Fog in the valley, and the little train for the tourists
31 October, 2005
11 October, 2005
Work Permits and Hell
I've always liked the number 22, I suppose because I was born on the 22nd, so I thought it was a lucky number for me when I was little. And I always liked the phrase Catch 22.
Catch-22 is a novel by Joseph Heller, the point of which was to show how illogical modern warfare had become. The main character, Yossarian, is a bombardier who wants out of the war. Contradictions abound. Again and again, we see that want is supposed to be good is really bad, and what is sensible is really nonsence.
The fictional "catch", numbered as Catch 22 in U.S. Army Air Corps parlance in the novel, states that any bombardier who wishes to be excused from combat flight duty must submit an official medical diagnosis from his squadron's flight surgeon stating that he is unfit to fly because he is insane. However, according to Army regulations, any sane person does not want to fly combat missions because they are so dangerous, so by requesting permission not to fly on the grounds of insanity, the bombardier has just shown that he is in fact sane and therefore is fit to fly. (And on the other side, anyone who wanted to fly on combat missions implicitly showed that he was insane, but these flyers would never submitted requests to be excused from flying because they liked it.)
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch_22_(logic)
For most people and situations, that logic is too complex, and we tend to think along the lines you need A to get B and you need B to get A, meaning that one must come first, but you can't get one without the other.
Any government has these catches. It's not only the military. You can find these kinds of catches anywhere you find bureaurocracy.
I used to work for the U.S. Government, and I thought I understood red tape. I didn't like it, but I had learned to survive along side of it. It was like living with cudzu in the South, cudzu that will slowly take over every inch of sunshine and kill everything else around it. You see it strangling everything in it's path, so you make decisions about what you are willing to sacrifice, and what you will try to protect from it's slowly-moving path.
Universities are another good example. I remember when I was taking classes toward my PhD, I heard two professors talking in the stairwell. The one said to the other that having a PhD wasn't a mark of intelligence or creativity --- it only showed perseverance and the patience to get through red tape.
Everything in Luxembourg hinges on the work permit: bank accounts, housing, residency permits and visas, and so on. So how do you get a work permit in Luxembourg?
To get a work permit, you must first show that you have a job, i.e., a contract with a company in Luxembourg. That company must prove that there is no one in Europe who can do the job that they need done and no one as qualified as you, beyond any doubt. Simple enough. You have a job, you're good at what you do, and then you can have the work permit.
The European Commission knows me and knows my work. They can attest to the fact that there is no one in Europe who can do what I do. I can't work for the European Commission because I'm an American citizen. They have a contract for some work, but I can't bid on the contract with an American company. I can work on the contract with a European company. I find a European company who is bidding on the project and ask them to hire me. Voila! I have a job in Europe.
Now here's the Catch 22: That company in Luxembourg doesn't want to give you a contract unless you will actually be working for them, but then you aren't allowed to work for them because you don't have a work permit. And you can't get a work permit without the contract from a Luxembourg company. So you could wait in the States for the work permit to come through, but then you would no longer have the contract for the job in Europe because you weren't doing any work that needed to be done.
Just to further complicate things, without a work permit, you aren't qualified to be paid. Without any means of support, it is difficult to get a bank account or find housing. Without money and housing, it is difficult to continue to work for the company that hired you, though you need the contract with the company so that you can have the work permit, and eventually the money and the housing.
Now there are some solutions to the problems, for example, it is possible to be "forwarded" some money for expenses even though you aren't really allowed to be paid. But most landlords won't rent to you without proof that you are getting paid, and there is no proof. Though it is difficult to find formal housing, it is sometimes possible to find someone who will rent to you without a formal contract, even at a hotel if worse comes to worse.
To add to my own personal complications, I can't be on a contract with the European Commission while working for the U.S. government, so I had to quit my job. If I don't quit my job, then I would have to remove my name from the EC contract, and then I would lose my job in Europe. Without my good government job in the States, we no longer had health insurance, but while working in Europe without a work permit, we had no health insurance in Europe either.
