If you don’t know, I have been waiting for almost four months for Senescyt–Secretariat of Higher Education, Science, Technology and Innovation here in Ecuador–to certify my degree so that I can take that with me to my Visa appointment to get my temporary residency visa this morning. By law, Senescyt has 60 days to complete the process, and so it was long past due.
Worse, you are unable to contact a human at Senescyt without going into one of their offices. Once your application is made–as mine was on Oct. 3–you can’t email or call anyone, you can’t update your information, you can’t look in your online record and see what’s going on, you can’t determine why there is a hold up. You simply receive NO communication from Senescyt whatsoever for months on end.
Going into the office in Cuenca is pointless. They have marked their business as “permanently closed” on Google Maps, even though I have submitted that change to Google numerous times, with photos. Senescyt in Cuenca does NOT want you to visit there.
They are VERY nice, but constantly say the same thing for every visit: “We can’t do anything here. It’s all done in Quito.”
I went to the Senescyt office in Cuenca yesterday for the FOURTH time to try to get a document from them stating why there is such a holdup on my certification so that I can give it to my visa agent in this morning’s meeting. Without this document, the Visa agent would likely have rejected my Visa application. Senescyt refused, and just kept saying it was all at the Quito office.
So, I called an attorney: Rafael Arizaga Coellar. I found him on GringoPost as he won best attorney last year. Anyway, I asked him if he had any contacts in Quito who could go to the Senescyt office on my behalf, and he did!
He knows a secretary who works for another attorney, and on her lunch break, she went to the Quito Senescyt on my behalf. She started out polite and respectful but insistent that she be able to talk to the Director about this urgent issue, but they kept dismissing her. She finally had enough and began saying that she wasn’t going to leave, that an injustice is about to occur, and that she isn’t giving up! It got so heated that the security officer tried to kick her out! But an employee overheard her and listened to her story, and she was then allowed to talk to the Director at Senescyt.
As a direct result of this visit, my diploma was certified. I don’t even know her name, but I now call her The Shark.
Thanks to The Shark, Rafael and Sara Carcamo (below) from Visa Angels, I was ready for my visa appointment this morning, and IT WAS APPROVED!!!
Thank you so much everyone for your kindness, encouragement, and words of advice. 
ECUADORIOUS 