visa and residence

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As of next Saturday (I hope) I will be a (temporary) resident of Malawi. Before I came here I took a trip to London, this was for several reasons; to visit the Order Secretariat and SJA NHQ, to make some final preparations for leaving, to meet up with a few people and finally to get my Visa for Malawi.
So (like many visitors to London) after many hours on a coach, being crammed onto the overcrowded underground, and driven around the work by a taxi driver, because of a protest or demonstration or something, to an suburb of London I wasn’t familiar with, I finally arrived at my destination, the Malawian consulate (ok, somewhat less like most visitors to London). I had phoned up previously and been told that the Work Visa I needed wasn’t available outside of Malawi, but if I came along on a Thursday (?) I could get an ordinary Visitors Visa for the 9 months I’m staying here. So after introducing myself and telling them while I was there, I was given a form to fill out, fine a normal form; name...address...reason for visit...length of stay...processing fee...two passport sized photos...wait what? I knew I’d forgotten something, after enquiring where the nearest shops where (at least a bus ride away) I rushed out caught the next bus, ran into the first shop I found selling photos (apparently every photo booth in that area of London had decided to break that day), ran to the nearest bank (because I couldn’t pay the processing fee by card), back on the bus and back to the consulate, filled out the last of the forms and left. Great that was my last vital, could only be done in London job for the day (this isn’t to say I didn’t miss my next less vital appointment, and was severely late for meeting up with people.)
At immigration in Kamuzu airport Lilongwe, I presented the stamp I’d received through the post, now stuck in my passport. The official looked at it gave it a funny look, passed it to the guy at the next desk, and had a brief conversation in Chichewa, after filling out the form I’d received on the place they let through no problem. I thought nothing of it maybe not many people stayed this long in Malawi or didn’t get a Visa beforehand.
About a month and a half later I went to try and open a Malawian bank account as I’d been being charged hugely on any withdrawals I make using my card. I was told I couldn’t as I didn’t have the necessary Temporary Residence Visa or Work Visa (oops) I asked where I could get one from and went the next weekend. It was closed, perfect. I went again the day after, great, open.
As it turns out the Visa I got in London was worthless, it was basically an Entry Visa (which British Citizens don’t need for the first 30 days of their visit), it didn’t allow me to stay for the entire 9 months and the Temporary Visa I’d got from the airport had ran out about 3 weeks before (meaning I’d been staying illegally). I was asked to fill out a form extending my stay (the smiling man behind the desk suddenly more annoying than 30 seconds before), and asked for K5,000, which I didn’t have on me, so I ran out to the nearest ATM (the irony isn’t lost on me that the reason I was going for the Work Visa was the charges from using ATM’s). Since then I’ve been extending my stay each month, last Saturday I gave in the forms needed for Temporary Residence Permit, I’ve since had to go back 3 times, and haven’t yet got the Visa that I thought I had sorted out months ago. It lasts for 6 months (also cost 6x as much), and means that next week I can finally open a Malawian bank account (probably with National bank or Ecobank) so hopefully my charges will, at last, go down.
Either in London or in Blantyre, someone in the immigration offices got something fundamentally wrong. It meant I have ended up paying twice as much as I needed to and gone through more hassle than a stamp in my passport is really worth.

Tionana

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