Privacy - not a Venezuelan Concept.

So today after much procrastination I went to buy a mobile phone (or cellphone, to use the ugly Americanism popular here). This was an odyssey that lasted approximately one and a half hours. Not for here the simple method of just picking out a phone and buying it, no. Here you have to pick out your phone, hand over a photocopy of your passport to the salesman (this is my equivalent of a Venezuelan ID Card and not something I can afford to lose), go and stand in line for twenty minutes, pay, go back to the first desk, stand in line another twenty minutes, be reuinted with my passport, sign a variety of sheets of paper (one of which is a guarantee), GET FINGERPRINTED (no, really), and finally get my phone and leave. Bear in mind that I´m only buying a handset on a pay-as-you-go plan. I´m not even taking out a rental contract or something they could lose money on. And they want my fingerprints.

I explained how incredulous I was to my Venezuelan colleague who was kindly interpreting for me and he just laughed. Apparently the phone company don´t really do anything with your fingerprints, but that´s not really the issue is it? I only spent the equivalent of 15 pounds. Thank Christ I´m not buying a house here.