Officialdom vs. Unwashed Veggies

I am trying to decide which is worse: the chance that you might get cholera, hepatitis A, typhoid fever or a bad case of the shits from unsanitary food or the frustrations, headaches and costs of dealing with officials here in central america and Mexico. So far the jury is still out. I have to say I've only had one bad experience with food so far. It certainly wasn't as bad as it could have been, I only spent four days with an unhappy belly and am still occasionally haunted by harrowing visions of pollo de naranja (orange chicken.... what was I thinking?). On the other hand, without exception, every time I need to interact with a government official I am overtaken with frustration, a general nausea and a lightening of my wallet. I can't say I've been hit with la mordida (bribes- or literally: the bite) but the government itself loves getting some of my money. When Sarah and I entered Mexico we both received our tourist cards and stamps in our visa but they gave her 90 days and only 30 to me. After about two weeks in Oaxaca we realized that one month wasn't going to cut it so I began the process of getting an extension. The oficina de migracion wasn't very centrally located... actually it was buried in the midst of suburbs outside of town. The official posted hours were 9am to 1:30pm but when I arrived the first day I learned that a 4 and a half hour work day had proved to much and it had been shortened to 4 hours and they closed at 1pm. There wasn't time to fit me in so I returned for round two on the next day. On the second day I learned just how convoluted the process was really going to be. I needed to prove I had $50US for every day I wanted to extend. I needed a copy of every page of my passport. I needed to purchase the official forms at a papeleria. Once I had obtained the forms they needed to be filled out by typewriter (what tourist packs a typewriter!?) and returned to the office to be approved. Once approved I needed to pay the 210 peso fee (about $20 US) but the fee could not be paid at immigration... I needed to go to a bank (remember the center of town is about 2km away) and get an official stamp there. I learned all of this the day before we were to leave for Puerto Escondido but luckily (or so I thought then) the was an airport in Puerto and an oficina there. Once in Puerto I managed to get a nice letter of recommedation from a doctor that Sarah knew thorough her volunteering in a cervical cancer workshop. Armed with all of my very clean, lovely, stamped and official documents (in a manila folder!) I went to Puerto Escondido's immigration office (once again about 2km outside of town). I presented my documents one by one and was getting more and more confident that I had tamed the bureaucratic beast. I smiled as I delivered my final and most elegant blow: the letter of recommendation with a very elegant header and a government stamp, signed by a doctor and extolling my virtues. Everything came to a halt. Before I could say, "que?" a copy of my passport, the letter and Sarah's name had been entered into the official record as delinquent. We were traveling on tourist visas and volunteering. The head honcho was pissed at our transgression. He called his counter part in the town that was closer to the workshop and rattled on for 15 minutes in a tone of voice that reminded me of a petulant 8 year old. He refused to help me in any way and insisted that Sarah and I go to Huatulco and change our paperwork immediatly. Seeing as it was noon there was no way we could travel the 80km before they closed at 1pm. This was my last day before my visa expired and I was seriously considering just making a break for the Guatemalan border but our friend August volunteered her excellent spanish and experience dealing with this type of thing and we managed to get everything sorted out in Huatulco the next day. We just all kept our heads down, didn't mention anything about volunteering and managed to get me legal in just about one hour. All said, adding 30 days to my passport cost me about 800 pesos in fees, documents, taxis and about 15 hours of my time. Our border crossing was a little synopsis of this experience where we had to hop from building to building trying to find where we get the official "we have left Mexico" stamp and where we receive our new "we are now in Guatemala" stamp. We tried to head to what we had heard was the easier of the two border crossings but as we approached the last turn between the two crossings our bus driver told us that the good one had just "fallen" (turns out it has been down for about a year but every one pretends otherwise). Subsequently we had to walk about 4km and checked roughly 20 buildings for the guy with the stamp. For those of you who make this trip don't be fooled. Just because two of the buildings say immigration doesn't mean anything. The guy is actually housed in a little unmarked booth next to a lady sitting at a desk outside. Sarah and I both received 90 days this time so we can relax for a few months (hopefully) before we need to deal with anymore government representatives. For the time being I'm not eating my salads and turning and going the other way when I sense bureaucracy near by. I've not sure which is worse but I'd rather not deal with either.
-Dirk