Egypt Visa Extension, the Mogamma, and Koshary

---

23 May 2010
2153 (GMT +3)
Giza, Egypt

Saturday was an interesting day. I experienced the Mogamma, where I had to go to renew my visa. The Mogamma is a government building downtown on the Midan Tahrir. In Egypt, your initial tourist visa is good for one month. If you plan on staying longer, you have to go to the Mogamma to renew. You can extend your visa for up to six months, I believe. The building houses several different bureaucracies, and can be something of a challenge to navigate. I’d certainly read some nightmare stories, so I chose to go early, and keep my whole day open just in case. Nobody really explained the whole process, though, so that's what I will attempt to do here. As it turned out, my experience went rather smoothly, even with the bureaucratic hassle that is inherent there.

So, as a public service to anyone who may need to go through the process, take note.

The Mogamma opens at 0800, and closes at 1600, and is closed on Thursdays and Fridays. I arrived promptly at 0830 on Saturday, which I think is a good time to get there.

As you enter into the Mogamma, you’ll go through a security checkpoint at the front door. If you’re carrying a bag, you’ll put it through an x-ray machine like at the airport. If you have a camera, you’ll have to check it there at the desk. The officer will give you a card with a number. Hold on to it. There is also a walk-through metal detector, although none of the officers seem to care if it beeps or not.

Once inside the lobby, there is a bank of elevators to your left, and a staircase to your right. You’ll notice that there are kiosks on either side of the staircase, one for photocopies and one for pictures. Remember these; you’ll be back here shortly. The visa department is on the second floor, so I suggest taking the stairs. The stairs go up to a mezzanine, and then split right and left. For the sake of simplicity, stick to the left, as at the top of the stairs there are two doors, one for entry and one for exit. Facing them, take the door on the right. This should be apparent, as you’ll see another security checkpoint with several officers, another metal detector that nobody pays attention to, and a desk where you will actually open your bag for a cursory inspection.

Once past security, take an immediate right and you’ll head down a long hallway. You’ll pass by many offices on either side, filled with people sitting around chatting. I was unable to determine their status or function within the bureaucracy, but I'm sure it must be something essential to the continued functioning of the government. Keep going to the very end of the hallway, and you’ll find yourself at the end of a long line of windows, each with its own function, and each staffed by relatively humorless attendants. The windows are numbered in both Arabic and Western numbers, and, if I remember correctly, you will be in the upper 40s or 50s. Turn right and start walking. You’ll see that the numbers are descending, and there are windows on both sides of the hallway. Go all the way to the far end of the bank, and on your left you will look for Window 12. This is for visa extensions.

If at any time you get lost (as is easy to do in the Labyrinth that is the Mogamma), most of the officers speak some English, and pretty much know why you’re there and where you need to go.

So I get to Window 12, and behind the glass is a younger woman. I smile and say sabah el-kheer, wishing her a good morning. She says something that I don’t understand, but I think she’s asking me what I need. Well, seeing as how I’m here at the visa extensions window, I’m guessing that I need to extend my visa. Of course, I don’t say this, because I’d like to stay on good terms so as to not have my passport and paperwork get “misplaced” in one of the mountains of paperwork I see laying around. To be fair to her, as I looked around I did not see a single computer, word processor, typewriter, or filing cabinet in the whole office, only tables with stacks of paperwork three feet high. It must be a difficult system, not to mention the thousands of oblivions that she must have to deal with on a daily basis. After a week of that I’d probably become quite cross too.

I hand her my passport, and she looks at it, and then hands it back to me, along with a long form that I need to fill out. It’s a lot of the same basic information that I had to fill out to get the entry visa in the first place. Name, address, nationality, address in Egypt, purpose of visit… I take the form, and she says something I don’t understand. After a few tries, she points down and says “photo.” Ah, I get it. It was at this time that I remembered (did you remember?) seeing the photo booths downstairs. So I need to fill out this form, get a photocopy of my passport, have a photo taken, then come back. Copy that.

I go back down the stairs to the photocopy booth. This is the one to the right of the stairs. There are several people standing around it, and I join them. (As a side note, here is a good tip for the photo booth, or anywhere else you might have to stand in line. Lines here are more like general guidelines than an official chronological representation of who was there first. If you’re not actively asserting your position in the queue, people will have no problem with blatantly walking in front of you and having their business taken care of first. I have no real proof, only a sneaking suspicion that they’re more likely to cut in front of an idiot American tourist, as the tourist is less likely to object. Perhaps this is their way of asserting their own type of hegemony over the West. I don’t know. What I do know is that, if you’re standing in line, you need to man up , step up to the plate, and keep moving forward. This is equally true whether you be at the Mogamma, KFC, or the super market.)

In any event, I make it to the window, give them my passport and 2 EGP, and they hand me back my passport, along with copies of the ID page and my current Egyptian visa. I then go to the opposite side of the stairs for a photo. This booth is somewhat deceiving, as you actually have to go around the side of the booth in order to get your photo taken. This costs 15 EGP, and I got about nine passport-size copies.

