(Temporary) Residents!

It’s official: two and a half months and countless conversations with the indefatigable Norman Mwambakulu later, we’re temporary residents of Malawi! With the expiry of Ariel’s second visa extension looming, upon my return I again raised the matter of getting our immigration paperwork sorted, this time with a bit more urgency. Lo and behold, my buddy Norm went down to immigration himself, spoke to the regional director, and returned to tell me that, in fact, all we needed to do is turn up with the same letter we got authorizing a duty exemption on the car and all would be well. Did I mention we’d had said letter for almost a month? That Ariel had paid for another visa extension in the meantime? No, I did not. I simply smiled, thanked the man, and immediately made plans to get to immigration.

Flash forward to yesterday. We drag a bit getting out of the house (I blame lingering traces of food coma from the previous evening’s IWAM holiday party) but make it to immigration by nine. I track down the deputy regional director, explain the situation and get shunted off to wait in another room. Things aren’t looking good. Nonetheless, we exercise some of our newly developed patience and wait for fifteen minutes or so to talk to the guy the deputy regional director had pointed out. Shockingly, he seems able to help us. There is a minor snag when he asks about a copy of our letter from the Ministry of Finance having been sent to Blantyre, but I plead ignorance and ritually utter the phrase “Office of President and Cabinet” and “Regional Director” a few times, and a way around the potential obstacle is found: he will simply fax a copy to them. Of course the electricity is out at the moment, but still, a problem-solver! We don’t yet know his name, but I like this guy already.

A short one-page form (in duplicate) later and we’re ready to surrender our passports, but our mystery helper has disappeared. After ten minutes or so of waiting I crack and ask one of the other immigration officers (nonchalantly reading the paper despite the fact that there are about eight people waiting in various parts of the room) if she knows where her colleague has gone. Her response: “He’s around.” Well, thanks. Now I feel much better. Sensing our impatience, a second non-working staffer chimes in: “He’s just in a small meeting.” Well, if it’s only a small meeting…. Determined to physically place our passports in the hands of the man who has promised to help us, we continue to wait. Fortunately, it appears to have, in fact, been only a small meeting. Five minutes later our hero returns. I hand him our passports and forms and am told to come back “this afternoon.” Not wanting to make a second trip downtown in vain, I ask for a contact number and we finally learn his name: Mr. Mwakipunda.

Flying high, we decide to take on the last major administrative hurdle: obtaining Malawian driving licenses. The bureau of road traffic is just down the street, and we manage (with only a brief detour to the wrong room and some jostling in line) to get to the start of the process within about ten minutes. Of course, at that point the lady helping us asks for our temporary residence permits…. I suppose both in one day would’ve been a little too much to expect. We collect various forms and surrender for the time being.

Come three o’clock I ring Mr. Mwakipunda and, wonder of wonders our permits have been processed, and the passports are ready for collection! Ariel makes the schlep alone and manages to collect them without fuss. To celebrate we take Christin for a sundowner at Harry’s Bar and go out for surprising good Chinese food. All in all, we’ll count it as a win.