THE VISA

As I mentioned in the previous blog entry, I spent the New Year’s weekend traveling in Syria. It was a tour organized by a local travel agency and I was the only non-Turk. The only problem with that is that Turks do not need a visa to travel to Syria and Americans do. Getting the visa was an almost surreal experience, somewhat Kafkaesque.

Fortunately there is a Syrian consulate here in Gaziantep, not too surprising since we’re less than an hour from the Syrian border and Gaziantep is the only large city in southeastern Turkey. The travel agent said she would find out what kind of paperwork was needed for me to go on this trip. I didn’t hear for quite a while. She informed me very tactfully that the person she needed deal with didn’t appear to keep regular hours. Anyhow, she finally got through and told me I needed to get a letter from the rector of Zirve – essentially the university president – saying I was employed by Zirve and wanted to participate in such and such a trip. Naturally she needed it immediately. Amazingly I was able to get such a letter – with help from my friend Filiz who’s a business school faculty member at Zirve. I delivered it to the travel agent and then began waiting – and waiting and waiting. The trip left on the morning of December 31^st. On the afternoon of December 29^th I got an e-mail telling me to go to the consulate at 10 AM on the 30^th with a passport and a surprisingly hefty sum of money to pay for the visa. I teach at 10:30 AM but was giving a test that day. I arranged for someone to start the test, thinking I’d only be slightly late.

I arrived at the consulate a bit early, thinking they’d just take my money and put the visa in my passport. Surprise. There were two police security posts outside the consulate walls, and one of the officers directed me to the front gate. I rang the bell and a rather threatening type – sandy hair, crew cut, scowling expression, not such a great complexion -- opened up. He could have been a character out of a James Bond movie. Anyhow he directed me to the other gate and led me up to a window that obviously served people needing some sort of paperwork from the consulate. I think I must have been expected because the man behind the window signaled my escort to take me to the front door. We went through some bushes in a planter that separated the two areas and I was led into a beautiful waiting area – highly polished wood floors, gorgeous carpets, tasteful furniture and at least one picture of President Assad. I’m sure there are plenty of pictures of our presidents in the embassies and consulates around the world so I didn’t think too much about it.

Now began the waiting. To my right there was a corridor with lots of doors – which reminded me a bit of Kafka’s The Castle. If I had proceeded straight ahead after coming through the front door, I would have encountered a flight of stairs leading to the floor above. Behind me was a door into the booth that faced the outside. It was very quiet and nothing was moving. Finally a gentleman, I’ll call him Visa Man, came out of the booth and brought me what were essentially two visa applications to fill out. Then he left. He did return after a while and help me fill out a couple of items I found problematic – like where I’d cross the border. He then took my passport and the papers and disappeared upstairs. Frankly, I was never quite sure where he went between times. He kind of appear from an unexpected direction. Meanwhile, a young man that came downstairs on several occasions and disappeared into a door in the hallway. After doing this a couple of times, he asked me if I’d like coffee or tea. I replied tea. He said fine and disappeared. I frankly gave up on the tea because nothing came and I never saw him again.

After an extremely long wait, Visa Man came back with my passport, two application forms and a document written all in Arabic with my name spelled out in the middle. I thought maybe this document was the visa and that I was nearing the end of the process. He then asked me for the 265 TL and two photos. Two photos!!?!! No one told me to bring photos, I explained. Just a passport and the visa fee. This really threw him. I told him I had passport photos at the office. He said, “Go get them.” I explained that the office was far away but that I could come back with them in the afternoon. I’d clearly thrown him for loop; this was’t how things were supposed to unfold. He disappeared up the stairs, and this time stayed away for a long time. The tea finally did appear, and fortunately I’d brought along a good book (The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak – worth reading, by the way). He returned about 11:30 AM and told me to come back in an hour with pictures. I briefly considered taking a taxi to Zirve and back but that might have taken more than an hour and would have cost $75. So I walked toward the downtown and located one of those stores that takes passport photos. I was back to the consulate by noon, quite proud of myself. Now, I thought, we can finish this off and I can make it back for my 1:15 PM class. Wrong.

Back to the aptly name waiting room. At one point I had to use the restroom. I left two photos on the coffee table, just in case. When I returned, they were gone. Finally, Visa Man came back with my applications forms, pictures stapled to the corners. He motioned me to follow him upstairs. Visa Man had his bent arms pressed to his side – holding my paperwork in his hard. He sort of bowed as he entered the room – it was almost like we were approaching the Queen of England. It turned out I was being ushered into the office of the Consul General for an audience. Actually, the Consul General asked me few questions. He was actually quite charming, telling me about his two years in New York and three months in Los Angeles. Then he described the importance of Syria in Christian history and how from Damascus was from Beirut and Amman Jordan – only 45 minutes by can in either direction. He suggested I spend two weeks in Damascus and see the whole area. I told him I’d love to but he needed to tell our rector – which whom he apparently good friends – to give me more time off so I could make the trip. He said, jokingly, that he would do that. However, the whole time he was flipping through my passport, probably looking for offending visas. Fortunately, this was a relatively new passport – the old one would have had Chinese and Rwandan visas in them. He didn’t find anything so he finally handed the paperwork back to Visa Man and I went back downstairs -- to wait. I was ever so glad I’d purchased a cell phone the week before. I’d actually only used it once to make a call. However, I was able to call back to campus and get someone to tell my class that I’d be late but that they should wait for me. I left the consulate a little after 1:00 PM, visa in hand. Fortunately there was a taxi stand around the corner, and the driver was able to get me to campus by 1:30 PM. The students had their second listening test of the quarter scheduled for that day, and I didn’t need the whole period for that. And I was able to flash my fancy new visa; they were quite impressed. It took over three hours of mostly waiting, but I had IT – less than 24 hours before departure time. I’d be able to make the trip after all.