I spent two days this week trying to fill out a visa application. No, not a credit card application, but a visa application, the kind asking for a country's permission to enter into their sacred land. Oh it was maddening!
Our adoption agency has no regard for how much things cost, it is not their money after all, and they told us to use Travel Agency XYZ to submit the visa application. We were given some vague information but not told where exactly that information would go on the actual application. But no worries, Travel Agency XYZ would know what to do with the information. What our adoption agency did not tell us was that Travel Agency XYZ charges $190 for a $40 visa. Yes, a $150 markup folks!
I refused. I was not going to use Travel Agency XYZ when I knew I could fill out the application myself and use a courier for the rock bottom price of $40 plus the $40 application fee.
I downloaded the application directly from the embassy website and started filling it out. Most of it was self explanatory:
name, address, date of birth,
have you been here before?
have we denied you entrance into our beautiful country before?
has your home country ever told you to leave and not come back?
You know, run of the mill questions you find on any application.
The difficult questions were: who is arranging your travel and who is your in country contact, and do you have any children traveling with you?* Yeah, you would think that those would be a pretty simple questions for your adoption agency to answer. Nope. The only answer we got was, "Ask Travel Agency XYZ, they will know." I reiterated that I was not using Travel Agency XYZ and to please give me the information. Again, no answer and again, "Please use Travel Agency XYZ or you might not get your visa back in time to travel."
Fear. Fear can be a powerful motivator. Until the person who is supposed to be motivated sees through the ruse and then any attempt at using fear to motivate just becomes another way to make someone very angry. I am at the angry phase. I am no longer afraid. I have seen through the ruse and I'm not buying it anymore.
The courier we are using has been used by our former (and wonderful) adoption agency for the very same visa applications many many times, so I have no fear that the courier knows where to go, what to say and what to do. Funny how a little information dispells fear and takes away its power to motivate.
No thanks to our adoption agency, I was finally able to get the answers to the questions and our applications went off in the mail yesterday. We have been told that this embassy is somewhat picky, so please pray for favor and that our applications will be processed quickly. I hope to have them back in about 10 days. We leave in 21 days!
*disclaimer on what looks like a very simple question: "Do you have any children traveling with you?" Since Asa is not legally our son yet, we were not sure whether or not to list him on our visa application. He will not need a visa since he will be traveling on his home country passport. And we did find out that the answer to the question was to not list him on the application because of his visa situation.
No comments:
Post a Comment