Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Almost didn't make the plane
Dec 19, 2005
New Delhi
Arvinder & Siddharth have tickets to Pakistan today, but one of them doesn’t have a visa. Even though PAWB considers Arvinder irreplaceable, even though our partner organization in Pakistan (ITA) has spent countless work hours on justifying her expertise to the Pakistani High Commission, the fact is that Arvinder was born in India! Siddharth, on the other hand, went to the consulate in New York City one day, dropped off an application and his passport at 12 noon, and picked up a fresh stamped visa at 4:30pm the same day.
We are sitting across from a man in the High Commission who really wants to see Arvinder go to Pakistan. Not only because PAWB has work to do that he admires, but also because Arvinder’s mother was born around where PAWB is going to travel. So this man is not being obstructive. In fact, no one we meet actually says “We have a problem with your Indian citizen PAWB member…” But there is a problem nevertheless. While Siddharth got an experience of wiling away half a day at the High Commission, Arvinder has come here 2 times, waiting in outside lines with no promise that her case will get any attention that day. Meanwhile, she loses time with her clients. Meanwhile, Arvinder has had to turn down consultancy offers because she wants to do PAWB work. Still, limbo characterized her life for a good 3 weeks.
Part of the stress of doing relief work is the need to be ready for deployment. And part of being ready for deployment is readiness NOT to be deployed. Arvinder had a very long introduction to this basic meditation (or should we say frustration?) that all relief workers learn early.
“You know we have hundreds of faxes per day. We have to manage that.” Finally, finally, that faxed letter was located at the High Commission. And things were done in a shockingly short stroke of the pen. It almost seemed bizarre that after hours and hours of effort on the part of ITA and Arvinder, this visa was essentially someone saying “I knew all along that you should be allowed to come, but having you wait until the VERY last second is our way of letting you know who is really in control here.” That wasn’t the attitude of the official who helped us. He wanted to then give a visa to Arvinder’s mother right there, on the spot, no questions asked…
We made it to the airport with only 30 minutes to spare. One wrong move, one hour more of a delay in finding that fax, and Arvinder would have been lost as a fieldworker in this first PAWB project.
New Delhi
Arvinder & Siddharth have tickets to Pakistan today, but one of them doesn’t have a visa. Even though PAWB considers Arvinder irreplaceable, even though our partner organization in Pakistan (ITA) has spent countless work hours on justifying her expertise to the Pakistani High Commission, the fact is that Arvinder was born in India! Siddharth, on the other hand, went to the consulate in New York City one day, dropped off an application and his passport at 12 noon, and picked up a fresh stamped visa at 4:30pm the same day.
We are sitting across from a man in the High Commission who really wants to see Arvinder go to Pakistan. Not only because PAWB has work to do that he admires, but also because Arvinder’s mother was born around where PAWB is going to travel. So this man is not being obstructive. In fact, no one we meet actually says “We have a problem with your Indian citizen PAWB member…” But there is a problem nevertheless. While Siddharth got an experience of wiling away half a day at the High Commission, Arvinder has come here 2 times, waiting in outside lines with no promise that her case will get any attention that day. Meanwhile, she loses time with her clients. Meanwhile, Arvinder has had to turn down consultancy offers because she wants to do PAWB work. Still, limbo characterized her life for a good 3 weeks.
Part of the stress of doing relief work is the need to be ready for deployment. And part of being ready for deployment is readiness NOT to be deployed. Arvinder had a very long introduction to this basic meditation (or should we say frustration?) that all relief workers learn early.
“You know we have hundreds of faxes per day. We have to manage that.” Finally, finally, that faxed letter was located at the High Commission. And things were done in a shockingly short stroke of the pen. It almost seemed bizarre that after hours and hours of effort on the part of ITA and Arvinder, this visa was essentially someone saying “I knew all along that you should be allowed to come, but having you wait until the VERY last second is our way of letting you know who is really in control here.” That wasn’t the attitude of the official who helped us. He wanted to then give a visa to Arvinder’s mother right there, on the spot, no questions asked…
We made it to the airport with only 30 minutes to spare. One wrong move, one hour more of a delay in finding that fax, and Arvinder would have been lost as a fieldworker in this first PAWB project.
# posted by Siddharth Ashvin Shah, M.D., M.P.H. @ 12:33 PM 
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