Perhaps it would be possible to quit the job with the U.S. government and find temporary work in the States until the permit comes through, though there is some chance that the contracts could be canceled in Europe while waiting. Patience could be especially lacking for the contract with the EC if they were told that the work permit was already approved even though you don't have a work permit.
So how does the time line look for getting a work permit?
October – I apply for a job. They must interview other candidates to assure the government that I am the only qualified person.
January – the paperwork is filed for the work permit. I and the company in Luxembourg are assured that everything is in order and that the permit will be approved within three months.
25 February – my last day with the federal government job.
1 March – the contract with the EC begins. When they check on the status of my work permit, they are told that it's already been approved.
15 March – I come to Europe, living in someone's apartment until mid-May while she moves temporarily to take care of her father and his house.
9 April – someone calls to see why my work permit is "unofficially" approved but we don't have "official" word yet. We are told that the paperwork is sitting on someone’s desk because these things take six months, so I need to wait, even if they agree that the company has the right to hire me.
13 April – at the suggestion of my landlady, we ask for my number so that I have proof that I have applied for a work permit. I do have a number in the system, so now I have, essentially, a temporary work permit. (For example, if the bank wants to call and check on it, I can tell them my number, and they can check, and the lady can say, yes we have her file and she will have a work permit eventually.) This allows me to open a bank account in Luxembourg.
5 May – the work permit is officially approved. This means that I can be paid officially for the work I did in March and April also, but using the withholding rate for a single person because I still have no proof, officially, that I'm married with three kids.
3 June – my official work permit arrived in the mail. However, we notice that the birthday listed on the permit is off by a year, and the birthday is part of the official number. My boss had told them in January that it was wrong, and reminded them again in April when they gave me my temporary number. All other paperwork hinges on this piece of paper, and there is some doubt as to whether we should proceed when the number is wrong.
17 June – another work permit arrives with my correct birthday. But it's not a correction of the first, so I now have two work permits with two different numbers. I was in the system twice, with two different birthdays. (So it appears that instead of correcting my birthday early on in the process, they opened another file for me.)
6 July – I received a third work permit, this one dated 1 July. I had to send in the other two so I could get this one with the correct birthday. They seemed very angry with me that I had two work permits, but it certainly wasn't my fault.
Hooray! A work permit. Now life gets easier, we think. We were wrong.
The next step is to register in Kehlen and to get residency permits. Once we're registered in Kehlen, then they can take out withholding for someone who is married with three kids. Until then, my withholding is at the single rate.
And here lies the next Catch 22: You can’t have a residency permit without proof of means of support (i.e., a work permit unless you are retired) and a tax card from your county/parish, and you can't have a tax card without a work permit, rental contract on a house, marriage certificate, birth certificates for all the kids, and the residency permit. Also, the spouse and kids must be in the country, as seen by the passport stamps, but it's very difficult to afford to have the spouse and kids in Europe living on the salary with the withholding of a single person.
The time line for getting a residency permit and/or tax card:
7 July – The administrative office at my company has sent copies of our passports, along with letters, to the Luxembourg administration. To process the entire mess, the Luxembourg administration wanted a notarized copy of every page all five passports. I couldn't afford that. So I send them regular copies, and then I will go later to the office and plead my case, trying to sound as pitiful as possible, which should be simple.
8 July – My pastor suggests that I go as soon as possible to the offices in Luxembourg since I have already been in the country longer than allowed for a tourist. So I go to the offices and tell them that my priest sent me, and he said that they could help. That seems to make them more sympathetic to my case. I see one woman. She tells me that I am illegal and must go immediately to the Office for Foreigners. I walk over there. The guard at the door tells me they are open only in the mornings from 8:30 to 11:30. So much for immediately. I go back to the first office to wait in another line. It’s hot, with no AC, and the ticket machines are broken. Usually you could just take a ticket and wait in the waiting room, but not today. So we stand in line instead of sitting in the waiting room. When I finally talk to the person, she says that there is nothing they can do to help me.
