I shall be telling this with a sigh...

Visa Application, part 1

So all you have to do is go down there, ask for a two year tourist visa, they give you a sheet of paper telling you what you need, then you go back with what’s on the paper and they give you a visa?

It’s that easy.

It’s that easy?

That’s about how the conversation went with my coworker, GI Joe, who just went through this process. However, whenever someone says, “It’s that easy,” beware! It’s never “that easy.”

Yesterday I went down to the place where you apply for visas. I walk up to the gate around the building and read a big sign in order to find which door I need to go in. I find the office I’m looking for and start to head in. Here’s where I made my first mistake. I look at the entrance and see a few guards standing by a door. To the right of the door is a sign that says “entrance.” To the right of the sign is a large gate, about the width of a two lane road, standing wide open. So I headed towards the huge gate, thinking it to be the easiest way in, only to be yelled at in Turkish by one of the guards. Apparently you have to go through the door, not the gate. So I’m in and I find another large sign to make sure I know which door to go in. It’s pointing me towards a door right in the middle of the building, though most the people go in the door to the right. But I think to myself, “Well, they’re all Turks, maybe the foreigners are supposed to go in here.” So being one traveler, long I stood and look down one as far as I could. Then I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.

I go in the door and see nothing but a flight of stairs. I go up and find a small group of men standing there. Obviously I looked lost because one of the men asked me something in Turkish that I didn’t understand. So seeing my lack of language skills, he points me to an office and tells me to sit. The nice man in the office asks me what I want and I tell him I want a visa. Then he asks me something that I couldn’t understand, laughs, and says, “One minute.” A minute later a policeman comes in the room and beckons for me to follow him. He leads me to another, larger, office, and seats me in front of a nice shiny desk with an important looking man behind it. The man begins to speak to me in English, though not very good English. He asks me what I want. I told him I wanted a visa, a long term visa. So he begins, “How long do you want the visa for? Why did you come here to begin with? Why do you want to stay? What will you do for two years? How you will afford to live? Did you come alone? Etc. etc.”

To say I anticipated this would be a lie, but I had gone through these questions in my mind already, deciding what I would and would not tell them and how I would answer the questions in a way that kept my integrity intact without compromising my position or my teammates here. So I feel that I handled the questions fairly well. And please, don’t misunderstand me, this wasn’t an official interrogation or anything, just a very curious man.

After he was satisfied with the information I gave him, he told me that a man would be coming to get me and to take me to the visa office. I thanked him and he went back to work. I noted his name plate on his desk, which was made of glass and looked pretty schwanky. It had his name overtop of “Komiser.” You guessed it, commissioner, also known as the Superintendent of Police for my city. I wasn’t just questioned by a policeman, I was questioned by the top policeman in the whole city.

So I went with the other officer down to the visa room. They had sent this officer because he spoke pretty good English and he served as my translator. Another, chubbier, officer was in charge of the paperwork I presume. He was the one telling me what I needed in order to get the visa. But either he had done something bad wrong yesterday or the bossman over the visa department just didn’t like me, because he was very angry. The boss kept coming over and yelling at the chubby guy and giving me dirty looks. I’m not sure what the “evil eye” looks like, but I think I got at least one yesterday.

So there with the chubby guy, I got the same questions as before, and a few new ones. They wanted to know how I was going to afford to live here, what I would do, if I was alone, who did I live with, what did he do, where did he work, how did you meet him, etc etc. I answered their questions and just rolled on. The chubby guy explained how much money I would need, that I would need to copy my passport, bring five pictures with me, write a letter requesting permission to stay in the country, and complete two copies of a visa request form. “Great,” I said, “Give me the forms and I’ll be on my way.” Not so fast! The forms must be completed there in the office. And not only that, but the letter I have to write must be in Turkish, and should be written in the office too.

So what did I get out of this whole deal? Well, I got good practice at answering questions. I was able to practice the art of “staying in my box” under pressure. I got to meet the top policeman in Adana. And, most importantly, after my almost hour and a half in the belly of the Adana police station, I got a four inch by four inch sheet of paper telling me what I need to get a tourist visa. I have to collect these things (money and pictures) and return another day to complete step 2. What is step 2? As Tom Tom would say, “Only God knows that!”