Bits and Bobs

Once again, I spent most of the day running around with various bits and bobs. One of the main things on the agenda today was renewing our travel permits so we can come back "home" after spending Christmas outside the country. It was a relatively painless affair, considering what it COULD have been.

Basically, there are two guys sitting in a little pre-fab office across the empty vacant lot from the Legislative Assembly building (which has now been renovated three times in the last two years - that's a whole 'nother story!). They each have a desk. On the desk, they have a little stack of yellow cards, two stamps, a pen, and a glue stick. The stamps are the important part of the equation, 'cause without a stamp, you're nothing around these parts.

Anyways, Jackie went first and explained the situation - our current cards are still valid, but we want to get new ones because they will expire on December 30, while we are both out of the country. And we need these cards so that we will be allowed back INTO the country in January.

No problem. The guy starts writing out Jackie's card. Then the second guy is finished with the Kenyan that he's dealing with, and I pull my plastic lawn chair up to the desk and ask for the same thing. Here is where it gets complicated. Both of these guys suddenly decide that it's not really possible, and that they have to take away the current cards that we have (which are all nicely stamped, proving that we have paid all of our money for the registration fee etc.), and that they will give us these new ones, which will be valid for 6 months from today.

But we don't want them valid 6 months from today, and besides we need our old cards to get out of the country. I tried to explain. The Kenyan chap who was sitting in his plastic chair tried to explain. The other guy (of unknown origin) tried to explain. The two guys with the stamps started trying to explain to each other...

At one point, I was a little worried that I wouldn't get my pass at all!

But in the end, they figured it out, took our $120 USD and filled out the yellow cards for us. I even got the guy to leave the section where it asks for the passport number and date of issue blank for me, since I have to get a new passport when I get home, and I would like to write in my new passport number, rather than my old one.

It was really quite comical to sit there in the ubiquitous plastic chair, watching these guys fill in the cards, then getting out their glue sticks, cutting and pasting our photos on the cards, and the stamping it all with great flourish! It was like arts and crafts day at immigration!

Anyways, the whole ordeal took less than an hour, which is really, truly amazing for this place. It also goes to show how few "systems" are really in place. We have these travel permits now, but no one took any copies of it, no one has any record that they were issued to us. I don't even have a passport number written on mine! And they all had to have quite a lengthy discussion to figure out if they could even give us new passes or not. Imagine an entire country being run like this... no wonder we have to have great flexibility when it comes to living here :)

On a better note - tomorrow we are having a Christmas party for all the translation teams and staff based here. I'm in charge of it all - seems I'm the only one who likes to plan parties no matter where I go! I've got some ideas for some games to play, and I've arranged to get some fried chicken, meat and fish from the restaurant that we always go to. The fridge is stocked with pop, and I'll arrange to get some bread, salad and pineapple tomorrow. So hopefully everyone will have a good time. I think some of the translation teams are thinking that I'm actually going to slaughter a goat or a cow tomorrow and roast it all up. That's THEIR idea of a good party. But I'm more into the take-away fried food, myself.

I also checked the mail box today, and lo and behold there was a little package from a friend of mine from where I used to live. He sent a little bag full of shiro powder (that's ground up chick peas, mixed with spices). You mix it with water and some finely chopped veggies and cook up a nice paste to eat with injera. So this evening, on the way home from the post office, I stopped off at the Ethiopian restaurant, got some injera for take-away, and came home to cook up a pot of shiro! Man, was it ever good! I took a photo of it on my plate to send to my friend, but since I haven't posted many photos for the last few weeks, I'll put a picture here...
Mmmm... shiro and cabbage salad. It doesn't get much better than this!