12 July – I go back to the Office for Foreigners, taking my usual bus, and I arrive at the office at 8:50. They tell me I am too late. They can give me a ticket, but the ticket number will probably be for a time past 11:30. He said that some people will take a ticket and never be seen because they **will** close at 11:30 no matter what. This man could have explained this to me when I was there on the 8th. It was the same man. Today he says that if you want a ticket that will assure that you are seen that day, you have to come before 8:30.
14 July – I go back to the Ministry for Foreigners early. It was Hell on Earth. The purpose of the trip was to show them the five passports since I didn't have them notarized. And to ask if there was anything they could do for me so that I could get the tax card in Kehlen. She did look through the passports and mark that the copies were accurate on the copies. I also gave her copies of my marriage certificate, but we're still missing the birth certificates for the kids. There was nothing else she could do to help.
20 July – We all five received letters that we have been approved for our permis de séjour, mine of "type salarié" and the other four of "type membre de famille". I can't believe it's actually happened. The next step is to get medical certificates from a doctor in Luxembourg, and two passport-type photos, and then to go back to the "ministère des Affaires étrangères et de l'Immigration" (my favorite place). There is no way we can all get to a doctor in Lux before we leave, especially since many people have already started their holidays. We also don't have the money to pay for the medical certificates because it costs 30 euro each.
2 September – We have enough money for the medical certificates, and Darin and the kids go to the doctor in Kehlen.
5 September – I go to the doctor for my medical certificate, and then we apply for our permits in Kehlen. They seem shocked I have been in the country since March 15, but tell us it will be another 3 to 6 months before we have the permits in hand.
10 October – We receive letters that we have numbers in the system. But nothing about how much longer we have to wait, or when my next trip to the Ministry for Foreigners, a.k.a Hell on Earth, will be.
And why would I call it Hell on Earth, you say? Rev. Lyons spoke once in a sermon about how we could sometimes get a glimpse of heaven here on earth. I know for a fact that the same is true of hell. And Hell on Earth is the Ministry for Foreigners in downtown Luxembourg.
The Gates/Door of Hell
They are open from 8:30 to 11:30 if you want to apply for a long-term visa, but you must come early to get a ticket to be seen before 11:30. So the last time I went, the time I actually was allowed inside, was 14 July. I thought it was appropriate that it was Bastille Day, as we say in America.
I woke up early in the morning so I could get to the Ministry for Foreigners early. I got there at 7:48, and I found that I didn't have to wait in line for a ticket, so that was good. I was #141, and the guard told me to come back at 8:30. So I went and bought a Coke Light with Lemon. So far so good. Doesn't sound so bad, you say?
At 8:30, even a little bit before, you are allowed to go to the third floor. When you walk into the building from the street, it is noticeably hotter than the already 84 degrees F outside. When you walk up the three flights of stairs, you can feel it getting hotter again all the way up the stair well. Then you go through a door to the waiting room, and you feel the wave of heat as you open the door.
Inside the waiting room there are about 20 chairs around the edge of the room, and about 80 people. We all have tickets, but the machine that shows the numbers is broken, so every one is crowding around the doors and pushing, but it doesn't matter, because we still have to go by the numbers.
At first, you have no idea what door your number is for, or what number they are taking for any given door. I eventually learn that my ticket is for Door #1, and the first number for my door for that day is #130. When I figure out I have a little bit of time, I leave the room and go back outside. It's now almost 90 degrees F outside, but still much cooler than inside the waiting room. I was wearing a tank top and a shirt over, so I take off the shirt. I manage to compose myself enough to go back inside.
A woman who is sitting beside Door #1 has taken it upon herself to monitor the tickets and to let us know where they are in the count. At one point, someone argues with her that I shouldn't be next because I left the waiting room. She tells him it doesn't matter if I'm in the line or not because I'm still #141.
At 9:45 I get to have my turn. When you go through Door #1, there is a woman there behind the bulletproof glass, talking to you through a microphone. It's a little bit cooler because you can feel some cool air coming through the slot at the bottom of the glass where you pass through papers. She makes some copies of my papers, looks through our five passports, and she tells me she can't do anything for me (except take my papers), but she does give me a phone number to call.
