Friday, May 04, 2007

in 10 days time

after weeks of waiting, i finally received my school papers from the states. so on thursday, me and naief headed to the american embassy in hopes of getting his little fingers on an american passport, social security card.... and all that jazz.

after hooking him into a sling thingy, carrying him inside, waiting in line for what seemed ages, answering a few more questions and giving them enough proof that i am actually who i say i am, and that both of the names were used by me and that i'm not someone posing as an american, the officer working on our case said that everything was in order and naief will be getting an american passport. :)

i feel so relieved and just so happy that i was able to show from the records i received that i was that person who had two different last names. thankfully for me, it showed such on these papers. thank God!!!!

while waiting, we had the chance to watch lots of ppl and one lady had a little girl that was so interested in naief. she made her way over to where we were sitting to look at him and say hello. she was too shy to get close... but she was a cutey.

finally, after about 2 hrs, we were heading out and the lady w/ the little girl was ahead of us as we headed thru security. after giving them the necessary badges, we finally got our personal belongings, head out and as we're walking back to our cars we chat a bit.

come to find out, her husband is british, her daughter has a british passport and she has an ethiopian passport. her husband said he's never seen such and was shocked to see how difficult it is to obtain a visa to go to the states. he said they act like you're going to blow something up or that we're all out to harm the americans. i agreed. i told them what i had gone thru and the father told me that in order to get his daughter's passport, he only had to show his birth certificate and he had it.

it just shouldn't be so difficult for americans.... i really believe this. i find it utterly ridiculous that we have to go to such lengths to prove that we are indeed american.... and i find it utterly ridiculous that the "common" folk have to go thru so much to get simple visas... but i had members giving me visa apps and they lied on them over and over again and got visas within a couple of day's time. just not fair. glad i didn't have to bring up anything like that while i was at the embassy.... because if they had continued to give me crap, i think i would have mentioned a few things that i saw taking place over and over again... but ... maybe not.

shame how much power these officers have... and it seems they hold your life in their hands.... sadly enough.

but... i'm happy. naief is getting his american passport and i'm very pleased with this.

13 comments:

Jahooni said...

Red Rover, Red Rover... let Naeif come over!
Yipee

Puppy said...

congratulations with passport and happy 3 months birthday to Naief. sorry for late congratulation:)

Munther said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Munther said...

congrats on the passport .. he will thank you for it when he grows up ! You just saved him loaaaaaddddsss of visa money ! ;)

Regarding the officers, its not only the US ones, who are nutjobs !

All embassy officers are the same, they must get a crash course on how to annoy people in the jobs training period !

I remember how over strict the officer was at the Spanish embassy, to an extent of me giving him a lecture in human rights and etiquette !

What annoyed me the most is when my application got accepted he changed, he became this cheery, funny and nice person ! I was so shocked by the sudden change that I had to ask him where his twin brother was ! After picking my passport, ofcourse !:)

The Moody Minstrel said...

Getting my kids' American passports was no problem. Renewing them (since for children they only last 5 years) was such an unbelievable PITA that I gave up and didn't bother. They just have their Japanese passports now. Maybe I'll get new U.S. passports for them when they're just a little older so we don't have to go through this nonsense so often.

Um Naief said...

first.... i'll respond to you guys prob later this evening. baby is still awake.. so i'll make this real quick.

moody, you bring up a real interesting point. i was wondering the exact same thing about renewing... but i have this question for you. what do you do about yourself? do they give you trouble w/ that??? i was wondering about this and wondering if because i don't live in the u.s. anymore if they would even renew mine. it's not for a while... but i while going thru all of this, it did cross my mind that it would prob be a big PITA...

and w/ respect to the one for your children... i was thinking they'd be this way when it came up for renewal as well. why they make this stuff so freakin difficult... well, i just don't get it. it's almost as if they don't care if we stay american or not and they'd rather get rid of us. do you ever feel that way?

ok.. baby is crying.. he only always me so much time on puter when he's awka... so i'll run and respond later. :)

The Moody Minstrel said...

i have this question for you. what do you do about yourself? do they give you trouble w/ that???

It's not so hard for me. Since I'm an adult, I can renew by mail. I did so last year, and all I needed were the application forms, proper passport photos, and a document from my employer. I mailed them to the embassy together with the fee and a self-addressed, stamped, registered return envelope, and I had my new passport in my hands in only a few weeks!

Unfortunately, with a child you have to renew in person (i.e. a long, costly trip to the embassy), and you have to have a pile of documents proving time and place of birth as well as the identity of your non-American marriage partner (i.e. having a form sent down from her place of family registry...which is far away and costs a lot...plus another one from the town where we live) and a document proving said partner's consent (especially since my kids' passports were in my name, whereas their Japanese family registry is in my wife's).

Even getting the necessary documents seemed like a monumental pain in the behindermost with very little practical benefit, so I finally said "fuggit" and let the kids' U.S. passports expire. They still have Japanese citizenship and passports, so it's not like they're going to wind up in national limbo.

Anonymous said...

Welcome to the Real Life:D

Olivia said...

Eeeh. Beginning to feel a bit of dread at renewing my US passport in a couple of years...

Olivia said...

Oops, hit enter by mistake.

A few years ago when I renewed my British passport, I had just heard of them being stolen in the mail over here in the UK, so as I was going to spend a few months at our house in the US over the summer holidays, I decided to do it over there via Washington. hehe! I'd have to do it here next time, though, since we don't live there anymore.

Um Naief said...

munther, can't imagine getting a lecture on such.... but what a smart come back!

puppy, thanks!

moody, now i remember when you were talking about your renewal on your blog... had forgotten. boy, there's a lot to be done there... and i thought it was bad here. i feel similarly in that i almost said fuggit w/ the passport and just having the bahraini one... but then decided against it because of expenses and such later on. i hope it's worth it, and i guess if we ever decided to move back there, then it would be a good thing.

olivia, before being reminded by moody about his renewal and such, i was thinking in the same respect... thinking that it might be close to impossible since i don't have a physical address in the u.s., but i'm assuming it'll never go to that.

maybe you won't have any problems at all. i forget, were you born in the u.s.?

lebinbah, gosh, and here i thought all those other 150,000 things that i hate were real life... i guess i'll have to add this into the mix as well. ;)

Olivia said...

No, I was born in the UK but have lived 15 years in each country.

Have you ever seen the American Embassy in London? It's huuuuuge. I wonder if I will have to go there again at some point in my life. Haven't been there since we started our emigration process in 1988!

It's confusing because the US State Department says that once ou are in your birth country, the US embassy can't do anything for you. It's like being torn between home1 and home2...

Um Naief said...

olivia, i've never been to the embassy in the UK. i saw one of them in that movie w/ matt damon... but can't remember if it was germany or what, but it was HUGE. the one here isn't much of anything, which is what causes such huge lines and maybe the bad temperaments of the women working there.

when u say that the embassy says that once you're in your birth country, that the US Embassy can't do anything for you... do you mean w/ respect to renewing your passport? or help in general. the demonic witch's sister went to the US to have her child just to get a passport and i've wondered how easy it'll be for her to get it renewed since 1) she didn't live there for any length of time and 2) she lives here now and has since she was prob 6 or so months old.