hard days night

Julie and I have had a rough week here! Let me tell you a little about our last two days.  Poor Julie has had to teach one class and I had to teach two.  Can you believe it!  This is bureaucracy in action.  Yesterday (Wednesday for those keeping score at home) we left the school at 7:30 am to head into the center of this beautiful city to get our residency permits.  So far so good.

 First stop is a quaint yet very busy street that was typified by a lot people just hanging out.  On one side of the street it sort of looked like a line had formed as many men had brought folding chairs and stools to sit on, but yet unorganized enough to make one question themselves.  The other side seemed to consist of the men who drove the guys on the other street to this location.  All that being said, our guide Lily emerged from wherever she disappeared to with our 'Foreign Expert Permits' and so I thought 'Mission Accomplished' and back to school.  Oh but I was wrong.

Turns out what we had retrieved at our first stop was not our residency permits and we were off to stop number two to fetch said permits.  (Now please remember this is a second hand account of an arguably confused  bystander)  We enter a very nice office building and head to the second floor. Upon exiting the elevator I oh so cleverly spy a sign that says 'Foreign Affairs Service Center' - or something like that - and we head in that direction.  It is a pristine office.  Not many people. Very white and clean with black chairs and what should have been the biggest sign we were in the wrong place, no lines.  We were in the wrong place.  Our guide, Lily, easily figures this out with a quick conversation and procures directions to the correct location which luckily turns out to be just a block away.

Upon arriving and passing the guarded gate, I once again cleverly spy a sign, this time saying, "Foreign Visa's - 2nd Floor - East."  We enter and head to, "2nd Floor - East."   Now this is more like it.  Lines everywhere.  Lily somehow makes her way through and get's us in line.  Then the well oiled machine begins to hiccup.  Lily takes great pity upon Julie and I and asks that we take a seat while she works her way through the process.

The chairs are comfortable and the scenery is quite entertaining.  For the last two weeks we have been basically the only white people around now we sit in what could be the United Nations lobby.  Characters of all shapes, colors and well whatever other adjectives you would like to employee are now hustling and bustling and keeping Julie and I fascinated.  Unfortunately, the hurdles cannot be cleared today and we plodded out of the building, back to our car and driver without our permits.

To be continued ...