By the time I leave, it's difficult to even get to the door of the waiting room so that I can leave. There are at least 100 people in a room 6 meters by 10 meters, most of them standing, and many of them pushing to get in a line that has no meaning. And it's probably more than 95 degrees in that room, and only getting warmer. The smell of bodies and perfume in the room is overwhelming and makes you feel ill.
That's now my picture of Hell --- squished into a tiny room, standing and pushing for a line that has no meaning, and the smell of body odor and many different kinds of really strong perfumes being sweated away in the heat.
I'm a person who believes in signs. It was just so cool how I really wanted to move to Europe, and I was really unhappy with my job, and I found a job in Europe that was perfect for me, and he wanted to hire me, and the salary worked out. But then you hit one of these administrative Catch-22's, and you feel like you will never get anything accomplished. I was starting to have doubts that all those signs I saw before were really signs. Maybe I wasn't supposed to be in Europe. I started thinking about giving up and going home. I started to feel that if Luxembourg really didn't want us here, then I didn't need Luxembourg. Except of course, that I have a job here, and I don't have a job in the U.S.
I like the movie Signs, maybe partly because I like Mel Gibson. In the movie, Mel plays a pastor who has lost his faith in God and has quit his job. When things start to get strange, his younger brother (played by Joquin Phoenix) asks him why he can't just be a little bit more positive about everything. Mel's character responds that there are two kinds of people in the world --- the first kind sees something happen and knows that it's a sign from God and that somehow everything will work out as part of some plan, and the second kind of person sees something happen and knows it's all coincidence. He tells his brother that everyone has to make a decision as to what kind of person they are.
When I first saw this movie, we were on an airplane from Frankfurt to the US back in November 2002. We had just bought a cukoo clock in Triberg, Germany, and I choose the clock based on a "sign" from God. The store had clocks that played four different songs, but only two per clock: "Edelweiss", "The Happy Wanderer", "The Mill in the Black Forest", and some other song I don't remember. The songs were paired so that "Edelweiss" and "Happy Wanderer" were always together, for the tourists. The other two songs were traditional Black Forest songs, and they were for the Germans. But I liked the "Happy Wanderer", it always makes me smile, and I didn't want "Edelweiss" in my German clock because it's an American song, written by Rogers and Hammerstein, whom I love, but it's not German (or even Austrian). Then we found a clock of carved wood with five birds (for the five of us), very traditional looking, and it played "Happy Wanderer" and "The Mill in the Black Forest." I told Darin it was a sign from God that this was our clock. So here we are, just a few hours later, watching this movie on the plane, and Darin says, "I know what kind of person you are," and he rolls his eyes.
I am that kind of person. The problem with being that kind of person is that sometimes things go really badly and it's hard to see the plan.
When we were back in the States in August, a former boss of mine, someone who knows me fairly well, and someone who knows about moving to other countries, told me he's never seen anyone have so much trouble with the red tape that we've had. He said he never expected someone with my skills to have so much trouble getting a work permit. Then he looked right at me and said, "But don't think, just because things aren't easy, that it's some kind of sign from God that you've made a mistake in moving to Europe." It was just so funny that he said that to me. I don't remember telling him about how much I look for signs, but he seemed to be able to read my mind.
But I was thinking about it more, and I realized that government bureaucracies are really the instruments of Satan. And I can say this in all earnestness, because I used to work for the U.S. Census Bureau, so I am well aware of the workings of the devil. So if the bureaucracies are working so hard to keep us down, then that's really is a sign that I need to stick it out and stay here. OK, so now you think I'm crazy, but think about it a little bit more, and you'll see that I'm right. "Onward, Christian soldiers, marching on to war . . . "
I need to keep that song in my head the next time I have to go to the Ministry for Foreigners.
