I have all my paperwork in order. My old passport, my ID,
a new kraishelait, because my ID picture and my current face don’t quite match
anymore after some 20 years in country, passport pictures and about a million
copies of each document, as you know how it goes in this place.
It all seems to go so smooth.
I walk in, and am pleasantly surprised at the fact that
they now have introduced a number system, so no more queuing like cows, I get
my line ticket, and I have only two people in front of me. So smooth and
quickly.
I am getting suspicious. When things go so
well in this bureaucratic system, you know what will happen. Of course you
know, you have been through this yourself dozens of times. If not more.
And then it comes: “Fie shie ralet.”
Fie shie ralet. That means: “There is something wrong.”
Of course there is. How could there not be. It never ever
goes smoothly in this place. So what is
it this time?
“Your name. It isn’t spelled right.”
I have a difficult name. None of my names are even remotely familiar to Arab names. My father’s names (yes, they need to be on this document as well) are even more unknown. As such, every government employee spells it as it sounds to them. Sometimes they copy it from other documents, but that is equally difficult (apparently).
And so there I stood. Three documents (passport, ID and kraishelait),
with three different names.
“Oh, I have my family ID with me as well,“ I pipe,
because I know that when I come to a government office, there is always
something I do not have with me, so I take my entire administration with me.
“Good,” he says, as he goes over my family ID
paper.
He studies it. He studies it again, and then looks at the
other 3 documents.
“Fie shie ralet.”
My heart sinks into my shoes.
“What is wrong now?”
“I now have four different people.”
There are days I can laugh about this. Not today. Back to
square one.
4 comments:
I know it's not nice of me... But I am laughing... Fi shie ralet (in me I guess). Sorry for tall of this.
He is right, at least four different persons! Be happy you're in Lebanon: here in NL we would have kicked you out. Ask Hirsi Ali. Y.
maybe you have the worst problem here between all lebanese, having unfamiliar names all in one place.
the problem goes back to the usage of handwriting.
in my home town new family names merged from mistakes such as this one.
Sietske your spelling of arabic words always makes me laugh.. "kraishelait" I think is my favorite so far :)
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