Almost daily there is a moment when you find yourself saying "Seriously?!" Here are a few of the most recent moments:
1. We needed to get visas to go to Brazzaville, the capital of the neighboring country of Republic of Congo (ROC). We can see it across the Congo River from Kinshasa. This is the place where a military munitions depot exploded due to faulty electrical wiring in spring, killing hundreds of people and flattening a significant area of the city. We went to the ROC embassy, a dilapidated building along the main boulevard in Kinshasa, to fill out the paperwork. However, Matt was stopped by the security guard at the door and told that he could not enter because he was wearing shorts. Seriously?! No shorts allowed - in a country where it is consistently 85+ degrees, to get a visa to enter a country that stores it weapons catastrophically close to densely populated urban areas in electrically unsafe buildings. Seriously?! If they are going to enforce such ludicrous rules they could at least find a decent uniform for the guard that isn't 3 sizes too big and boots without holes in them. He can barely keep his pants up but Matt can't come in because he's wearing shorts? In the end, we got our visas (they let Toni Lyn in), but the $80 visa fee was wasted because Matt couldn't get into Brazzaville because he didn't have a letter from someone in ROC inviting him into their country. WTF.
2. During the same day that Toni Lyn (who went ahead to Brazzaville for a conference) informed Matt that we would have to cancel our weekend plans to vacation in beautiful Brazzaville (some sarcasm intended) because they apparently don't let tourists into their country, Matt went for a run. Afterwards, he took his sweat-soaked shirt off before getting in the car and driving home. He didn't want to get the seats wet. He got about halfway home when a "police officer" on a motorcycle pulled in front of him and forced him to the side of the road. The officer demanded $150 for driving without a shirt. After about 20 minutes they settled on $32. $32 for not wearing a shirt while driving. Don't bother with the guy driving a bus with 20 people in it who just ran a red light while driving on the wrong side of the road with people hanging out the window and no door on one side of the car during rush hour- get the white guy with no shirt.
3. We went to dinner with some friends the other night to watch the Euro Cup 2012 championship game. There were about 10 people in our group. One couple was with their 2-year-old so they ordered food and drinks separately and left (and paid) early. We watched them pay (this will become relevant later). There was a buffet there, but nobody ordered it. It was crappy food and cost $24 per plate. After watching Spain slaughter Italy (worst loss in EuroCup Final history), a crabby Toni Lyn started asking for the bill. When the bill finally came, they had charged us for one buffet and the drinks and food our early departing friends already paid for. A total of $39 in mistakes out of a total of ~$220. We asked for the buffet to be taken off the bill (they obliged), but when we confronted the servers about the drinks and food of our friends they insisted we were mistaken. In the end, we paid for what we actually ate and drank, and not what we were charged, and left quickly. The manager followed us out to the parking lot as we left. A heated argument ensued (fortunately we had French researchers staying with us so they did the arguing for the group) and ended with the bill being thrown into the window of our car as we started to drive away. I wish this was just a one-time thing but it really isn't. Something like this happens at nearly every restaurant or bar. Service sucks here, and no matter how bad it is, the customer is never right.
4. Matt's visa expires on July 5th. When he got here in November he had a 6-month visa. Then in April he worked with a "protocol" (we'll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that it was an exhausting, frustrating, lengthy, and opaque process) to extend this visa by three months. No one explained that this was the one and only allowable visa extension. So, after holding onto his passport and visa renewal application for many days, DRC immigration service declined his visa application with only a week until his current one expires. The only option on the table is a $900 one year work visa. This option requires the school to provide a letter stating that he will be employed by them. The school refused to provide the letter. The other option is to get the 1-year work visa but pay an additional $700 (total $1600) if a letter cannot be provided. Sweet. Now what? Well, I guess all it really takes is a call from a friend of a friend of the same guy who declined his application. Apparently the same guy who declined it is now going to let us pay $900 for the one year work visa and we don't have to provide any documentation. Huh? Not sure if this is going to work. We will find out on July 4. Possibly July 5. Matt's visa expires on July 5. Thus, Matt may have to leave the country on the same day that he finds out that he has to leave the country. There is no way of understanding how things work here.
