In the midst of teaching classes, sponsoring NHS, and tutoring, organizing a trip for Ezekiel and me to see each other has been an additional full-time job with the potentially incredible payback of getting to hang out for 3 weeks in Ghana!!! After participating in Ezekiel’s US visa application on two separate occasions, I have become acutely familiar with painstaking processes, and I am trying to leave as little as possible regarding this Christmas break meeting to chance (i.e. no US Customs Officials are involved in the process). While one may balk at the vacation potential of spending 3-weeks in Ghana, compare it to Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia and Iraq and Ghana looks like an outright tourist trap complete with centuries of peace, a coast and elephants! Plane tickets are relatively inexpensive (from Nigeria…nowhere is cheap from El Salvador), Nigerians can travel there visa-free and there are hippos!!! What more could we ask for?!? Each step of “Destination Reunification” could be its own convoluted drama but I’m going to simply focus on a task that has now been successfully completed: obtaining a Ghanaian visa.
“I’ve gotten visas before; it wasn’t that bad.” Why must I set myself up like that? I forgot when I got a visa before, I wasn’t living in a foreign country. After getting permission from the US Embassy here in El Salvador to send my passport to Houston via courier service, (which I learned is simply a fancy, general name for FedEx…I definitely thought it was an actual person you sent with the envelope!) I started my paperwork investigation. However, before I could send my passport to Houston, it had to first spend some quality time in Salvadoran immigration offices to ensure my legal status here.
I got my trusty passport back on a Friday afternoon from Salvadoran authorities and naively thought I would be able to go to the bank, get a money order, take it to FedEx and send it off that day! Being unrealistically optimistic means that set-backs can really blind-side you. When I arrived at the bank, I was informed that Citi Bank of El Salvador doesn’t have any money orders. When I looked dismayed, she made a couple of calls only to inform me that all of El Salvador did away with money orders a few years ago. I settled for a giro, which I know from past experience is a 30-minute process minimum from start to finish, but I had personally cashed one at a US bank, so I figured it was a good alternative when there seemed to be few others. No problem, I reassured myself. I was there, it was getting done and of course the Ghanaian Embassy would accept this instead of a money order. It’s guaranteed money!
As I was leaving the bank, I realized I had forgotten my passport photos necessary for the visa application at my house. Instead of a 5 minute walk to FedEx from the bank, I had the opportunity to walk 20 minutes back to my house first and then 15 minutes to FedEx…in the rain. I tried to convince myself since I was missing my run, this brisk walk was a good replacement. My umbrella was conveniently sitting right next to the pictures when I got back to my house. My sweet roommate offered to give me a ride to the FedEx office, but since I KNEW that it was open until 6pm every weekday, I declined knowing that time wasn’t an issue and now I had my umbrella!
When I arrived, I breathed a sigh of relief that the door confirmed it was indeed open until 6pm on Friday. The relief quickly vanished when I saw the employee clearly closing everything down. They had changed the Friday closing time a few months ago without changing the sign on the door. Giving me a look of equal parts pity and annoyance, she told me that they closed in 3 minutes, but she was willing to execute the transaction until she realized I wanted to send my passport to the states at which point she gingerly told me that she couldn’t do that, but the office next door could. With hope quickly diminishing, I went next door only to be told that they can send it, but I would have to arrange ground service in the states after it arrived in order for it to be shipped back here. Feeling completely dejected, I happened to catch the glance of the FedEx manager that I’ve come to know well through my Nigeria visa shipments and she came out to greet me! I explained my situation, and she said though they’re not really allowed to ship passports but if I could guarantee there would be no problems, she’d do it! Having no idea what problems there could be, I assured her it wasn’t even a possibility and excitedly followed her back to the first FedEx office to ship my visa application!
Unfortunately, by that time, the 3 minutes remaining before had vanished and all systems had been shut down. They informed me I could come back on Tuesday and send it. Fine. After binge grocery shopping (buying everything you see in sight that looks at all appealing, indulgent and out-of-the-ordinary which resulted in new trail mix, a $3 pomegranate, bad-for-you plantain chips and milk), I remembered that the school was being fumigated that night and had to walk home an extra-long way.
With renewed vigor, I signed out of school during my planning period on Tuesday and went back to FedEx sure that I would have my visa in no time! I was greeted the same friendly FedEx faces only to be told, “Why didn’t you come this morning, the flight has already left for today.” I didn’t come in the morning because I was working! They told me the next flight was Wednesday morning, but when we started calculating that it would arrive on Friday, I knew that wouldn’t work because the Ghanaian Embassy in Houston is only open Monday through Wednesday from 1-3pm. If sent Wednesday, it would be returned to San Salvador after three days. Finally, we decided that I could fill out all the forms, pay the money. My FedEx friend would keep it for me and mail it on the Friday shipment so that it would arrive on Monday. That’s right. I left my passport in a FedEx envelop with the friendly employee trusting that she’d keep it safe for 3 days and send it out on Friday. I made sure to tell her “Please keep it safe, and don’t forget to send it!” as extra insurance! :)
Over the next few days I dutifully tracked its movement from San Salvador to Houston. On Monday, I received a call from the person with whom I’d been in contact about my rush visa telling me that everything arrived and had been processed successfully, but she was worried that the Ghanaian Embassy in Washington DC would have problems with my Salvadoran giro check I’d sent, so she asked if I had any family in the states that could get a cashier’s check from the bank and send it made out to her name and she’d just send a check herself for me and return the giro so I could redeposit it in my bank account. I was overwhelmed by her kindness and trust that I’d actually send her the check for $60! I enthusiastically and gratefully agreed to her suggestion and promised I’d get the check to her as soon as possible.
My passport complete with a shiny Ghanaian visa sticker returned to me in El Salvador safe and sound two days later, so I went directly to pick it up, happy to be in the same country as my passport again only to receive a bonus surprise that they had over-charged the return shipment price by $50, and I get a refund! Sweet, except, I had to have the detailed receipt, and it was definitely at home. Two weeks later, I finally had a free Saturday morning during banking business hours to do redeposit my ill-fated giro and obtain my reimbursement. After explaining the giro situation to a customer service representative, under her advisement I wrote a letter explaining the Ghanaian Embassy wouldn’t accept this perfectly good giro, waited in line to speak with a cashier banker, watched her dutifully fill out three more forms and staple my letter of explanation in Spanish to all the forms the $60 was officially redeposited. I was feeling overly confident thinking I was going to accomplish the FedEx and banking task in the same day, but alas I was wrong. The person who needed to issue the reimbursement isn’t in the office on Saturdays, but I should come back during the week. Needless to say, the following Tuesday, I once again signed out of school during my planning period went back to FedEx and was given my hard-fought $50 reimbursement.
Interestingly enough, this was only one part of planning for the Ghana trip. However, this one (long) snapshot is pretty representative of how each part of the process has been. Trying to find malaria prophylaxis here in El Salvador that works in West Africa, trying to buy a plane ticket with an American credit card, Salvadoran IP address, for a Nigerian passport holder, the surprises never cease! Filled with more obstacles than I could ever imagine but interspersed with unexpected and extravagant acts of kindness, goodness and helpfulness by friends and strangers alike, this is more than trip preparation…this is life!
