Day 50 - More Work Visa!

Follow-up on My Visa

I told you a month ago that I would write again about my visa as soon as anything happened.  Well, suddenly it happened like a downpour.

Last Friday at lunch, Tabitha called me.  She was the girl working at another mission that was dragged around town with me to take care of Interpol on my last visa day.  She was wondering what was happening with her visa so she called the lawyer.  He told her they were waiting on a paper to be taken care of at the Palacio de Justicia (Hall of Justice).  The lawyer told her my paper had been taken care of.  So she called me to ask about the paper.  I had no idea what she was talking about.

Friday and Saturday I called Dr. Z., the immigration lawyer, and got no answer.  Since the lawyer’s office is close, about 8 blocks away, I walked there Friday afternoon and he wasn’t open.  I went again Saturday morning and he wasn’t opened.  On Monday, I called his office between meetings of in-service and talked with him.  He told me I was missing that paper too, but should have received it; but I know I didn’t.

I left school around 1:00 today, so I could come home and take a short nap.  I assumed I would be running all over town this afternoon.  At 2:45 I walked over to Dr. Z’s office.  He showed me the paper I was supposed to have gotten stamped and signed.  I said I never received it from him and explained that this was the same that Tabitha was missing.  He called his wife on the phone and they had a discussion about it deciding something went wrong on their part.  I agreed to come back the following morning.

Tuesday I went to Dr. Z’s office at 8:30 skipping the morning part of in-service.  From our conversation yesterday, I thought this would take me until after lunch.  I was wrong.

The paper that Dr. Z showed me on Monday, he and his wife took care of before I arrived.  Dr. Z’s wife took photocopies of my passport and then took me across the street to Migración.  As is usual at many places, we stood in line for 20 minutes.  This was to get our ticket.  The problem is that people break in line or don’t understand how the line works.  So you do the right thing and wait, but someone else does not.  I know the culture is different, but that just seems wrong to me.

Once you have the ticket you wait for your ticket to be called.  The seats are narrower than those in airplanes.  Someone as big as me is crowded.  My friend Alma is the perfect size for those seats, but if you are bigger than her, which most of the world is, you are crowded.  Again people broke in line.  But it wasn’t long until we were waited on.  I got my passport stamped.  Dr. and Mrs. Z. said that was it until they called my school for the next part.  I asked more than once and they assured me that was it.  I pray that it is.

And that was it for the day.  It seemed a big emergency turned into something small.  So I walked back home, took a quick bite of food and headed off to school.

Just so you understand, you are not allowed to take pictures in banks and government buildings, so you won’t be seeing pictures of these places from me.  I don’t want to break the law while I am here.  So instead I took pictures of the trees and statues near the Migracion Building.