Ordeal Questura Perugia

Incredibile.

They gave me a prenotazione to do the fingerprinting for Friday morning at the big Questura in Perugia. It's supposed to be at 8.30 am. So I was there several minutes before. Then it started.

Confuzione is the name of the game. There's nowhere where they take clients who already have been booked. The only ufficiale just said, La fila li!

So that's it, it's the big line where people seem not so different to the mob in Mogadishu trying to escape a civil war. There's no numbering system, it's who's the fittest survives game.

There's now a strong number of students, all from the Universita'. They reckon there's a special office that will open for us, not for the public. Soon. About 9 am.

Special office open. They say, Sorry the computer is broken. Oh great!

10 am. The computer is aggiustato. Then it's all Circo Massimo.

They take our moduli (forms), there's still no numbering system and from there on it feels like playing a Lotto game, you just hope your number's up.

There's no numbering system. A lady who came first, she says, I came here 7.45 and now I'm the last.

There's no waiting room. We all loiter the outdoor corridor area like homeless beggars. But this is nothing, next door is worse. People of all sorts with despair imprinted in their face wait for a chance to go to the Sportello. Some have a ticket with a number, mainly don't. The confused "customer" seems to be dominated by immigrants from North Africa who are very agile, Serb and the Balcan who are tall, blue eyed and very resistent. Many come with their family, some Italian men with "ethnic" wifes and they all wait patiently. The Slavic families converse in their own language whereas their children in Italian (probably been here long enough to feel to be an Italian).

And the rest of the troop, I am told, will not be processed today. Yes, they came early in the morning but the Questura cannot do them all in a day, so it has to be next week! Good luck to them.

Ai ya ya …

All up, I was eventually admitted at 13.00 ... yeah, four and a half hours later (since 8.30 am). The signora ufficiale is nervous however maintains a jocose spirit. While scanning my fingers, she takes a phone call and apparently her friend on the other line of the phone is extremely funny, she cracks a massive laugh and I am really agitated as she takes my wrong hand. In the end, she asks to check my information in the computer, I say, my parents' names are mispelled. Signora responds: it's ok, non importa!

Boh!