Damned if you do...

Well, I’m back from the Passport Office, and I was wrong, it only took me five hours to do a five-minute job. I hate the passport office, have I mentioned that? Well no, that’s not fair, I hate the visa division of the passport office, I should be specific. And even more specifically, I despise this little bearded mullah-type visa clerk who works there named Nissar. What a bitch that guy is. I wanted to slap him. A pox upon him! The office itself reminds me of one of those bunkers where all the planning happens in a Vietnam movie, And you can’t leave before you’ve visited every desk. Your forms move from desk to desk, as the clerks sip their tea and rearrange the stationary on their desk. Then you get your tea-stained forms back, and they tell you that something or other is wrong. So you fix it, and then start back at the first desk. Good times.

Anyway, I’ve been in Pakistan for as long as I can on a tourism visa, and the long and the short of it is that in order to leave the country on Saturday, I have to extend my visa by 6 days. I can’t confirm my ticket to Africa until I get permission to exit. So basically I’m not allowed to stay, but I’m not allowed to leave either. So, after much debate, I had to pay the full fee for a three month extension in order to get one extra week. Fair enough ya bunch of cockknockers. But then they decided they needed the National Identity Card of the person I’m staying with, even though I'll only be in the country two more days. So I had to get across the city and back to get a copy of that. And of course, by the time I got back, the big-wig who needs to sign the extension had left for the day. Excellent, sure, I’d love to come back tomorrow.

And still, when I return from Africa, I have to stop in Dubai and apply to reenter Pakistan on a work visa with an invitation from the company I’m going to work for. Of course, it would have been too simple to just do that from within the country. No, no, you have to leave the country to apply to stay in the country.

But, I’m not going to complain too much, because I know what kind of shit my Pakistani friends go through trying to get into the US or Canada. It’s the same shit everywhere, but it helps if you’re not brown. If I were a Pakistani trying to enter the US of A, I’d have about as good a chance as a blind man completing the New York Times Sunday crossword.

As it is, my work visa application to reenter Pakistan will probably go through, it’s just a little nerve-wracking. Otherwise, I guess it’ll be the Dave hangin out in Dubai for a while. Once again, wish me luck.