Read this if you need to go to sleep – my adventure today to get a police check clearance so I can go to Vietnam.
Reading this is therapeutic!
Here we go!
1. 9am pickup from flat by Rashid – ‘I need stamps’
2. Go to post office “we don’t sell stamps, maybe the library …….”
3. Rashid finally gets stamps at a little corner store – half a JDs
worth, made in Pakistan of all places.
4. Ring ahead to confirm location is Abdaly – no we have moved to
Jandaweel, I think for how long (possibly over night) and why is the website not updated.
5. I had phoned yesterday (10 separate calls) and got onto Major Ali – at the gate he spoke to the guard (I got his phone number) and I was ushered to a bus.
6. Moments later I was in a queue. You may wonder, why a bus – this was an army site, security tight……..
7. Various discussions took place and it turned out they had no
photocopier – need copies of my passport and residency card (I checked, not mentioned on website). But I did have the stamps and my two photos (in Mr HappyTShirt). They seemed half happy too.
8. Given a small slip of paper, in Arabic, and told to go to the addresses and get
stamped clearance (for what I have no idea).
9. Get on bus again, Rashid collects me, I give him the slip of paper, he nods knowingly and takes me via a photocopier, again in a little corner store, to the first place on the slip of paper – it is in Khalda, in a back block, it is the Criminal Services Directorate. I queue, get let in, get a ticket, wait, go to counter 1, I get a stamp!
10. Off to the next place, in the Gardens, again a little building,
this time teaming with people but I get the stamp.
11. Rashid picks me up again, back to the place in Jandaweel, get bus,
get let in, get another stamp, get a small slip of paper – ‘bring this
back in a week’ to collect clearance form. ‘Ta mate’, I say, he smiles.
12. Walk back to road, no bus, it’s about to rain (snow this weekend if your interested), Rashid picks me up, takes me to my flat, he is happy time for prayer before his next job, I give him 20JD, this is too much, ‘Rashid without you I would be ……’, time is 12.15pm –
NOT BAD CONSIDERING.
But, wait there is more, this is just the beginning.
I now have to get the Jordan Foreign Ministry to notarise it – I’ll
attempt this after I come back from Germany in two weeks time.
But, wait there is still (much) more.
When I have done the MofFA, I have to get the Vietnamese Embassy to
notarise – and the nearest one is in Riyadh! (that is in Saudi Arabia)
I contacted the Vietnamese embassy in Riyadh by email, and surprisingly they reply, this never happens in Jordan with ANYONE- “you also need to get it notarised by the
Jordan Embassy in Riyadh before we do it”, I’m told.
With me present I think to myself.
I ask ‘do I have to be present in Riyadh’, no ‘you can get someone
else to do it for you”!
really – ‘Like who’, I have not heard back yet. Keep your eye on the
ball Andrew! (the urge to just reach out and strangle someone is taking over, resist Andrew, resist)
Maybe I will get a trip to Suadi Araba afterall! (now that is half
glass full thinking or what?)
Maybe this is too long for a FB post?? La, but I’ll put it there too, along with the other adventures linked to the other f’ing documents I have to get notarised by sundry Gov. departments spread around the globe – at this point I am thinking HOME would be good, and just stay there.
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