Catch-22 is a novel by Joseph Heller, the point of which was to show how illogical modern warfare had become. The main character, Yossarian, is a bombardier who wants out of the war. Contradictions abound. Again and again, we see that want is supposed to be good is really bad, and what is sensible is really nonsence.
The fictional "catch", numbered as Catch 22 in U.S. Army Air Corps parlance in the novel, states that any bombardier who wishes to be excused from combat flight duty must submit an official medical diagnosis from his squadron's flight surgeon stating that he is unfit to fly because he is insane. However, according to Army regulations, any sane person does not want to fly combat missions because they are so dangerous, so by requesting permission not to fly on the grounds of insanity, the bombardier has just shown that he is in fact sane and therefore is fit to fly. (And on the other side, anyone who wanted to fly on combat missions implicitly showed that he was insane, but these flyers would never submitted requests to be excused from flying because they liked it.)
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch_22_(logic)
This is symbolized as C (being excused from flying) necessitates A (a request) and ~B (not being insane, without which there would be no request) and A also necessitates B (being insane, which must be the basis for the request).
Symbolically, ((A => ~B) & (A => B)) => C or, more simply, (A => ~B & B) => C. In other words, if you do ask to be excused, this is a sign of sanity, and yet you can't be excused if sane. If you do not ask to be excused, you must be insane, but cannot be excused unless you ask.
For most people and situations, that logic is too complex, and we tend to think along the lines you need A to get B and you need B to get A, meaning that one must come first, but you can't get one without the other.
Any government has these catches. It's not only the military. You can find these kinds of catches anywhere you find bureaurocracy.
I used to work for the U.S. Government, and I thought I understood red tape. I didn't like it, but I had learned to survive along side of it. It was like living with cudzu in the South, cudzu that will slowly take over every inch of sunshine and kill everything else around it. You see it strangling everything in it's path, so you make decisions about what you are willing to sacrifice, and what you will try to protect from it's slowly-moving path.
Universities are another good example. I remember when I was taking classes toward my PhD, I heard two professors talking in the stairwell. The one said to the other that having a PhD wasn't a mark of intelligence or creativity --- it only showed perseverance and the patience to get through red tape.
Everything in Luxembourg hinges on the work permit: bank accounts, housing, residency permits and visas, and so on. So how do you get a work permit in Luxembourg?
To get a work permit, you must first show that you have a job, i.e., a contract with a company in Luxembourg. That company must prove that there is no one in Europe who can do the job that they need done and no one as qualified as you, beyond any doubt. Simple enough. You have a job, you're good at what you do, and then you can have the work permit.
The European Commission knows me and knows my work. They can attest to the fact that there is no one in Europe who can do what I do. I can't work for the European Commission because I'm an American citizen. They have a contract for some work, but I can't bid on the contract with an American company. I can work on the contract with a European company. I find a European company who is bidding on the project and ask them to hire me. Voila! I have a job in Europe.
Now here's the Catch 22: That company in Luxembourg doesn't want to give you a contract unless you will actually be working for them, but then you aren't allowed to work for them because you don't have a work permit. And you can't get a work permit without the contract from a Luxembourg company. So you could wait in the States for the work permit to come through, but then you would no longer have the contract for the job in Europe because you weren't doing any work that needed to be done.
Just to further complicate things, without a work permit, you aren't qualified to be paid. Without any means of support, it is difficult to get a bank account or find housing. Without money and housing, it is difficult to continue to work for the company that hired you, though you need the contract with the company so that you can have the work permit, and eventually the money and the housing.
Now there are some solutions to the problems, for example, it is possible to be "forwarded" some money for expenses even though you aren't really allowed to be paid. But most landlords won't rent to you without proof that you are getting paid, and there is no proof. Though it is difficult to find formal housing, it is sometimes possible to find someone who will rent to you without a formal contract, even at a hotel if worse comes to worse.
To add to my own personal complications, I can't be on a contract with the European Commission while working for the U.S. government, so I had to quit my job. If I don't quit my job, then I would have to remove my name from the EC contract, and then I would lose my job in Europe. Without my good government job in the States, we no longer had health insurance, but while working in Europe without a work permit, we had no health insurance in Europe either.
