El Andalous - Visa Problems

Life's Not Always a Beach!

This is Egypt (TIE), so of course not everything went smoothly. Moving back always starts with a pile of admin to do, not the least being getting a visa. This time, I wanted a year’s visa, since my intent is to live here for most of the year.

I always feel nervous going to the visa office because there are so many tales about the randomness of it all. Anyway, it had to be done, so off I went. Stephen and Kathryn were getting their visas at the same time and they have rented a car, so I was able to go with them rather than having to pay for a taxi. That was a good thing.

The visa system has vastly improved in my absence. Previously, you had to queue to collect a form before you could even start and the queues were disorderly with people pushing in. Actually pushing in is even factored into the process as you keep on having to go away to do things (pay money, get a photocopy, etc) and you are allowed to push back in, although it results in people shouting at you and complaining. That’s how it used to be.

At last, they’ve decided to hand out visa forms as you enter the building and, even better, you get a number and you are called to the window when it’s your turn. I can’t explain how much better this is. They even have an electronic voice in English and a display up announcing each number as it comes up. It is brilliant.

I’d spent the previous evening photocopying the 32 pages of the purchase contract for my flat as that was required for the visa; I’d got my photographs, I’d remembered to bring a pen (or two), I’d sorted out which was the most recent entry visa in my passport (helped by me being able to read Arabic, I’m proud to say!) and also photocopied that and my main passport page. I was fully prepared.

However, when I was called up to the desk, the woman refused to accept my application. She said I needed an extra document (the “tawkil”, which is confusing, because this means “power of attorney” but in terms of your property purchase, it’s a document saying that the property has been paid for and the previous owners have relinquished it). I pointed out that my contract was stamped and stickered, which means that it has gone through court and been approved and registered, but apparently this wasn’t enough. I wasn’t at all sure I had the extra document she demanded; I knew I had one sheet of paper with stamps on it and a load of handwriting on one side, but it didn’t really look like an official document and it was all in Arabic.

Anyway, I had to leave the visa office without even having applied. What a waste of time! I got a taxi back, which also didn’t go too smoothly as the guy didn’t come for a long time and decided afterwards he was my friend and kept on sending me pictures of where he was via WhatsApp.

I dug out the other piece of paper that I had, scanned it, and emailed my lawyer to ask him if he had my tawkil or if what I attached was the tawkil. It turned out that he was on vacation and wouldn’t be back until after my current visa had expired. Help! I asked if he could just take a quick look at the attached document and say if it was the tawkil. He responded it wasn’t; it was the court judgment. I wasn’t too sure if that court judgment was the same as the tawkil required by the visa office. I was confused, but no help was forthcoming.

In the end, there was nothing I could do other than to return to the visa office with the additional piece of paper and hope that another person would not be so stringent or that the piece of paper would be sufficient. This time, I also took my original documents, just in case that would help. On this occasion I was able to get a lift to the visa office from Horst and Hilde who took pity on me in my plight and were in any case going themselves.

I got the same woman serving me again. She recognized me (I don’t know how the Egyptians do it!) and immediately looked for the tawkil among my documents. To my relief, she pounced on the new bit of paper, and nodded that it was the tawkil. Phew. She looked at my original documents and then said that my photocopy wasn’t good enough as although the stickers of the contract were showing, the photocopy hadn’t picked up the stamps. I had to go to their copying counter (which they never used to have when I first came to Egypt) and have it all copied again.

Finally, everything was handed over, I went to the bank in the visa office to pay. I’d got my phone with me so that I could photograph the receipt rather than queue again at the photocopy counter as you have to give the receipt to the person at the visa counter. However, they’d now also improved this and give you two copies, one for you and one for the visa office.

The visa office captain signed my application, which he only has to do for those wishing to stay a year, the lady wrote something on the form and also in a large ledger. I ensured I had my original documents safe and sound and went away happy; we were due to collect our visas the next day.

Once home, I realized that I’d left my mobile phone in the visa office; I’d spent so much time worrying about losing my original contract documents that I’d forgotten to check that I had my phone. I wasn’t too concerned as we were going back to the visa office the next day.

And so we returned the following day to collect our visas. The staff remembered Horst very well. He’s quite memorable in and of himself, but apparently they’d originally thought his name was “Horse” and found this hilarious. The whole hilarity was repeated all over again on his return as they recalled the error and the entire office was laughing.

However, alas, it turned out that my phone was not there. This was a disaster on several levels – it was the first phone I’d actually liked (it was wonderfully thin and had this amazing metallic blue color which was an object of beauty, it had also been easy even for me to set up), I’d just spent 600 LE (which is a lot of money over here!) on the phone package, and it had my Swiss SIM in it that I use for all my banking / credit card identification verification codes.

I was so preoccupied with my phone not being found and all the implications, that I didn’t think to check my visa. When Horst asked me before we got into the car, I looked, and found they had granted me only 6 months and not a year.

After all that! A 6 month visa costs the same as a year’s visa; although I can renew the 6-month visa, it means it costs me twice as much for a year and, worse, I have to go through all this hassle again. With that and my lost phone, it was not a good start to my new start in Egypt!