Registration Update

Mel, Ira and I went to Ovir again on Tuesday and turned in all of my paperwork. We got there early - at 2pm, thinking that's when it opened. Alas, it actually opened at 3pm, so we stood outside the locked door, 3 of several people standing around, waiting. It is good to get there early anyway - by the time 3pm arrived there were probably 25 people waiting, with more arriving.

The doors opened and everyone started to rush inside. Ira told us we could wait outside until she called us in. Now the good thing about all of this rushing inside is that she didn't have to fight for her place in line, which was 4th in line. You know - 'I got here in front of the window before you did so I'm first!' Nope - the place in line had already been established while we were all outside waiting. To be frank, I'm not sure why there IS a rush... (I'm also not sure why I always laugh when I say or think "to be frank" - I'll never be Frank, nor do I have any wish to be Frank. On the other hand, my default wording is almost always "to be honest" and then Mel asks me why I was dishonest to start with. But once again, as is the norm, I digress.)

So, Mel and I sat outside on the theater type seats beside the door. You have to be careful with those seats because they do not seem to be bolted down to the cement porch or to the wall or the porch post or anything. Fortunately, they are at least leaning against the building wall or porch wall. About five minutes later Ira called me via cell phone and told me to come on in, so I did, pushing my way between adult human bodies of all sorts and shapes, trying to get to that line packed like sardines in front of the second window.

What was not established while we were waiting outside was the fact that the second guy in line was actually a 'place marker' or 'place keeper' for 3 other guys as well as himself! So, instead of being 4th in line, Ira was actually 8th in line. This would not have been so bad except for the woman who thought she was 6th in line and kept yelling (and I do mean yelling)at them and at Ira. When the 4th one of them got to the window, Yelling Woman actually came up and stood right beside Ira and tried to push me out of the way. I told her 3 or 4 times that I was with Ira, and finally Ira had to turn completely around and tell her herself. Yelling Woman was not happy. Mel came in about that time since enough people had gone through the other lines already that there was enough room for him to get inside the door. :):) He told me later that Yelling Woman stared at me with such intensity the whole time I was standing there that he couldn't believe it, never took her eyes off my face. I was ignoring her, which wasn't all that easy to do since we were physically touching each other, but I managed it. No eye contact for me in that kind of situation. However, I did keep a tight hold on my purse and the zipper which closes it!

Finally Ira was standing in front of the open window. There was a different man sitting there this time. The first time I was there it was a nice looking young man in a business suit. This time it was an older guy (late 40's-mid 50's) in a policeman type uniform. I thought to myself - uh oh. Default thought, that uh-oh.

The guy took the packet of papers from Ira plus my passport and started going through them line by line. It reminded me of when we first came to Ukraine and the passport control people going through our passport word by word, page by page. He started asking Ira questions. Wanted to know why we didn't have a translated copy of Melinda's passport (oops! How did we miss that one? We should have known it would be needed. Duh.). He wanted to know why we were registered at an American's flat - then I think it finally dawned on him that I am an American... He questioned this thing and then that thing and I started to think seriously about making a run for the border. He asked her where I was, she pointed to me and he looked at me, looked at my passport photo, looked back at me, looked at my passport photo and asked her, "Is this her???" Ok, ok - I know the passport photo is pretty funny, but it IS me, obviously. But then, he was looking from his lighted room through a teeny little window maybe 14 inches square, into a non-lighted room, me standing behind Ira and a window behind the 15 people behind me casting us all into quasi-silouettes (how do you spell that word, I never remember).

Finally, after I got to the point where I thought that if I didn't sit down soon I was going to fall down soon, he said he'd take the papers as they were. Ira/I was supposed to call back on Friday and see if my passport complete with registration info in it was ready. (Ira did call yesterday and it was not ready yet, so I am currently without passport. Eeek! That is a weird feeling. I have no passport right now - do I still exist??)

We left. Pushing our way past all the other waiting people. Yelling Woman was now at the window (I think - I confess I did not turn around to look). I forgot to mention earlier the other woman who came in during the 1-person-turned-into-4 and demanded that she be waited on IMMEDIATELY because she had been there earlier in the day and she should go first now because she had her papers all filled out or something. As she continued to speak very loudly and passionately, the young man from the first time I was there happened to come in the room behind the window. She pushed her way to the window, shoving all those big men out of the way and asked a question, got her answer, gave something to the young man and then left. Then there was the other obnoxious woman who pushed her way to the front, demanded to know if her papers were ready, another woman working at a desk across the room got up, asked her a couple questions, she left, came back a few minutes later and hollered at the woman who was again sitting behind her desk and then they discussed that someone was not German, they were Italian and then she left. So - what did that make us in line? Not 4th, not 8th, was it 10th or 11th or ... All I know is that a group of Americans in a similar situation would be lined up orderly, taking a number (please), waiting their turn, griping the whole time or talking on the cell phones (oh yes - there were plenty of cell phone conversations going on there, too!), but we would all be standing with a definite 'personal space' no-touch zone around each one of us. I think that MAYBE 15 Americans would fit in that room, rather than the 30+ at the beginning after the door first opened.

So, hopefully on Tuesday next week I will be able to get my passport, stamped, filled out, legal to be in Ukraine for the next 3 or 6 months - or maybe that dreamed of YEAR!! I can't imagine going through this process four times a year - maybe I will make a run for the border, pulling Mel along behind me, next time!