On June 20, Allison and I walked into the immigration office once again. We applied for our work permits back in November shortly after arriving. Every month we returned to immigration to check on our visas. We walked up the steps, through the immigration doors and down to a hallway where we turned right. Down that hallway we past several doors until we turned left down another hallway and to the service office all without seeing a single soul. It was tricky finding the correct office on our first trip but by the time June 20 rolled around our feet had been programmed to walk the worn hallways without thinking.
Each time that we showed up we entered a room with five desks squeezed in to cover the length of two of the walls. Papers littered the desks. Two doors off opposing sides of the room led into side offices. An airport style bench spanned one wall for those who waited. And two or three checked out immigration officers usually greeted us with silence.
In March, we walked in and saw three immigration officers. Only one of them was busy helping a person even though a small queue of 5-7 people had started. A man in his late twenties or early thirties who was slouched in his chair finally grunted, took out his music earbuds, and motioned for us to come over. He told us to check the blue binder to see if our permits had come. We flipped through this book that was filled with the hand written names of the people who received their permits each month. How anything is kept from being lost is unbeknownst to us.
After looking, we reported back to the officer and waited for another thirty day stamp that would bring us back in April. He fiddled on the computer for a few minutes and then printed a document. He handed the paper to us and said, "I have bad news. You're permit has been rejected." We were shocked this had never happened in our organization's history. We asked for an explanation and the one we got was Zambianization. I started asking many questions about what it was and what to do next. The man didn't have a good explanation and was clearly annoyed by having to help us. After yelling back and forth to a lady in one of the side offices, he finally told us to step in as he slouched back in his chair and put the ear buds back in unconcerned about the rest of the queue.
The lady in the side office explained that we were rejected for doing work that Zambians could do. We explained that we do not get paid and actually our presence employs many people. She told us that we would need to go to the capital city, Lusaka, and make our appeal there within a day or two.
So off we went on a bus to Lusaka not sure of what the future would hold. After the bus that we were supposed to be on filled up (despite us being early and having preassigned seats from being the first to buy tickets the day before), we were delayed an hour or so and then boarded a different bus for our eight hour trip. We arrived in Lusaka after immigration had closed so we spent the night and made our appearance in the morning.
This office was much bigger than the one in Livingstone. Desks filled most of the building and piles of paper filled most of the desks. It was absolute chaos. We talked with an immigration officer who heard our plea for about five minutes before taking our organization's appeal letter and one reference form and giving our other four letters back to us as being unnecessary. She stamped our papers for seven days and told us to wait a week and that we could call to find out our fate. Less than fifteen minutes after we had arrived, we walked out to catch our bus for the long ride home.
That week we felt peace but still an abruptness that would decide how long we would call this place home. After many prayers, we finally received the word that our appeal had been accepted and our permits were granted!
Back we went to the Livingstone immigration each week to see if they had arrived. Finally, in April a kind lady gave us a thirty day stamp so that we wouldn't have to come so often.
So on June 20 we trudged back through the hallways not expecting much. We walked in and to our disappointment our much maligned officer beckoned us over. He pointed at the blue binder and told us to look. We scanned through it and returned it to its place as Allison reported it was not yet there. The man indignantly asked Allison, "did you look?!" We both wanted to punch him right there but we gave him a polite "yes". He huffed a little and told us to go check with accounts as he started to mess around with his phone. We asked him for directions since this was the only office we knew of and he begrudgingly told us it was down the hallway.
So off we went down the hallway and we found a door that said "Accounts". We opened it and found two very delightful women. They took our papers and searched through piles of papers and found our work permits that filled our hearts with joy! From our best guess, the permits had been sitting there since April but, nevertheless, we finally had them after 7 1/2 months of waiting. We thought once about waving the permits at our antagonist in the other office but instead we decided to say goodbye to that office for at least two years and take a selfie!
We thank God for always having a plan and teaching us reliance and a little patience on the way.
