Ink and X-rays

By the grace of God, our visa was granted on July 5th by one of the highest officers working for the Immigration Minister. It was a loooong and interesting story. The biggest officer has a graceful face too. His questions were all about our family. He asked if we are from Regina.

We are truly thankful for the sincere and diligent help from the Kuwaiti gentleman AW who works for ExploreMan’s company’s passport office. He has a round graceful face that smiles all the time. His traditional white outfit is so fascinating that I wanted to take a photo with him, but we have been running around with the medical exam the next day when and forgot about the photos!

It took only three hours to get our finger print and physical exams done on Tuesday July 6th.

AW took us three families (two from Canada and one from U.S.) to the Mangaf finger print office (Ministry of Interior). There was a long line up there in a small not-so-modern office building. I found that in this country, women seem to have privileges, so they do not need to line up. Soon we three wives were led to a small chamber on the second floor where I saw a long counter by one side of the wall and it was covered with black ink. When it was my turn, a woman with a beautiful face and a black head scarf with embroiled crystal ‘CHANEL’ poured a little bit black ink onto the counter; and rolled slowly with a hand roller that made a sticky sound. Once she felt that the ink was harmonized on the counter, she took my ten fingers one by one (starting from my thumb) with her gloved right hand, press it not too hard and not too soft on the smooth surface of the ink, and press-and-roll it onto a light yellow card paper that has table squares with Arabic languages. Each table cell was for one finger. She run my each thumb twice and my four fingers (no thumbs) together of each hand on a larger table cell of the paper. There was no soap at the three sink downstairs, so the lady gave AW a bottle of sanitizer. All talks were in Arabic; even AW’s stacks of documents and the sings/instructions in the building were absolutely all in Arabic. I put all my trust in AW (I figured we had to), so I was not anxious to get things done quickly. Actually I was enjoying every moment very much. When AW went outside to get our papers photocopied, my elder son went with him and was amazed with the computer key board and an Arabic type writer. My elder son asked in the end,”Are they going to go through all the finger print papers if one is caught in a crime?” I wish they will scan all the paper and store on discs in the future or they have started.

Then AW took us to Fahaheel Medical Center for our medical examination that we found out later includes only blood test and X-rays. While waiting for the blood test, I noticed that all women sat on one side of the hall and men either stood up or sat on the other side. Most of the women are young with colourful south-east oriental costumes. They were quietly sitting there when a look-like-a-supervisor man running around to arrange things with Arabic. Again this place is no English zone. Soon we ladies were taken to a little room where we found two south-east oriental nurses sitting there with no smiles on their faces. Thank God their skills were great. I said, “Thank you” with smiles in the end the she was frozen for a second and did not respond. I guess they must be tired with so many tests to do and in a day.

AW all of a sudden asked me if I was pregnant; and my first reflect in my mind was, “Oh yeah, I did eat a lot here, but do I look like pregnant?” But immediately I realized that he had concern about the up-coming X-ray. I burst into laugh, ”Oh, no no, but I wish.”

All women were lining up in orange jumbo outfit waiting for the X-ray. There was a sweet young girl from India behind me, and I talked to her a little bit. She is obviously quite excited with her new life in Kuwait. I did not have a chance to ask her what she would do before I was called in for the X-ray. The lady who runs the X-ray asked me again if I am pregnant. That was very nice.

When we left the X-ray room, it was only 11:30 am. We got finger print and medical done in three hours. Who said everything is slow here?? The American lady told me that her medical exam for her visa cost her over $1000 US and it took over four months before she lost her patience and cancelled it.

Computer keyborad

Arabic typewriter