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Published: November 19th 2006
All it took was three months in Africa to transform me into an outlaw.
It all started during my first week in Zambia. I had made getting my Work Permit, which allows me to stay and work in Zambia for up to two years, my number one priority. EWB volunteers have a long history of pain and suffering at the hands of Zambia’s Immigration Office. I was determined to get this out of the way right at the get-go. There’s no way I’m getting deported to Zimbabwe (as one other volunteer did last year.)
That week went just about as I had expected. I made a total of seven visits to the Immigration Office that week. Why? I filled out the wrong application form. They ran out of the correct application form (and took two days to print off new ones). They didn’t like the first cheque I had for them. They needed all original documents. And their list of required documents seemed to grow with each visit. But miraculously, on Friday afternoon, they accepted my application.
Relieved, I then moved on to Kitwe where I am stationed for work, with assurances from the Immigration Office that they
would contact our Lusaka office once the permit was ready in two to four weeks. I was happy - the immigration gods seemed to be on my side.
Fast forward about two and a half months. I still hadn’t heard from the Immigration Office, and had pretty much forgotten about the issue altogether. But my work visa, which was good for three months, was about up, so I was going to be needing that work permit awfully soon. I checked into it.
When they told me that they had lost my application I wasn’t even surprised. I had to re-submit everything (except the money, which they of course didn’t lose) and wait for processing again. Fortunately, having been well trained in the ways of potential immigration screw-ups, I had made copies of all of the documents. I fired them off to Lusaka to get the process going again (though not before I made copies of the copies first.)
But now I had a problem. My three-month visa was soon to expire, and I was heading to Malawi in a few days for an EWB Southern Africa Retreat. I’d heard that it’s not too difficult to get visas
extended, though, especially when you’re waiting work permit processing. So I dropped in to the Kitwe Immigration Office seeking that extension.
Most Immigration Officers I’ve met have put the fear of God in me upon meeting them. I get sweaty and nervous. My voice regresses to a quiver. They have a reputation for occasionally being horribly corrupt and have the power to throw you in jail if they so feel like it.
I knew I had gotten lucky when I walked into the Immigration Office on this day, though. The female officer couldn’t have been more than 30. She was laughing and carrying on with her current client, stamping away at their documents, approving all of their requests with barely more than a glance. I relaxed immediately. When it was my turn I strode in confidently, flashed a big smile and we immediately engaged in casual friendly banter about the weather, Canada and Zambia. She started going through the motions of extending my visa absent-mindedly.
Then she looked at my passport. Her smile vanished quicker than a cockroach escaping the morning sun. Menace swept over her face, and a severe and intimidating immigration warmonger replaced this previously
Nsenga Bay on beautiful Lake Malawi.
A perfect place to celebrate my escape from the law and possible incarceration.jovial woman.
“This visa expired two months ago,” she said. “No,” I replied, “I’ve only been here for three months, so it expires tomorrow.” “This is only a one-month visa,” she said. Her expression added a ‘you moron’ to her every phrase. “Travel visas are three months (you moron). Work visas are one (you moron). You have been here illegally for the past two months (you moron). This is a chargeable offence.”
Upon hearing the words “chargeable offence,” I had visions of a petrified Ed behind jailhouse bars or of being smuggled back into Canada on some tiny crop duster of a place. I relaxed slightly when I remembered that “charge” essentially means “fine” here. I asked what the charge was: 1.8 million kwacha, or about $500 CDN. That hurt, but it wasn’t crippling.
“Maybe we can help each other out,” she said, and right away I knew what she was getting at. This sweet young lady with whom I was chitchatting like old buddies just five minutes ago immediately transformed into the embodiment of corruption - she was asking for a bribe. “I’ll pay the charge,” I said politely but with finality, giving her a look
Team EWB South Africa.
Top (Left ro right): Erin (Malawi), Paul (Rwanda), Chad (Zambia), Jason (Zambia); Middle (left to right): Kathleen (Zambia), Jenn (Zambia), Rachel (Malawi); Bottom (left to right): Me, Trina (Malawi), David (Director of Southern Africa Programs), Josephine (Zambia). that said “don’t even try.” And she didn’t. She said that she would open an account on me and pass the information along to her superior, who would make the decision. I asked what she thought that would be. Would they extend my visa after I paid the fine? Would they deport me? Would they send me to jail where I would wallow in criminality?
She explained that her boss would make the ultimate decision, but that how she portrays me to her would factor into the decision. She said that I seemed like a nice guy who made an honest mistake and she would try to help me out. I guessed she wasn’t sore about the whole corruption snub. She told me to leave and she would call me on my cell phone when the verdict was in.
