O Canada--Why Me? (I thought we were friends.)

Until I was in grade six, I was schooled by Canadians, and I loved it. I didn’t mind spelling things with the extra ‘u’ and I sometimes said ‘sorry’ so that it rhymed with ‘gory’ and that was fine with me too. Once I entered into an in-depth conversation with Mr. Case about Canadian politics and who I would vote for in that election (it was 1992 or some where around then) and I was passionately for the Tories or the Liberal Democrats or whatever political party he was telling me about. I was about 8 years old, and I really didn’t care, but he was getting a kick out of the conversation so I humoUred him because I like to entertain.  I also have a favoUrite book called “I Want to Go Home” by Gordon Korman (I’ve mentioned this before) about 2 Canadian boys trying to escape the funshine camp activities that they are being forced to endure. It inspired me. And finally, I have genuinely liked almost every Canadian I have ever met, but now I have a real grudge against Canada. And not the grudge where we make jokes about Canada because those are funny and coming from a place of love. This is legit.

This is also a good book. About two boys recking
havoc in a Canadian boarding school.

As you know, immigration guys love me, as a general rule. I often get proposals of marriage and offers of citizenship when I’m getting visas or getting my passport stamped. I am good at schmoozing. I use languages, humor, and the head-tilt, and it works.  I have only failed at this twice with two different South Sudanese officials and BOTH TIMES what is the ONE THING that they wanted me to know about them -- the reason why they can never be wrong even though they clearly are? 

They used to work at the embassy in Canada. 

They both wanted to start a rambling and irrelevant story about how “When I was in Canada, I learned everything about this and I know that there is only one way to do this right, and it is the way that I am doing this.” Stories about Canada don’t HAVE to be boring. We know this because Anne of Green Gables. (Also, Gordon, I don’t care that you have an annoying rhyming name, you are the BEST.) But these guys can make even the most ardent lover of maple syrup want to crack the Stanley Cup in two and throw it at a Mountie.

 

A kindred spirit

The first issue I had was in Sudan while I was getting a new visa to South Sudan, and someone had filled the paperwork out for me, in accordance with the word of the slick businessman sitting in front of the embassy who told people that they had to pay him 20 pounds to fill out their paperwork. Most people going into that embassy don’t know much about it, and neither did my lovely colleague who had gone there to pick up the papers for me. Still, that didn’t matter to any of the other Embassy people she met. No, they were fine with her perfectly adequate paperwork until it got to Canada. He called me into his office. “Are you really going to work in South Sudan? Your work permit is finishing. You are lying and I can throw you in jail! I know about this because I worked in Canada!”

“I am applying for this visa so that I can go back and renew the work permit paperwork.”

“You can’t lie on these papers! This is very serious! In Canada we learned that if you lie, we can throw you in jail!”

“I’m not lying. These papers are accurate. I need a visa to get into the country so that I can renew the other paperwork.”

Finally, he agreed to give me the visa, but he marked over the whole paper in red pen, correcting spelling mistakes and ranting about how Canada is the only place where you learn things. “Visas everywhere are always the same in every country. Canada system is the one that everyone uses. You may travel many places, but I also traveled to Canada and I know that all systems are the SAME. They don’t change. And also our system in South Sudan does not change. Because we are like Canada and we stay the same.”

Side note for those who read this who have not had much visa experience (sometimes, especially while sitting for hours in a dimly lit stuffy room, I envy your lives): the visa system in South Sudan has changed each one of the 24 times I have had to renew my visa. If there is one thing you can count on in South Sudan, it is that nothing will stay the same except for that one room you have to sit in for an hour waiting for an Indian tech to fix the computer so that the South Sudanese visa guy can painstakingly type out your name and life story with one finger onto the sticker visa he will put in your passport.

Side note 2: No two visa systems are the same. If Quebec secedes (and in my current state of mind, I would totally get it. You do you, Q), they will most definitely have a different visa system than Canada and what’s more, it would all be in French, and they would laugh in your face if you didn’t understand them and make you sit in a room and listen to Celine Dion songs until you decided to reenact the Titanic and jump onto an iceberg, which would likely be right outside the window because if there is one thing I know about Canada, it is that it is cold there.  Also, visas have been a part of my life since childhood. They are miserable and mystifying Geneva Convention-approved form of torture. They are never fun, but they look cool in your passport.

So I got the visa in Khartoum, in spite of Canada’s best efforts to stop me, and I got a Facebook invite from the guy I met after Canada, who was properly charmed by me (also, I went overboard with the charm and it was Canada’s fault AGAIN, and I can never get a visa to South Sudan from Sudan again because I’m worried about jail time and/or not being able to turn down a marriage proposal from a South Sudanese soldier).

