Visa dramas

What a disaster my two-year work visa for the Democratic Republic of Congo turned out to be, in what should have been a simple process, this turned out to be a monumental stuff-up.

On my first day of work I handed my passport to the company representative to be sent to Kinshasa, this apparently happened as per their procedures. I followed their procedures exactly, I made sure there was no delays or hold-ups on my part.

However, the next step is where it all went wrong, instead of forwarding my application along with my passport to immigration officials they sent it back to site. Of course, I was not informed of these changes at all, I was none the wiser and thought everything was progressing exactly as it should.

Naturally, I followed up via emails and telephone calls to be told everything is ok - clearly they lied to me. The process is supposed to take six to eight weeks so I pushed a little harder after six weeks. As the deadline approached I followed up more closely, I was still unaware serious problems had arisen.

With only a week to go, I was becoming a little more vocal, I demanded answers as I had not had my passport returned and I wasn't flying without that all important document. As I found out, I couldn't even board the company jet for domestic flights without my passport.

As it transpired, no passport and still no visa. So my passport was pulled early and I received a three month working visa. Still, I couldn't fly because the day of the flight there was still no passport but I was able to able to step on the company jet with a special identification letter to fly internally.

I had to spend days of my leave sitting around in a guest house in Lumumbashi, fly the long route and lo se three days of my leave. I was exhausted as I got all the centre seats in the centre aisle as I was booked on last minute flights. The first days back on leave were a total washout as I was tired and sick. I never want to do this again.