistake - I turned around just in time to see a patrol car radio his friends, and sure enough, a few blocks later we were stopped. The police asked to see our moving permit, which we didn't have, and then made the customary threats about taking us to the station and going through our things one by one. The cop who came up to the truck seemed particularly interested in the laptops that we had in the front seat, which didn't sit well with me. Then he said maybe we could talk about it and began asking questions about our financial situation to determine how much he could squeeze out of us. During the whole process I played dumb, pretending I didn't understand Spanish. Meanwhile, Jorge kept repeating that we didn't have any cash on us, we were in a difficult financial situation, we had spent our cash on gas for the moving van, etc. I was smart enough to keep my 100-sole bills well hidden. Eventually we paid the guy 30 soles, and the driver paid another 10. That amounts to only about fifteen bucks U.S., but considering that the police did almost no real work to earn that money and get to keep it tax-free, you can see why the corruption is so widespread here.
Peruvian Times: The Cost of Corruption in Peru
Despite this incident, the rest of the process went smoothly and I'm pretty happy with the apartment. If I do move again though, I'll be ready.
