Brazil requires foreign residents and visitors to acquire Visas prior to entry. There are about five different types of Visas, depending on the travelers individual situation. I have been here in Brazil on a Temporary Visa - V, which is a two year visa permitting the holder to work while in the country. The Visa is pasted right into the holder's passport and adorned with fancy stamps and illegible signatures. To acquire this type of Visa, a company or entity in Brazil must sponsor and assume responsibility for any potential holder. The American school sponsors my Visa and Sierra is granted one due to her being my dependent.
Once you enter the country with this type of Visa--or any Visa for that matter--you are required to register with the Federal Police within 30 days of entry. On the day you register, they take your fingerprints, file several passport sized photos, and document your entry. It is Brazil's way of keeping track of the foreigner population. You also receive what is called a protocolo once you have registered. The protocolo is essentially a strip of paper about an inch wide and four inches long with your passport picture adhered to one end of the strip. This paper serves as the foreigners legal identification in the country while waiting for the RNE, or Brazilian Identification card to be printed. The time between the protocolo and the RNE is supposed to be less than 180 days. When it surpasses the 180 days, the protocolo needs to be sent back to the Federal Police to be stamped for another 180 days. Mine and Sierra's protocolos have been stamped and re-stamped for 180 days 5 times!!
However, yesterday, we were finally scheduled to pick up our RNE cards (the permanent, plastic version of the protocolo) at the Federal Police in a little town outside of Rio called Nova Iguacu. We were on the road by 8:15, in Nova Iguacu by 10:30, and standing in front of the agent at the Federal Police by 10:35 to be handed these:
Our permanent Brazilian ID cards. I know you can't really make out the writing on the card, and that is not important. Actually it's probably better that it is not possible to read them since there is a lot of personal information on them. But, in the top card, I have drawn a black arrow at the section of the card that reads "Validade". (Validade in Portuguese means Valid until or validity--for clarification.) The date below Validade on both of our cards is 27-07-2008. (mo.-date-yr.)!
The cards expired the DAY BEFORE we actually picked them up from the Brazilian Federal Police. And of course they did, they were processed with my first temporary working Visa, two years ago. At the time of filing, the Federal Police had no way of knowing that I would still be here after the initial two year Visa. How could they?
In the meantime, my working Visa has been officially extended another two years. Sierra and I will need to go to the Federal Police to register again, in the the next 25 days or so, be fingerprinted and photographed, and most likely receive ANOTHER protocolo to wait for a valid identification card.
The good news: In the two years I have been here, I only needed to show my protocolo when entering and exiting the country and one time when riding and interstate bus to Paraty, a small beach town between Rio and Sao Paolo. At least the ID isn't something that a person needs to produce regularly. AHHH, politics, government bureaucracy, red tape. I think no matter where you are these things don't function in the way any of the civilians using the services would like.
Sierra and Gramma feverishly finished and painted several more leaf molds. We were lucky enough to fit two of them in our suitcases, wrapped in bubble wrap. They now decorate our veranda in Rio.
Sierra took the time to give Gramma a lovely beauty makeover (notice the blue eyeliner--earlier used by me and Colette for our 80's party, now Sierra's play make-up), and Pappa was pretty shocked when he walked in the porch and saw the two of them all "done up". 
I believe he is contemplating laughter or tears here.
The good thing is that with modern technology we can talk to each other on the phone anytime we want, and it doesn't cost an arm and a leg. Mom and Dad can pick up their phone and dial our number here as a local call. It sure makes it easier to be so far away knowing that I can hear their voices regularly. That certainly wasn't the case in 1995 when I first came to Brazil. And it made it easy/possible to call this afternoon while laughing my butt off because I found this in my kitchen cabinet:
I can't do this in Rio! I'm a country girl at heart, and I have grown up with guns and gun safety. I'm a pretty good shot too, so when one man at my dad's cowboy shoot offered a stage for some target practice, I jumped on the chance. And Mom was there to make sure we had photos of the fun. After shooting at the range that day, I was determined to learn how to shoot a pistol with only my left hand, so a few days later Dad and I took his guns out behind the house to try. Uh, not so easy. I definitely need both hands to steady the revolver enough to hit the target.
The instructions of this stage were to sit on the bed, ask the time keeper, who was playing the school marm, for a big wet kiss, then stand up and start the shooting. From inside this structure, he had to shoot the rifle 10 times at various targets out to the right in the picture, then each pistol from the same position five times at other targets, come out of the "building", grab the rifle sitting in the middle of the staging area, and shoot that 4 or so times. The directions at each staging area were actually quite elaborate. Several times during the day, my mom commented on how many steps to each scenario and how could they remember what to do, especially Dad who has a hard time remembering what she tells him to do at home. I think her appearance at Sunday's shoot called his bluff on the whole poor memory thing. Hmmmm...
Sierra and cousin Taylor.
Sierra and cousin Bailey.
Sierra and cousin Emily.