Immigration

The joys of being in a foreign country. Dealing with immigration. I don’t have it all figured out. When I came, I applied for a 1 year visitor visa. When you arrive, they tell you at the airport, you have 48 hours, or for me 15 days, (I am not sure how they decide) to report to immigration. The first time Kathleen and I went. They tell me I can only be a visitor for 3 months total, then I have to leave, or become a resident. They go and come back with my passport stamped for 75 more days, to total the 90 days. It is now the end of my three months. We go, we sit in some office and talk to some man who works there. He explains the rules, I explain the ambiguity of their Embassy Website in Washington DC. They tell me my 1 year visa is really and entrance visa. The visa says, “Visitor Visa” it doesn’t say “Entrance Visa” No where on the website can I find where is says you can only stay as a visitor in the country for three months. I tell the man, I have no where else to go, I don’t know anyone in any other African Country, I haven’t made arrangements to leave so I can return for three more months. Besides, to get a visa to some other country will be at least $100 USD, plus the airfare. I am not too happy. To appy for residence, it is a one year permit, and costs well, more than I want to pay. The man when he looks at my passport notices the 75 day stamp. He calls an assistant. “who did this?” Apparently they are only supposed to stamp passports for 15, 30 or 60 days at a time. 75 days is not correct. We tell him some man on the second floor stamped it.
Any way I go about it, I am going to end up paying. I ask Kathleen, you think if I go to the US embassy they would stamp my passport saying I had left and entered the country?? I wish. Technicalities. I told Kathleen, I don’t want to do anything illegal. So it looks like I will become a resident. Arg. For three measly months. My passport is with the man at immigration. I am not too happy about that, hopefully Monday we will go and pick it up, and I will have entered some new state of residence. (Tuesday....Okay, I have been to the immigration. Still no visa. Waiting for some man to call who is contacting the commisioner. It is all very confusing to me. )
In other news, we had a package sent to us, about a month or so ago. It has arrived, we got a slip in our mailbox saying there is a package waiting for us. James went to get it, they tell him to come back, they can’t find it. He returns to find they have given the package to some other man who claims it was his name on the package. James says when he was there the employees were using peoples packages to sit on. So now we know how packages get squished in the mail:)
This is life. I guess you just have to go with the flow. We are very sad about the gummy bears in the package.
In other news. We got our duty free status, now we just need our broker to get all the other paper work to free our container from the port. The saga continues.