Perhaps it would be possible to quit the job with the U.S. government and find temporary work in the States until the permit comes through, though there is some chance that the contracts could be canceled in Europe while waiting. Patience could be especially lacking for the contract with the EC if they were told that the work permit was already approved even though you don't have a work permit.
So how does the time line look for getting a work permit?
October – I apply for a job. They must interview other candidates to assure the government that I am the only qualified person.
January – the paperwork is filed for the work permit. I and the company in Luxembourg are assured that everything is in order and that the permit will be approved within three months.
25 February – my last day with the federal government job.
1 March – the contract with the EC begins. When they check on the status of my work permit, they are told that it's already been approved.
15 March – I come to Europe, living in someone's apartment until mid-May while she moves temporarily to take care of her father and his house.
9 April – someone calls to see why my work permit is "unofficially" approved but we don't have "official" word yet. We are told that the paperwork is sitting on someone’s desk because these things take six months, so I need to wait, even if they agree that the company has the right to hire me.
13 April – at the suggestion of my landlady, we ask for my number so that I have proof that I have applied for a work permit. I do have a number in the system, so now I have, essentially, a temporary work permit. (For example, if the bank wants to call and check on it, I can tell them my number, and they can check, and the lady can say, yes we have her file and she will have a work permit eventually.) This allows me to open a bank account in Luxembourg.
5 May – the work permit is officially approved. This means that I can be paid officially for the work I did in March and April also, but using the withholding rate for a single person because I still have no proof, officially, that I'm married with three kids.
3 June – my official work permit arrived in the mail. However, we notice that the birthday listed on the permit is off by a year, and the birthday is part of the official number. My boss had told them in January that it was wrong, and reminded them again in April when they gave me my temporary number. All other paperwork hinges on this piece of paper, and there is some doubt as to whether we should proceed when the number is wrong.
17 June – another work permit arrives with my correct birthday. But it's not a correction of the first, so I now have two work permits with two different numbers. I was in the system twice, with two different birthdays. (So it appears that instead of correcting my birthday early on in the process, they opened another file for me.)
6 July – I received a third work permit, this one dated 1 July. I had to send in the other two so I could get this one with the correct birthday. They seemed very angry with me that I had two work permits, but it certainly wasn't my fault.
Hooray! A work permit. Now life gets easier, we think. We were wrong.
The next step is to register in Kehlen and to get residency permits. Once we're registered in Kehlen, then they can take out withholding for someone who is married with three kids. Until then, my withholding is at the single rate.
And here lies the next Catch 22: You can’t have a residency permit without proof of means of support (i.e., a work permit unless you are retired) and a tax card from your county/parish, and you can't have a tax card without a work permit, rental contract on a house, marriage certificate, birth certificates for all the kids, and the residency permit. Also, the spouse and kids must be in the country, as seen by the passport stamps, but it's very difficult to afford to have the spouse and kids in Europe living on the salary with the withholding of a single person.
The time line for getting a residency permit and/or tax card:
7 July – The administrative office at my company has sent copies of our passports, along with letters, to the Luxembourg administration. To process the entire mess, the Luxembourg administration wanted a notarized copy of every page all five passports. I couldn't afford that. So I send them regular copies, and then I will go later to the office and plead my case, trying to sound as pitiful as possible, which should be simple.
8 July – My pastor suggests that I go as soon as possible to the offices in Luxembourg since I have already been in the country longer than allowed for a tourist. So I go to the offices and tell them that my priest sent me, and he said that they could help. That seems to make them more sympathetic to my case. I see one woman. She tells me that I am illegal and must go immediately to the Office for Foreigners. I walk over there. The guard at the door tells me they are open only in the mornings from 8:30 to 11:30. So much for immediately. I go back to the first office to wait in another line. It’s hot, with no AC, and the ticket machines are broken. Usually you could just take a ticket and wait in the waiting room, but not today. So we stand in line instead of sitting in the waiting room. When I finally talk to the person, she says that there is nothing they can do to help me.
