dear blog,
i have a story for you.
luckily, i thought, i met this guy from iowa whose church has some kind of sister church relationship with the lutheran church here in bethanie. when i talked to him about the visa situation, and my 'run for the border' plan (i'd thought i'd just go in and out of the country every 90 days and get a new tourist visa -- the visa guy at the namibian embassy in washington d.c. told me "that will definitely work.") he mentioned that he thought you could only get 2 tourist visas per year and we talked about the possibility of me 'losing' my passport so i could get a clean one and stay the whole 9 months here. as he was leaving, he told me "hey, if the run for the border plan turns out to suck, my church could sign you up as an employee and then the lutheran church headquarters in windhoek could help you get a work permit."
so, i came back from the big africa trip at the end of may, and was planning to check into the work permit process and decide if it was worth going through on my 2nd tourist visa. (i also prepared for an enjoyable rest of the year in namibia by buying a 1982 honda cx500 that I have been having a blast cruising around on)
i was surprised when the lady at the border said 'i see you've already been to namibia this year. after one visit/90 days per year, you are no longer welcome in our country.' i talked her into 3 weeks to try and get some kind of visa sorted out and she let me in.
so i went to home affairs and asked about the process. they handed me a page long checklist that included stuff like certified statements of employment duration, letters of recommendation, a background check from my home town police station, certified copies of transcripts, proof that my potential employer had advertised the job in namibia and couldn't find qualified applicants, etc. i thought 'crap. this stuff will be hard to get from here in the next couple of weeks.... i still have a peace corps work permit (that required some all this same stuff) -- maybe i should see if they can transfer it and avoid some of this mess.' while i was waiting in line to ask, the people in front of me spent about 15 minutes trying to find out when they could get their passports back -- the immigration official at the border had confiscated them because they'd overstayed their visa. the lady's response was something like 'if you come back next wednesday, you can ask that question.' the people mentioned that they were real important and had places to be and the lady just laughed. so, i came to the front of the line and asked about the possibility of a transfer and the lady said 'show me the work permit.' obviously, i couldn't do that because it was in my peace corps passport that i returned to them. she then said 'you should go back to sweden or wherever you're from.'
so i went to the lutheran church office and showed the nice lady who works there the list of stuff. she said 'well, you could just stay here without a visa.' and i thought of the people i'd just seen at home affairs (and this other guy who they took to jail in front of us at the border last christmas) and told her that the option didn't sound that appealing. we discussed some other unappealing options that didn't involve her doing anything, and i got ready to go when a pastor walked in. he had us come into his office and sit down, and said "when do you have permission to stay until?" and some other questions and finally said "let's give it a try. just get a letter from the american church and come back."
so, i wrote steve and asked for the letter. he said 'no problem, we'll get it to you in the next day or two' and 4 or 5 days went by. finally, i get in touch with him and he says 'oh, the pastor was supposed to do it but he's out. i'll make you one, and sent me a letter.' (meanwhile, my friends in austin very promptly wrote me some really nice reference letters). i doctored steve's letter until i thought it was suitable, forged signatures on all the letters, ordered some transcripts and whatnot, traveled 400 miles to home and back to get a u.s. check to pay for my fbi background check, hung out for a couple days at the hospital so i could get a physical, and was ready to go.
i gave the lutheran church the application on friday morning, checked back on friday afternoon and they hadn't looked at it. the next monday morning, they called to check a few things. i waited until thursday (my permission to stay expired on friday) to call them and imagine my surprise when they said "oh, we didn't ask for the visa extension for you to stay." i told them "welp, i'm not going to stay around illegally here" and they were understandably dismayed that we'd gone to all the work to file the work permit and now i was just going to leave. i thought about it a little, and decided that i might as well ride the scoot up to windhoek and at least ask the mean lady from home affairs for permission to stay. then, at least, someone would have said 'no' for me to leave. i figured that even if i waited there all day for a decision, i could still make the botswana border by midnight and leave the country. i packed a little backpack with all the stuff i really needed, kristin did the same, and we took off on the bike.
8 hours of motorcycle ride (and a pretty good bender at the hotel in mariental) later, i got to windhoek. i went to home affairs, waited in line for a while for my form, then another while at the desk where you pay the application fee while the guy talked on his cell phone (i, sucking up, told him that it seemed very busy there), then waited in line at the visa desk. it wasn't the mean lady from before, which i thought couldn't be bad. i got to the front, said "i'm applying for a work permit, but can't take the job if i don't get permission to stay here while i wait for it, and so i need a visa extension." he said "that makes sense. these things take time, you know. leave us your passport, and we'll stamp it. come back next week to get it."
so, that was it and i think i have permission to stay for some unknown length of time. maybe until december? i'll know when (if too, i guess?) i see my stamped passport.
kristin just got a digital camera. so, tonight when we went up the mountain to watch the sunset she tried some panorama mode that it has. the result is here: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=wkkpd7d.8hswvbdp&x=1&y=-8sm22h it's jpeg'd to hell and there are definitely some places where the images didn't tile that well, but you can get an idea of where we've been shooting our bull.
sorry i've been so quiet on e-mail and such. the visa process was frustrating and i didn't , and lately i've been keeping really busy between volunteer work here and a little contract work i'm doing from home. i hope all's well with y'all, and i hope to share more pictures in the near future.