1. We needed to get visas to go to Brazzaville, the capital of the neighboring country of Republic of Congo (ROC). We can see it across the Congo River from Kinshasa. This is the place where a military munitions depot exploded due to faulty electrical wiring in spring, killing hundreds of people and flattening a significant area of the city. We went to the ROC embassy, a dilapidated building along the main boulevard in Kinshasa, to fill out the paperwork. However, Matt was stopped by the security guard at the door and told that he could not enter because he was wearing shorts. Seriously?! No shorts allowed - in a country where it is consistently 85+ degrees, to get a visa to enter a country that stores it weapons catastrophically close to densely populated urban areas in electrically unsafe buildings. Seriously?! If they are going to enforce such ludicrous rules they could at least find a decent uniform for the guard that isn't 3 sizes too big and boots without holes in them. He can barely keep his pants up but Matt can't come in because he's wearing shorts? In the end, we got our visas (they let Toni Lyn in), but the $80 visa fee was wasted because Matt couldn't get into Brazzaville because he didn't have a letter from someone in ROC inviting him into their country. WTF.
2. During the same day that Toni Lyn (who went ahead to Brazzaville for a conference) informed Matt that we would have to cancel our weekend plans to vacation in beautiful Brazzaville (some sarcasm intended) because they apparently don't let tourists into their country, Matt went for a run. Afterwards, he took his sweat-soaked shirt off before getting in the car and driving home. He didn't want to get the seats wet. He got about halfway home when a "police officer" on a motorcycle pulled in front of him and forced him to the side of the road. The officer demanded $150 for driving without a shirt. After about 20 minutes they settled on $32. $32 for not wearing a shirt while driving. Don't bother with the guy driving a bus with 20 people in it who just ran a red light while driving on the wrong side of the road with people hanging out the window and no door on one side of the car during rush hour- get the white guy with no shirt.
3. We went to dinner with some friends the other night to watch the Euro Cup 2012 championship game. There were about 10 people in our group. One couple was with their 2-year-old so they ordered food and drinks separately and left (and paid) early. We watched them pay (this will become relevant later). There was a buffet there, but nobody ordered it. It was crappy food and cost $24 per plate. After watching Spain slaughter Italy (worst loss in EuroCup Final history), a crabby Toni Lyn started asking for the bill. When the bill finally came, they had charged us for one buffet and the drinks and food our early departing friends already paid for. A total of $39 in mistakes out of a total of ~$220. We asked for the buffet to be taken off the bill (they obliged), but when we confronted the servers about the drinks and food of our friends they insisted we were mistaken. In the end, we paid for what we actually ate and drank, and not what we were charged, and left quickly. The manager followed us out to the parking lot as we left. A heated argument ensued (fortunately we had French researchers staying with us so they did the arguing for the group) and ended with the bill being thrown into the window of our car as we started to drive away. I wish this was just a one-time thing but it really isn't. Something like this happens at nearly every restaurant or bar. Service sucks here, and no matter how bad it is, the customer is never right.
4. Matt's visa expires on July 5th. When he got here in November he had a 6-month visa. Then in April he worked with a "protocol" (we'll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that it was an exhausting, frustrating, lengthy, and opaque process) to extend this visa by three months. No one explained that this was the one and only allowable visa extension. So, after holding onto his passport and visa renewal application for many days, DRC immigration service declined his visa application with only a week until his current one expires. The only option on the table is a $900 one year work visa. This option requires the school to provide a letter stating that he will be employed by them. The school refused to provide the letter. The other option is to get the 1-year work visa but pay an additional $700 (total $1600) if a letter cannot be provided. Sweet. Now what? Well, I guess all it really takes is a call from a friend of a friend of the same guy who declined his application. Apparently the same guy who declined it is now going to let us pay $900 for the one year work visa and we don't have to provide any documentation. Huh? Not sure if this is going to work. We will find out on July 4. Possibly July 5. Matt's visa expires on July 5. Thus, Matt may have to leave the country on the same day that he finds out that he has to leave the country. There is no way of understanding how things work here.
This sounds like it belongs in an absurdist novel ... gee whiz! Sorry to hear about all these annoyances. I hope that Matt got to stay!
ReplyDeleteAlso, what did you name your dog?!