12 July – I go back to the Office for Foreigners, taking my usual bus, and I arrive at the office at 8:50. They tell me I am too late. They can give me a ticket, but the ticket number will probably be for a time past 11:30. He said that some people will take a ticket and never be seen because they **will** close at 11:30 no matter what. This man could have explained this to me when I was there on the 8th. It was the same man. Today he says that if you want a ticket that will assure that you are seen that day, you have to come before 8:30.
14 July – I go back to the Ministry for Foreigners early. It was Hell on Earth. The purpose of the trip was to show them the five passports since I didn't have them notarized. And to ask if there was anything they could do for me so that I could get the tax card in Kehlen. She did look through the passports and mark that the copies were accurate on the copies. I also gave her copies of my marriage certificate, but we're still missing the birth certificates for the kids. There was nothing else she could do to help.
20 July – We all five received letters that we have been approved for our permis de séjour, mine of "type salarié" and the other four of "type membre de famille". I can't believe it's actually happened. The next step is to get medical certificates from a doctor in Luxembourg, and two passport-type photos, and then to go back to the "ministère des Affaires étrangères et de l'Immigration" (my favorite place). There is no way we can all get to a doctor in Lux before we leave, especially since many people have already started their holidays. We also don't have the money to pay for the medical certificates because it costs 30 euro each.
2 September – We have enough money for the medical certificates, and Darin and the kids go to the doctor in Kehlen.
5 September – I go to the doctor for my medical certificate, and then we apply for our permits in Kehlen. They seem shocked I have been in the country since March 15, but tell us it will be another 3 to 6 months before we have the permits in hand.
10 October – We receive letters that we have numbers in the system. But nothing about how much longer we have to wait, or when my next trip to the Ministry for Foreigners, a.k.a Hell on Earth, will be.
And why would I call it Hell on Earth, you say? Rev. Lyons spoke once in a sermon about how we could sometimes get a glimpse of heaven here on earth. I know for a fact that the same is true of hell. And Hell on Earth is the Ministry for Foreigners in downtown Luxembourg.
The Gates/Door of Hell
They are open from 8:30 to 11:30 if you want to apply for a long-term visa, but you must come early to get a ticket to be seen before 11:30. So the last time I went, the time I actually was allowed inside, was 14 July. I thought it was appropriate that it was Bastille Day, as we say in America.
I woke up early in the morning so I could get to the Ministry for Foreigners early. I got there at 7:48, and I found that I didn't have to wait in line for a ticket, so that was good. I was #141, and the guard told me to come back at 8:30. So I went and bought a Coke Light with Lemon. So far so good. Doesn't sound so bad, you say?
At 8:30, even a little bit before, you are allowed to go to the third floor. When you walk into the building from the street, it is noticeably hotter than the already 84 degrees F outside. When you walk up the three flights of stairs, you can feel it getting hotter again all the way up the stair well. Then you go through a door to the waiting room, and you feel the wave of heat as you open the door.
Inside the waiting room there are about 20 chairs around the edge of the room, and about 80 people. We all have tickets, but the machine that shows the numbers is broken, so every one is crowding around the doors and pushing, but it doesn't matter, because we still have to go by the numbers.
At first, you have no idea what door your number is for, or what number they are taking for any given door. I eventually learn that my ticket is for Door #1, and the first number for my door for that day is #130. When I figure out I have a little bit of time, I leave the room and go back outside. It's now almost 90 degrees F outside, but still much cooler than inside the waiting room. I was wearing a tank top and a shirt over, so I take off the shirt. I manage to compose myself enough to go back inside.
A woman who is sitting beside Door #1 has taken it upon herself to monitor the tickets and to let us know where they are in the count. At one point, someone argues with her that I shouldn't be next because I left the waiting room. She tells him it doesn't matter if I'm in the line or not because I'm still #141.
