Immigration Nation

So now that we are "officially visitors" of the great island of Barbados, as per our newly stamped passports, it is my new responsibility to get Lily, the soon-to-be four year old, a student visa.  The visa for Lily will have to be renewed every year that she is enrolled in school, even though Didier's passport and work permit are valid through 2012.  Virginie and I are also valid through 2012.  If we do not take care of this, our soon-to-be four year old will be an illegal here on this great isle.  Let me remind you that it took from September 2009 until the end of June 2010, to get our current status processed, so I have no great hope for Lily's being a valid international student of Barbados by early September.  But one can dream.

The line at the Immigration Department is kind of like those commercials that want to demonstrate bureaucratic inefficiency where everyone is grey and wearing grey, with bloodshot eyes, waiting for what looks like an eternity for assistance by a person with a huge stack of papers on his desk.  We got there at twenty past nine in the morning and the line was out the door and all the pews, as the seats for some reason look like pews at Immigration, were full.  We just wanted a form. 

Waiting on line, I dreamed, if you can believe it, of the United States Postal Service where, what I can only imagine a desire to have face to face contact with as few people as possible, all the forms and labels are available at a kiosk or under a long work table.  No such luck here.  There are five plexiglas windows for service with just one person actually answering questions and some older lady plugging away at something that definitely didn't involve any of us, and maybe not her job either.  When we finally get to the front of the line, another person has come on and asks us a series of questions before she is willing to give us the forms we need.  To obtain her student visa, Lily will need to present her birth certificate, 3 passport sized photos wearing a long sleeve top, seriously, proof of her guardians' right to be here, and $200 Barbados.

I so look forward to this process.  Let's see if anyone in Human Resources has any idea how to help us with this procedure.


(c)copyright 2010. Citymominthejungle