So what does Ed Martin do in face of potential incarceration? Eat, apparently. Meat pies, fries, and ice cream. My first taste of ice cream in four months, actually, and it was so damn good that I almost felt that it was worth it to face jail time if that was the event I needed to catalyze my re-discovery of the wonders of strawberry-vanilla swirl soft serve.
(But even while I enjoyed my ice cream, I couldn’t help but think back to some particularly horrible jail movie scenes. The Last Castle. The Shawshank Redemption. American History X. Good God. Let’s move on.)
After five hours of eating my face off and getting on the internet to e-mail my good-byes to everyone, I got the call to return to the office. I had withdrawn enough money to pay the fine. I was hoping that she would just tell me to pay the fine and then she would extend my visa and send me on my way.
When I walked into her office she wasn’t there. I saw my new file on her desk. On it was a form that read: “The Immigration and Deportation Act: Notice to Prohibited Immigrants to Leave Zambia.” And the winner is: Deportation.
When I considered things, though, this actually seemed like a possibly good turn of events. I was leaving for Malawi the next day anyway. I figured maybe this way I could just continue on to Malawi as if all things were normal, and wait there until my work permit came through. And maybe I’d even avoid the fine this way.
When she returned she explained the form to me and got me to read it over. I was a “Class E Prohibited Immigrant” and she pounded a stamp onto my passport and wrote a big ‘E’ on it to make it official. I had seven days to leave Zambia. She asked me what route I would be taking, which she was required to write on the form at which point it would become law that I must leave via that exact route.
With my best “I’m devastated and this is the most horrendous thing that has ever happened to me” face on, I told her that I would go to Malawi, truly believing that I was just about in the clear. Just as she was about to write this on my form, she got up and walked out of the room.
She came back a minute later and said, “You must return to your country of origin.”
Now I was worried. Flabbergasted, actually. This had never entered my mind as being in the realm of possibility, and it seemed to me to be the worst possible result (except jail, I guess). I wouldn’t be surprised to see a return ticket from Lusaka to Toronto purchased within seven days of the flight go over $5000. Not only that, but I would miss the retreat, which was even more devastating. All she had to do was write “Malawi” on my form, and the situation was essentially diffused. And now I was facing deportation back to Canada.
I staggered out of the office as if Mike Tyson had just sucker-punched me. I regrouped (over another cup of ice cream) and weighed my options. And in coming to a decision to flout the Kitwe Immigration Office’s authority and go to Malawi instead of Canada, I went from Newfie Ed the EWB volunteer to Ed Martin: The Fugitive. (Needless to say, I then grew a beard, asked people to refer to me as Dr. Richard Kimble and announced “I DID NOT KILL MY WIFE!” at every possible juncture. OK, maybe not. I did try to grow a beard though. Unsuccessfully, I might add.)
And so it was a mad dash to the border. If I got through, I could just wait it out there and wait for my work permit to come through and then return. As I’ve learned, each person who works for immigration has a different idea of what the rules are. If they didn’t like the “E” on my passport, they were perfectly within their rights to not let me through. And then I would be really screwed, because if I wasn’t out of the country by the end of the seven days, jail would actually become a very real possibility.
The eight-hour bus ride from Lusaka to the Zambia-Malawi border was nerve-racking, to say the least. My tongue was a jellyfish as I approached the border guard. I slid my passport slowly across to him, praying that he wouldn’t notice my “E” or at least wouldn’t know what it was. But the moment he opened it up, it was like the “E” slapped him right across the face. His look said “You’re kidding me right? You’re not going anywhere.”
“I made a mistake with my visa while I was waiting for my work permit to come through,” I said as I passed the receipt for my work permit to him. Little did I know that this little piece of paper was my saviour. He looked it over, stamped me up and just like that, I was through. No jail. No fine. Just a potential forced vacation in Malawi.
A blissful three days on Lake Malawi followed. (Check out the picture. I felt like I was staying at a resort in the Caribbean or something..) We ate, we drank, we shared, we learned. My work permit came through a week later and I was back in Zambia again - legally, this time.
And now I’m back in Kitwe, working hard and settling back into my home, my immigration nightmare a thing of my past. I may never be able to look at Harrison Ford again without laughing and getting a sudden urge for ice cream, though.
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Gillian
non-member comment
You're making me want ice cream!
Hey Ed! This was a funny one! Your blog is quite enjoyable. Keep postin. Take care, -Gill