-jon
i have a story for you.
luckily, i thought, i met this guy from iowa whose church has some kind of sister church relationship with the lutheran church here in bethanie. when i talked to him about the visa situation, and my 'run for the border' plan (i'd thought i'd just go in and out of the country every 90 days and get a new tourist visa -- the visa guy at the namibian embassy in washington d.c. told me "that will definitely work.") he mentioned that he thought you could only get 2 tourist visas per year and we talked about the possibility of me 'losing' my passport so i could get a clean one and stay the whole 9 months here. as he was leaving, he told me "hey, if the run for the border plan turns out to suck, my church could sign you up as an employee and then the lutheran church headquarters in windhoek could help you get a work permit."
so, i came back from the big africa trip at the end of may, and was planning to check into the work permit process and decide if it was worth going through on my 2nd tourist visa. (i also prepared for an enjoyable rest of the year in namibia by buying a 1982 honda cx500 that I have been having a blast cruising around on)
i was surprised when the lady at the border said 'i see you've already been to namibia this year. after one visit/90 days per year, you are no longer welcome in our country.' i talked her into 3 weeks to try and get some kind of visa sorted out and she let me in.
so i went to home affairs and asked about the process. they handed me a page long checklist that included stuff like certified statements of employment duration, letters of recommendation, a background check from my home town police station, certified copies of transcripts, proof that my potential employer had advertised the job in namibia and couldn't find qualified applicants, etc. i thought 'crap. this stuff will be hard to get from here in the next couple of weeks.... i still have a peace corps work permit (that required some all this same stuff) -- maybe i should see if they can transfer it and avoid some of this mess.' while i was waiting in line to ask, the people in front of me spent about 15 minutes trying to find out when they could get their passports back -- the immigration official at the border had confiscated them because they'd overstayed their visa. the lady's response was something like 'if you come back next wednesday, you can ask that question.' the people mentioned that they were real important and had places to be and the lady just laughed. so, i came to the front of the line and asked about the possibility of a transfer and the lady said 'show me the work permit.' obviously, i couldn't do that because it was in my peace corps passport that i returned to them. she then said 'you should go back to sweden or wherever you're from.'
so i went to the lutheran church office and showed the nice lady who works there the list of stuff. she said 'well, you could just stay here without a visa.' and i thought of the people i'd just seen at home affairs (and this other guy who they took to jail in front of us at the border last christmas) and told her that the option didn't sound that appealing. we discussed some other unappealing options that didn't involve her doing anything, and i got ready to go when a pastor walked in. he had us come into his office and sit down, and said "when do you have permission to stay until?" and some other questions and finally said "let's give it a try. just get a letter from the american church and come back."
so, i wrote steve and asked for the letter. he said 'no problem, we'll get it to you in the next day or two' and 4 or 5 days went by. finally, i get in touch with him and he says 'oh, the pastor was supposed to do it but he's out. i'll make you one, and sent me a letter.' (meanwhile, my friends in austin very promptly wrote me some really nice reference letters). i doctored steve's letter until i thought it was suitable, forged signatures on all the letters, ordered some transcripts and whatnot, traveled 400 miles to home and back to get a u.s. check to pay for my fbi background check, hung out for a couple days at the hospital so i could get a physical, and was ready to go.
i gave the lutheran church the application on friday morning, checked back on friday afternoon and they hadn't looked at it. the next monday morning, they called to check a few things. i waited until thursday (my permission to stay expired on friday) to call them and imagine my surprise when they said "oh, we didn't ask for the visa extension for you to stay." i told them "welp, i'm not going to stay around illegally here" and they were understandably dismayed that we'd gone to all the work to file the work permit and now i was just going to leave. i thought about it a little, and decided that i might as well ride the scoot up to windhoek and at least ask the mean lady from home affairs for permission to stay. then, at least, someone would have said 'no' for me to leave. i figured that even if i waited there all day for a decision, i could still make the botswana border by midnight and leave the country. i packed a little backpack with all the stuff i really needed, kristin did the same, and we took off on the bike.
8 hours of motorcycle ride (and a pretty good bender at the hotel in mariental) later, i got to windhoek. i went to home affairs, waited in line for a while for my form, then another while at the desk where you pay the application fee while the guy talked on his cell phone (i, sucking up, told him that it seemed very busy there), then waited in line at the visa desk. it wasn't the mean lady from before, which i thought couldn't be bad. i got to the front, said "i'm applying for a work permit, but can't take the job if i don't get permission to stay here while i wait for it, and so i need a visa extension." he said "that makes sense. these things take time, you know. leave us your passport, and we'll stamp it. come back next week to get it."
so, that was it and i think i have permission to stay for some unknown length of time. maybe until december? i'll know when (if too, i guess?) i see my stamped passport.
kristin just got a digital camera. so, tonight when we went up the mountain to watch the sunset she tried some panorama mode that it has. the result is here: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=wkkpd7d.8hswvbdp&x=1&y=-8sm22h it's jpeg'd to hell and there are definitely some places where the images didn't tile that well, but you can get an idea of where we've been shooting our bull.
sorry i've been so quiet on e-mail and such. the visa process was frustrating and i didn't , and lately i've been keeping really busy between volunteer work here and a little contract work i'm doing from home. i hope all's well with y'all, and i hope to share more pictures in the near future.
-jon