Old passport

Then fast forward a few months to now when I’m in the awkward “carry around 2 passports” stage. This happens when you are from a cool country that lets you do that (Sweden) or you are a cool person with dual citizenship. (I’m not that cool. I could never choose just one extra citizenship anyway.) In my case, I have two passports because one passport got too full, but I have all my visas in it. I had to finish that passport and get a new passport. My new passport is shiny and stiff and empty. My old passport is flabby and shabby and full. But my visas in it are still valid. The nice lady at the US Embassy assured me, even though I knew it was true because I’ve been in this stage before. Once, notably after I had a temporary passport with my China visa after being mugged in China and losing my other passport (the thieves gave it back though—it was nice, but I’d already canceled it. Still—I keep my old passports as souvenirs). I had the China visa in the temporary passport (I had to get it quickly because I was picking up my parents in Hong Kong and taking them to Macau and then the mainland for a visit) and my new passport was the valid passport I was currently using. I was crossing the border from Laos back into China after a sketchy solo backpack trip I’d taken through Southeast Asia, ending up in a van in the middle of nowhere with a few Chinese guys I’d met who agreed to take me back to China. Can I just say, it is a  good thing that no one can travel with 23 year old me anymore? Because I was an idiot.  But somehow I survived that and got to the border, and the Chinese officials looking at my two passports were initially a bit confused. But using my patented method for getting past immigration official—languages, humor, head-tilt, they let me back in. And if they can do it, then so can you, South Sudan! And of course, South Sudan would have, but stupid CANADA got in the way AGAIN!

In Laos before hopping in a white van
with 4 Chinese men I'd never seen before in my life.
Also: "under the clothes" money pouch is not hidden well in this photo-
another poor choice.

“I cannot stamp your passport,” said the immigration guy who had been fawning over me and my wonderful Arabic seconds before.  We argued back and forth a few moments (“Yes, you can—I just did this twice in Chad and once in Kenya.” “I can’t because the computers and I might get in trouble.”) and then he said, “Come here with me and I’ll take you to the boss.”

Let me just tell you something: when someone has your passport, you follow them. That is what you do. And so that is what I did.

I ended up outside of the airport in a trailer converted into an office, where a police was sitting in a fancy chair. They brought another man with me, and they gave his info to the police first. This turned out to be problematic for me because he was trying to come in from Sudan without having followed legal procedures. This is not good because former enemy + outdated legal procedures = really good excuse to get worked up and yell a lot and assert your new-found power.

Then, basking in the glow of his righteous anger, he came to my passport. “Now I know that this is wrong,” he said, “because I was in Canada.”

That is really what my hair looks like when I get off a plane.

And it went down-hill from there.

Here are some things he said to me:

“Your passport is finished. I have to respect the American law and I cannot accept this visa.”

“You are not in America. You have to accept South Sudanese law. American law does not matter here.”

“I know you have been many places, but I have been to Canada.”

“When I went to America from Canada, I had one tiny problem with my passport and they made me wait for 3 hours, and I said, ‘Thank you for following the law.’”

"American police force is very strong. You know that TV series 'bad-boy-bad-boy-what-you-do-the-do'? It is a good series. Very strong police."

“You think this money is going into my pocket? It is for South Sudan.”

“So what age do you think you will retire? 50?”

“Why aren’t you married?”

Ultimately, it was a very important conversation. After I bought the visa and went back and the evil sneaky Sudanese former enemy was gone, he was much more friendly, and that is when he asked the last two questions and told me how we were great friends. And also more about how he learned so much in Canada.

Official uniform of immigration personnel in South Sudan

Another important moment: when I went back in to buy the visa, the immigration guys said, “You didn’t understand. You could have just paid a small amount of money if you didn’t go to the boss.”

“YOU told me to go to the boss,” I said. "And no, I won't marry you, because you did not give me my visa for free."

In the interest of full disclosure, I have paid extra money to get out of Burundi a day past my visa and I paid some baksheesh to a guard in the Valley of the Kings to see Tutankhamen’s tomb without a ticket, but in this case, I didn’t even think about offering a bribe, and I really regret it. Especially earlier today when I tried to get my visa renewed to 6 months multiple entry in accordance with my year-long work permit (ends in 2017)—the main reason for this visit in the first place.

“Oh no,” said my friend at the immigration office. “You have a valid visa. We can’t renew until it is over. But you can talk to the big boss, if you like.”

So we went to the big boss.

“How are you?” he boomed loudly in Arabic, remembering me. “I hope you are 100%” (a classic Sudanese response to that question).

“No,” I said. “Only 90%. I need you to fix my visa problem.”

I explained and he said, “Well, we cannot give you a new visa when you already have a valid visa. But you come back next Tuesday, and I’ll give it to you.”

Why is Tuesday the magic day? I don’t know. But I do know that this man has not been to Canada. So I joked my way out, making him promise me the 6 month visa and South Sudanese nationality in front of 5 other officers who were all laughing and will all remember that he promised the crazy khawaja who speaks Arabic a six month visa. And if I survive the dangerous public transport ride to Yei tomorrow on a road fraught with bandits and gaping holes (which I have to do now since my schedule has changed thanks to CANADA and I couldn’t get an airplane in time), I will be back in his office on Tuesday, and he will remember me, and he will be happy to give me my 6 month visa.

“I’m 98% happy now,” I told him as I was leaving. “I’ll be 100% on Tuesday when you give me that 6 month visa.

Winner of National Geographic's "Capture the Authentic Spirit of a Country" Travel Photography Contest 2016