"Don't Worry"

 As soon as we came back from Thailand, we started reminding our boss that two months were left on our visa and paperwork needed to be started. We reminded them every week for two months. We were told repeatedly, “don’t worry, don’t worry”. Two weeks ago, they took our passports to start the process and found out that the school we work for doesn’t have their license for having foreign teachers. “Don’t worry, we will get it done”. Last week I was handed our passports. Were our visas done? No, they just didn’t want to hold them for so long. This past Tuesday evening, they called us suddenly and requested our passports. Mind you, Frank had worked that day and could have carried them with. Nope, had to make a night run to a local McDonald’s to drop them off. Did we get our visa? Nope,  the next day, Frank got the passports back with instructions to go get a physical the next day, causing me to miss a days wages. They said they had fixed it with the clinic to rush our paperwork because today, Thursday, our passports expire. Yesterday, we went to clinic, found out none of it was accurate and we did not have the proper paperwork. Frank rushed back home to get it and we went through the whole process of testing. Check our first year blogs for a detailed account of that experience, including the ECG with jumper cables. Yeah. We asked when we could get our new health certificate. “Come back Thursday afternoon". Just to make things plain, our visas expire Thursday. Frank will soon be on his way to pick up our paperwork to turn in to our work. They continue to say, “don’t worry about it, everything is ok.” Either it really is or tomorrow we get kicked out of the country with a stamp saying we stayed past the limit and we can’t come back in. Supposedly, they are arranging, through means and gifts I would rather not know about, to extend our present visas for ten days while the school finally gets their act together. Then we should get new work visas. There are so many rules about visas but if you have the right connections, (guanxi), which our boss's wife does, anything can be bent. Not done on time, just bent. We couldn’t leave the country now, even if we wanted to because they have our passports! Either way, we are stuck. We will keep you posted. Should know by tomorrow, maybe. Don’t worry!
 mandy