Hurry up and wait

We've finally gotten to where we can submit my paperwork to the Canadian High Commission.

This past month has been nothing but feeling like we took two steps backward for every step forward.  After we finally got the police record sorted, G got impatient with all the time it was taking to get the various pieces of paperwork ticked off on the checklist I downloaded from the CIC website.

When he visited the Commission, it was only for them to tell him that we needn't go through all the paperwork for my permanent residency now, because in any case it can't be issued here, they will only issue it when I am in Canada.  Argh.  They told us to simply apply for a temporary visa, which is good for periods of six months to a year, and apply for the permanent residency once we are settled in.  Nice of them to tell us that after we've gone through all that time and expense!

So I filled out the paperwork, and waited for my salary to come in to make the payment at the bank for the visa. Having done that on Tuesday, I left the paperwork with G to drop them off, because he also needs to go to the Commission so his immigration stamp can be extended.  Apparently the Immigration Officer who cleared him didn't believe he was coming to Jamaica to get married, so she gave him the minimum minimum stay of only 3 months.  I was beyond insulted, on his behalf, because in the two trips I have taken abroad in the past year I have never been given a minimum stay of less than 6 months, I can't believe she would treat a visitor to our country with such suspicion!

Tomorrow he goes back, having gone there today and waited for more than 2 hours only to miss the opportunity to speak with a consular officer and submit my application.  Apparently it was hugely busy there today.  I am interested to know this, because I can't recall ever seeing the lines of people waiting outside that you typically see at say, the US embassy, outside the High Commission.  Canada must be experiencing a rise in popularity among Jamaicans traveling abroad!

Getting started

So it's been a busy week, and now I'm finally able to go through some of the steps we've taken on this journey of getting to Canada.

We actually got started on Sunday when I applied online for the "official" copy of our marriage certificate, which will form the basis of all our paperwork. Well, the application went through, and so did the payment, and 5 working days later, when I am supposed to receive it within 2 days, it's still sitting at "Payment Received, Record Not Found". Argh #1.

On Wednesday came the next step, which was handing in my notice. Never thought the first time I signed my married name it would be on my resignation letter! It was harder than I thought it would be, though the sensation of profound relief that came after was expected. I have not been happy at my job for a very long time now, it is not breaking my heart to leave.

Thursday was very busy, and step number 3 happened during my lunch break. I had my picture taken before starting work, picked them up at lunch time and then flagged a cab to New Kingston to pay the fees for my police record. I understand why this is required, but it still annoys me, because I am about to spend time and money to prove a negative, because all it will say is I have NO criminal record. Spend your whole life being law-abiding, and you have to pay to prove it. I doubt criminals in Jamaica are in a hurry to rush the Ministry of Justice for their police records, I should be able to get it for free, just because I AM law-abiding. But, no, I have to pay to get it, and pay double because I want it back sooner than 21 working days later. Argh #2.

Step 4 of this week involved going downtown to be fingerprinted and photographed to have said prints and pic run against criminal records. I have to wonder what the point of this exercise is, when my fingerprints are on record nowhere else in Jamaica. I was fingerprinted at the US embassy, and also at Immigrations and Customs in the US, but I doubt those records are stored anywhere in Jamaica. In any case, I foolishly expected that this would be a simple process whereby I presented my receipt, was shown to a technician, processed and sent on my way. Foolish girl.

I arrived at the building at 8:00 a.m., to find 82 people already waiting in line ahead of me. Insert WTF! moment here. I get number 83, then stand around outside for 30 minutes until they actually open for business and the first 120 persons (yes, there were more) are ushered inside and seated or stood alongside the wall in order of number. For more than an hour, nothing else happens. Insert second WTF! moment. Finally the numbers start moving into a second room, and after another hour, I am sitting just outside it. About 15 minutes later, we get inside room #2, are given forms to fill out according to the purpose for which we need the records, and moved into room #3. It's not really a separate room, just another part of room #2. More waiting, more waiting, more waiting, another hour goes by, and finally I am seated at the "next in line for service" chair, and I hear "next!".

I get into the fingerprinting room, and watch as the technician/CSI/whatever proceeds to mis-spell my name, even though it's clearly written on TWO forms and my passport in front of her, and classify my gender as "Unknown". Insert third WTF! moment here. She is brusque to the point of rudeness in her manner as she takes the mugshot (yes, that's exactly what it said on the screen, mugshot!) and my fingerprints. When she is done, she orders me upstairs and to the left. Not once through this entire process has she bothered to look at me. I have been thoroughly reduced to feeling like cattle.

I go up the stairs and to the left, and find to my horror that it is yet another waiting room up there, where I have to sit and wait to find out if for some reason of technical failure I will have to be fingerprinted the old-fashioned way, i.e. inkpad and ten-cards. Insert 4th WTF! moment here!! Mercifully, the universe decides I have had enough for today, and all is well with the machine-scanned prints, so I get my receipt back with the date and time when I can come back to collect the record (next Wednesday, between noon and 3 p.m.) and I can leave. Finally.

My final WTF! moment comes from the bus ride back uptown, which takes a good 45 minutes because somehow I got the one that everyone decided to get on and get off, so it stopped at every single bus stop between the downtown and uptown terminuses. I make it back into the office at 12:30 p.m., having left there at 7:30 a.m. That's 5 hours of my life I'm not getting back. Argh #3.