At 9:45 I get to have my turn. When you go through Door #1, there is a woman there behind the bulletproof glass, talking to you through a microphone. It's a little bit cooler because you can feel some cool air coming through the slot at the bottom of the glass where you pass through papers. She makes some copies of my papers, looks through our five passports, and she tells me she can't do anything for me (except take my papers), but she does give me a phone number to call.
By the time I leave, it's difficult to even get to the door of the waiting room so that I can leave. There are at least 100 people in a room 6 meters by 10 meters, most of them standing, and many of them pushing to get in a line that has no meaning. And it's probably more than 95 degrees in that room, and only getting warmer. The smell of bodies and perfume in the room is overwhelming and makes you feel ill.
That's now my picture of Hell --- squished into a tiny room, standing and pushing for a line that has no meaning, and the smell of body odor and many different kinds of really strong perfumes being sweated away in the heat.
I'm a person who believes in signs. It was just so cool how I really wanted to move to Europe, and I was really unhappy with my job, and I found a job in Europe that was perfect for me, and he wanted to hire me, and the salary worked out. But then you hit one of these administrative Catch-22's, and you feel like you will never get anything accomplished. I was starting to have doubts that all those signs I saw before were really signs. Maybe I wasn't supposed to be in Europe. I started thinking about giving up and going home. I started to feel that if Luxembourg really didn't want us here, then I didn't need Luxembourg. Except of course, that I have a job here, and I don't have a job in the U.S.
I like the movie Signs, maybe partly because I like Mel Gibson. In the movie, Mel plays a pastor who has lost his faith in God and has quit his job. When things start to get strange, his younger brother (played by Joquin Phoenix) asks him why he can't just be a little bit more positive about everything. Mel's character responds that there are two kinds of people in the world --- the first kind sees something happen and knows that it's a sign from God and that somehow everything will work out as part of some plan, and the second kind of person sees something happen and knows it's all coincidence. He tells his brother that everyone has to make a decision as to what kind of person they are.
When I first saw this movie, we were on an airplane from Frankfurt to the US back in November 2002. We had just bought a cukoo clock in Triberg, Germany, and I choose the clock based on a "sign" from God. The store had clocks that played four different songs, but only two per clock: "Edelweiss", "The Happy Wanderer", "The Mill in the Black Forest", and some other song I don't remember. The songs were paired so that "Edelweiss" and "Happy Wanderer" were always together, for the tourists. The other two songs were traditional Black Forest songs, and they were for the Germans. But I liked the "Happy Wanderer", it always makes me smile, and I didn't want "Edelweiss" in my German clock because it's an American song, written by Rogers and Hammerstein, whom I love, but it's not German (or even Austrian). Then we found a clock of carved wood with five birds (for the five of us), very traditional looking, and it played "Happy Wanderer" and "The Mill in the Black Forest." I told Darin it was a sign from God that this was our clock. So here we are, just a few hours later, watching this movie on the plane, and Darin says, "I know what kind of person you are," and he rolls his eyes.
I am that kind of person. The problem with being that kind of person is that sometimes things go really badly and it's hard to see the plan.
When we were back in the States in August, a former boss of mine, someone who knows me fairly well, and someone who knows about moving to other countries, told me he's never seen anyone have so much trouble with the red tape that we've had. He said he never expected someone with my skills to have so much trouble getting a work permit. Then he looked right at me and said, "But don't think, just because things aren't easy, that it's some kind of sign from God that you've made a mistake in moving to Europe." It was just so funny that he said that to me. I don't remember telling him about how much I look for signs, but he seemed to be able to read my mind.
But I was thinking about it more, and I realized that government bureaucracies are really the instruments of Satan. And I can say this in all earnestness, because I used to work for the U.S. Census Bureau, so I am well aware of the workings of the devil. So if the bureaucracies are working so hard to keep us down, then that's really is a sign that I need to stick it out and stay here. OK, so now you think I'm crazy, but think about it a little bit more, and you'll see that I'm right. "Onward, Christian soldiers, marching on to war . . . "
I need to keep that song in my head the next time I have to go to the Ministry for Foreigners.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