With a completed form, photo, and photocopy in hand, I go back up the stairs, through the security checkpoint (where I open my bag again), down the hall and back to Window 12. The same lady is sitting behind the glass, and it’s like the first time we’ve met. She asks me what I need, and I hand her all the paperwork, which she reviews. After a few minutes she tears off a small scrap of paper, and writes the Arabic numerals for 42 and some characters that I don’t recognize. She then points to the right. Apparently I’m to go to Window 42 for the next step in this evolution. She keeps my passport and paperwork.

I find my way to 42, and notice that it is marked “Lost Passports.” Hmmm. This doesn’t seem right. I haven’t lost my passport, it’s back there with that humorless chick at Window 12. The window directly to my left is marked “Stamps and Fees.” That sounds more like the next logical step in this process, and the guy in front of me at “Lost Passports” sounds like he’s going to be a while. So I step over to the lady behind Window 43 and, smiling as innocently as I can, hand her the scrap of paper. Hopefully she can make something of it. She looks at it, smiles back, and says “eleven fifty please.” Tamam! (Excellent.) Now we’re getting somewhere. I hand her the cash and she gives me some stamps. I’m assuming now that I’m supposed to take these stamps back to Window 12, so I go back down the hallway.

I hand her the stamps and she writes some notes. I smile and try to tell her that it was actually Window 43, and not 42, but I don't think she's interested. She then tucks all of my paperwork into my passport, and puts it atop an eighteen inch stack of similar documents and tells me, “come back here, two hours.” Good God, this is the last time I’m going to see my passport, isn’t it? Having seen nothing to suggest to me that there exists any sort of organizational system here, all kinds of morbid thoughts run through my head. I’m going to be that guy standing in the line at “Lost Passports.” But, this is the way it works, and I have no other choice. All in all, this whole process took me about forty-five minutes.

So I went to a place to calm down, I went to my health club…Hardees. I’d woken up a bit late, and as a result had skipped breakfast. I needed to eat, and I needed something soon. Located right across the street from the Mogamma, Hardees seemed like my best bet. I ate, sat for a while, ate a bit more, pretended to play with my phone, sat some more, then realized that I still had over an hour left to kill, so I went for a walk around the block.

With the Egyptian Museum so close, there are large numbers of tourists that come through this area. Thus, there are lots of locals along the way selling various things. You’ll find lots of tour guides and “Egyptologists” along this street, Meret Bahsa, who all love (wherever you're from), are friendly, and willing to take you on a personal tour through the museum if, of course, the price is right.

I get a call from my roommates, who are in a cab on their way to the Mogamma. They had gone several days ago and filled out all the paperwork, but were told to come back the next morning to pick up their visas. (If you go before noon, you can get your visa on the same day. After noon they give you back your passport and you have to come back.) As we have classes all day, this was their first opportunity to return. Brilliant, we’ll meet up and just go pick them all up together. My two hours is nearly up now anyway.

We meet in front of the building, pass through security (again), and go back to Window 12, where we are subsequently directed down to Window 38. Behind number 38 is an equally as uninterested woman with three stacks of passports in no discernable order. I walk up, tell her my name, and she starts from the top, searching the paperwork for a picture that looks like me. Periodically, someone walks by and throws another stack of documents in her pile. Thankfully we find my passport, with the requisite visa extension. Al hamdu lilah, as they say. My roommates, on the other hand, were not so lucky. Because they had not left their passports, they could not get them stamped. The lady took their passports, found the matching paperwork (somehow), and told them to come back in an hour. Super.

With another hour to kill, someone mentions getting some food. I know, I’d just eaten, but it just wasn’t doing it. My roommate mentions a koshary place nearby, something that I’ve been wanting to try. I’m in. Koshary is an Egyptian dish that has several different theories as to its origin. One that I heard is that it was developed by the Copts. As I’ve mentioned before, they have about 200 fast days in their calendar, where they do not eat from sunrise to sundown. On these days, when they do eat, they cannot eat any animal products whatsoever. Thus, koshary was born. The dish is made up of rice, macaroni, short noodles, chick peas, crushed lentils, fired onions, and a few other things that I was unable to identify. All of this is mixed together, and topped with a tomato sauce. It is cheap (7 EGP for a big bowl), tasty, and with all those carbs, it keeps you full for a while.

In the end, everything worked out. We all got our visas and made it to the other side alive and mostly in one piece. It was not nearly the nightmare that I had prepared myself for (what is that phrase, hope for the best but plan for the worst?), just another example of Egyptian efficiency. It’s nothing personal, it just is what it is. I am thankful, though, that my extension is good through October, and I won't have to come back for a repeat.

In conclusion, go early, be patient, and keep your sense of humor. Nobody else will.

And don’t drink the water.

-MG

---

Photos

The Mogamma
A labyrinth from which you may never escape.

Koshary
A tasty Egyptian dish at only 7 EGP. (This one is for you, Lee).