Behind Closed Doors

While I wait for my resident visa to be approved (I’m going to be a missionary – who would have thought it!), I am on a tourist visa. The problem is that tourist visas only last for three months and they prohibit me (or anyone for that matter) from working, paid or unpaid! So that rules our volunteering or doing any kind of charity work! Ahem!

Suzanne, my Aussie friend, and I found ourselves in the position last week where we had to renew our visas. We had two choices – cross the border into Kenya (Nairobi being one entry point) and then return the next day and get another visa on the way back into Tanzania. But that involves traveling there for five hours on the bus, paying for a visa into Kenya, staying the night, dealing with Nairobi and then coming back on the bus for another five hours (if it doesn’t break down)!

The other option was to go into immigration in the local town (Arusha) and cajole (read: bribe) one of the officials to give us an extension for three months, by which time we should have our missionary visa.

We decided to have a bash at the latter option.

Our first mistake was to roll up to the door of immigration in the St Jude school bus. If you don’t know what one of our buses looks like, take a look at a picture! You would have to be carrying a white stick to miss one of these buses! To be fair, we didn’t realise the bus driver was actually going to try to park in the Immigration carpark! Anyhow, suffice to say, we attracted a little bit of attention. Still, I figured they might not have noticed! I was being a little optimistic.

We were ushered into an office within moments of our arrival in the office. Three officials stood around, chattering excitedly for a few moments as Suzanne and I smiled benevolently and hopefully (or we tried to appear that way though we were absolutely petrified!) One official started the questioning; where were we staying, why did we want to stay longer etc. We explained that we had met at a local camping ground and that I wanted to climb Kili and Suzanne wanted to paint me and the mountain! They talked for a while, gesticulated rather a lot (probably argued over how much cut each of them got!) and then told us it would cost. We explained that the website said it was free to renew your visa but they told us that was a different type of scenario. Just what that scenario was we never managed to find out. The reasons kept changing but we held out.

Realising we were sticking to our guns, they summoned the man they felt would be the deal-breaker. The other men disappeared and this one sat down, smiled and put the ball firmly back in our court with a “So, what should we do?” I smiled and decided to play and said “I don’t know, what should we do”. He suggested we go to the border but I told him we didn’t want to and didn’t have the money. Our little game of verbal tennis continued as he suggested we were loaded and I tried to explain I was a poor student. To help our case, So Suzanne told him her sorry plight of being an artist and making very little money. He looked at her excitedly and said “so you make money from Art?” and she said “very little” to which he replied “You cannot work on this visa”. We of course assured him that as a pretty poor artist, Suzanne clearly made no money at all… We all tied ourselves into knots. We knew it and he knew it.

As this debarcle was taking place, the irony of it all struck me. Here we were, in the immigration department, playing a little game to which we all knew the outcome. We were paying (not to mention lying) so that we could help to change this country. And the very things we tell the children not to do (lying, bribing), well, we were doing ourselves. But hopefully the end justifies the means!

Finally, realizing this could go on forever, Suzanne said to George “So, what if we pay some money”. Stopping to consider this suggestion as though it were a novel idea, George (our new friend) said that maybe we could do something if we paid. We haggled for quite a while on this new arrangement. George made a quick call to talk to someone. We were expecting to pay around US$130 so we started bargaining at US$50 and just as we agreed it, and said we needed a visa for three months, George then said we could only get a visa for a couple of weeks for $50. For three months, it would cost more!!! After making a few more phonecalls (God only knows to whom – if he’s like my father, he pretends to be an employee, calls the non-existent boss upstairs, haggles a bit with him and comes up with a price). Finally, George told us we would have to pay US$100 each. We got him down to 100,000 Tanzanian Schilllings which is around US$90.

Just as we were about to do the sordid deal, George thoughtfully closed the door. Must have been because of the draught! We then handed over our money and he put it in the inside pocket of his rather expensive looking jacket. He then took our passports and told us to come back in half an hour. He didn’t give us a receipt, funnily enough! Sure enough, half an hour later, our passports were stamped and signed.

And now we can legally travel around Tanzania. So, Suzanne can paint her heart out and I can do all those other wonderful things I told George about! I’m sure he’s worried about us. Obviously we would never consider helping anyone, doing any kind of volunteer work or more specifically, assisting in the education of poor, underpriviledged children or anything of the like. That would breach our visa conditions! If anyone is looking for me, I’ll be the one struggling my way up Kili! Ahem!