A Tale of Three Visas

I wanted to see the visas, hold them in my hands, before writing this blog. We got them on Saturday afternoon!

The Visa... or at least one of them

Regular readers know that we are making a visit to Côte d’Ivoire in March for the celebration of the Kouya New Testament: see here and here. Little did we know how not straightforward the visa application process would be.

Early in the process we learned that we couldn’t simply gather all the required documentation and post it off to the Ivorian Embassy in London along with passports and payments… like we used to do. No. British policy towards non-Europeans coming to the UK have led to reciprocal stringencies. We had to go from Belfast to London and apply in person for biometric visas.

And so we found a date that would work for Philip, Ruth and myself, booked flights and hotel, paid for the visa in advance online, and booked an appointment for Monday 13 February at 11.30am.

We arrived at l’Ambassade de la Côte d’Ivoire in Upper Belgrave Street in SW1 in good time for our 11.30 appointments. We were welcomed, exchanged regrets on the result of the African Cup of Nations final the previous evening, and were invited to take a seat with others in the waiting room.

Realising that we had a while to wait and that Philip felt the need of coffee and some more breakfast, I accompanied him to a nearby cafe. where we soon received a phone call from Ruth to get ourselves back to the Embassy – quick!

A member of the Embassy staff had come to the waiting room and announced that because of the African Cup of Nations, today had been declared a public holiday by the Côte d’Ivoire authorities and that they would not be processing any visa applications that day.

Stunned silence in the waiting room…

A few minutes later, he returned to say that they had agreed to process those who were already in the building. Hence get back quick – and relief that we had arrived so early!

Apart from a few hitches with the finger printing machine, the rest went off very smoothly and we left with our receipts for Philip to present on Wednesday to pick up the three visas. In good spirits, we just had to take a few photos to commemorate the occasion!

The notice on the door as we left

The Embassy door plate with Philip

When we got access to e-mail, we discovered that we had received the message below around 8.20am – I was glad that I hadn’t checked the e-mail earlier 🙂

Dear Sir/Madam,

Following the african football cup, this monday 13th February has been declared bank holiday by the Authorities of Cote d’Ivoire.

You may therefore choose an other day to come to the Embassy in order to complete your visa application.

A new appointment is not required.

Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused to you.

PS A big thank you to all those who were praying that all would go well!

PPS Some sharp sighted readers may think, “There’s nothing very biometric looking about that visa…” and they would be right – but that’s quite another story.

PPS I’m still trying to work out whether Didier Drogba’s missed penalty in normal time was a blessing or not..?