Cheers!
How did your first few days of January
go? Did you start going to the Church of Scientology? Did you become
vegetarian? Have you finished selling the gifts you received and you
don't want on internet? Any intersting and doable good resolutions
for this new year?
Mine are: understanding the meaning of
life, reading Hamlet without falling asleep, learning more and more Portuguese and Creole, and...
finally getting my passport stamped.
Yeah, because my visa, the one I fought
for a month ago, expired on the 24th of December. How
nice, it expired the very same day baby Jesus was born! Coincidence?
Anywho, today is the 5th of January and I still don't have
my visa. Ahah!
Time to reveal the second part of the
dyptich (stupid word, by the way, if you want my opinion).
You remember when I said that, at the
beginning, I was reluctant to complain and make fun of Cape Verde.
After having experienced such a warm welcome at the airport (I mean
it: they could have guantanamoed me in a second, but did not), I
felt grateful – but this feeling was not to last long. Because, my
dear, those people are as crazy as any country. Ok, I actually mean
the administration.
It is as bureaucratic as in Germany,
and as messed up as in France. And that is not a compliment.
One of my colleagues, German, told me
upon my arrival that I should be doing this and that to get a new
visa, and that I should start something
like 4 working days in advance to prepare everything. The list
looks like something like that, classified in order of feasability:
- passport (+
photocopy)
- 1 picture
- filled form
taken from the visa departement of the police station
- work contract
(+ photocopy)*
- proof of residence: the original
lease of the appartment I'm subletting + certified declaration of my
roommate that she's hosting me (certified in front of a notar: 4€)
*actually, I had somehow luck... The
work contract is supposed to be stamped by the lovely people (feel
the underlying anger hidden in the sarcasm?) of the DIREICAO DAS
FINANCAS, which is a place where incompetent people work/a pain in
the neck/where you pay taxes - sorry for the repetition. The DIRECAO
DAS FINANCAS will later be refered to as P.I.T.A. (Pain
In The Ass). I was supposed to show my work contract, pay taxes and
get the work contract stamped (proving I paid), but as I am
officially here on an internship basis, my boss told me that was
exempted. Don't call me a fascist monster, I understand the concept
of paying taxes and giving back to the community – I wouldn't be
working in sustainable tourism if I did not. And if I stay longer in
Cape Verde, on a real job basis, I'll be happy to contribute what I
have to. However, in this case, it meant one thing less on the to-do
list! YEAH! So I just had to provide a letter from my employee saying
I'm just doing an internship of 6 months. Piece of cake.
So. My visa expired on the 24th.
On the 18th, I started worrying about me being
abughraibed,
so in the evening, I asked one of my roommate to get the lease, and
also kindly required her to come with me in the morning to the notar
(which happens to be on the first floor of the P.I.T.A.) The fun
part starts there: she told me the other roommate had it, but she
wasn't there now. It's ok, I had time. I'd ask her tomorrow. The
following day, I went to get my picture taken. My colleagues had
recommended me a photo shop: the very same that was closed for
renovations, exactly this week. Aha!
FYI, there are not many shops where you
can get your picture taken around here. Remember this is AFRICA?
So instead of leaving work for 15 minutes for taking those damn
pictures, it took me 1h30 (time to run around, all stressed out,
asking people in some weird gibberish made of Yiddish, Swahili and
Portuguese, find another shop, get pictures taken, come back). Punctuality is not a quality that will be marked on my letter
of reference, if I ever get one (provided they don't find out about
this blog).
Back at work, I made photocopies of my
passport and got the letter stating I was doing an internship. I also
prepared a letter from my roommate, saying she was hosting me – she
just had to sign it and go with me to the notar. So I wasn't doing
that bad! I had most of the things. The rest wouldn't take long to
gather. LOL!
I had written an SMS to my other
roommate, asking her to bring the lease in the evening, which she
kindly did. But as it turned out, the lease was in her name and not
in the other one's name – too bad I had already printed out the
letter I prepared... Ahah. She agreed to go to the notar with me in
the morning, after I had time to change the letter and print a new
one from the office (misuse of company assets is one of my best
feature on my resume). This was on the 19th in the evening
– my plan was to go to the police the following day in the
afternoon, with all the papers, and fill out the form on the spot.
But of course... Life is what happens when you're busy making plans.
By „life“ I mean food poisonning.
Didn't happen to me, though. My
roommate was sick the following day and... how shall I put it...
Couldn't leave home and proximity to the ladies' room. So she
couldn't go to the notar with me. After the picture episode, I
already felt that something might go wrong – but it was only only
after the food poisonning episode that I knew for sure something was
rotten (not just in my roommate's stomach). Still, I thought, no
problem, I can still make everything on the 23rd.
So in the afternoon of the 20th,
I went to the police to fetch the form and present the documents, for
them to check if something was missing – I still had the entire
weekend to look for it. Ahah! Gather documents on weekend? As if
administrations were open on weekends!
So I fetched the form and showed my
little dossier. The lady looked at everything, told me I needed to go
to P.I.T.A. to get my work contract stamped (I bravely contradicted
her, assuring her the other declaration of internship was enough –
she grunted but spoke no more about it). She showed me the lease and
my roommate's declaration and said something about getting a stamp on
it. I knew I had to go to the notar with my roommate to certify her
signature – but the policewoman also showed the lease. Of course I
didn't understand what she meant. Do you think I ask her to write
down what she meant so that I could ask other people? Do you think I
was intelligent enough for that?
Of course not! I just thought, hey my
colleague didn't tell me about it – so what this policewoman is
telling me must be wrong! Still can not believe how I could make it
so far in life without being interned for deep and uncurable
stupidity.
So the rest of the weekend went on fine
– I didn't think much about the visa, knowing I would get it on the
23rd. LOL
Just realised how long this post is...
Do you mind I tell you later what happened next? Building the tension
is one key element in order to attract and seduce blog readers, so
you'll come back. I need better stats!
It'll be worth it... Unfortunately for
me!
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