We registered Clara with the Guatemalan government this week, officially making her a Guatemalan citizen....with the official name of Clara Maria Fulton Fulton. (All for the low price of 4 Quetzales - about 60 cents. To get her a US passport we'll have to pay $65.)
Why Fulton twice, you ask? Because traditionally, people here have two last names - one from each parent. So say we were Lois Smith Jones and Dan Johnson Fulton. When we married, Lois would drop the Jones and take the first last name of Dan, becoming Lois Smith Johnson. Clara would take the first last name of each parent, becoming Clara Smith Johnson, also. The computer program for registration of new babies automatically fills in the blanks, and the workers didn't know how to override it; thus, Clara received a last name from each of us.
There has been some confusion of late, because the national government is trying to begin a centralized registration process. Previously, newborns were registered by the town in which they were born. San Lucas was one of 77 towns that initially refused (related to taxes - the municipality used to collect the money for registration, but now that money goes directly to the central government). By the time we registered Clara, though, the national program had been in use in San Lucas for a couple weeks.
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