The permit! It’s here!
The person to whom I gave my research permit application estimated it would take a week to process, and said I would get an e-mail when it was ready. A friend who had been through the process said to check by phone if it was not ready after a week. My hosts reminded me that in Rwanda, bureaucracy is often more responsive to pressure than time.
All that said, I don’t like confrontation, and I wanted to let them take their week before I did anything unconventional. After a week, I had not heard anything. Now, I submitted my application on Tuesday, but one component (the photos) came in Wednesday, and the person processing applications was out of the office at that time, and Thursday was a holiday, so I decided it was possible they had not started working on it until Friday.
The next Friday rolled around, and I had gotten no e-mail. So I called. No answer, perhaps because I was too close to lunchtime. I really meant to call back later in the afternoon, but I kept forgetting until it was too late. I was disappointed, because I had kind of been hoping to travel on the weekend, but it was really my fault for not following up.
On Monday, there was still no e-mail, so I called again. This time, I did get an answer, and was informed that the permit was ready and that I could go pick it up at the office. I did so immediately, and I was actually amazed at how easy this part was: walk in, ask for it, walk out. There were no forms to sign, no fees to pay, no identification to show.
The permit itself is just a single-page letter to be presented to anyone who asks, saying that I have got permission to be doing this project and whatnot. My photograph is stapled to it, and it is nice and official-looking with a cool stamp on it. (Side-note: Every government institution I have been to here has its own special stamp, and the stamp is considered very important as a mark of official sanction. They are actually all about the same—the country’s coat of arms, with the name of the specific institution inscribed around the outside—but it seriously seems like a lot of this country’s budget must go toward getting these stamps.) Paper-clipped to that was a letter addressed to me, congratulating me and wishing me luck.
It was on this second sheet that I noticed a potential factor in the delay: the e-mail address listed below my name at the top of the page was off by one letter. So they must have sent something there, then thrown up their arms in confusion when it bounced. (I’m still giving them the benefit of the doubt here; the responsible thing to do would have been to check the address and make sure it was right.)
I went straight home and started planning my travel. Six weeks later, and I was finally authorized to do what I kind of came here to do.
The lesson in this, by the way, is clear: I should have called sooner. I do not know when the permit was actually ready, but I probably could have gotten my hands on it at least a few days earlier, and maybe even sped up the process. And as long as I was not mean about it, I do not think I would have been running any risk of alienating myself either. Something to remember in the future.
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