April 21, 2024 - Week 13
Today marks exactly 90 days since I landed. It is a very important date per my visitor's visa which expires today. I had been worrying about this date for a while since my work visa exemption takes a while to process (i.e. 3-5 months) - so that meant I had to apply for an "extension of stay" in the meantime.
Come Monday I headed to pick up my 'evidence' of having applied for a work visa exemption before meandering back to the Passport, Immigration, Citizenship Agency (PICA). The issue I noticed on my 'evidence' was that the stamp on it was marked January 17, 2024 (before I even arrived in Jamaica) but the officer signature date was February 17, 2024. Needless to say my expectation for their paperwork keeps being recalibrated. At PICA, the receptionist stand was empty, and after waiting 10 minutes with three people in line behind me, my now inner Jamaican knew I had to act. So I started badgering the workers walking past me and after the third person, they finally got the receptionist to come assist us. The American next to me asked "What's wrong?", and I said "I don't want to wait three hours at PICA", and he responded "Oh, I thought I would be in and out in 15 minutes". ( I had to internally suppress a snicker)
After waiting a while and processing my payment for the visa, I cautiously handed over my passport and was told to pick it up three days later! To my left, the American and his partner finally were serviced and were asking for exactly the same thing as me. Was it 15 minutes? No, it took one hour for the PICA visit and 72 hours for the visa stamp to be processed on our passport...
On the day of pick up, I decided to also head to the Post Office to mail off some postcards and a Mother's day card home to Australia. To my surprise, the Post Office said they do not process mail for Australia. I had to ask them to repeat because I had already sent a postcard to Australia (which clearly had not arrived yet) and they reiterated that they do not send mail to Australia! Well, at least they process mail for Canada...After my disheartening visit to the Post Office, I picked up my Passport with my lovely visa stamp hoping things will only get better through the week.
Unfortunately, the government issued an advisory that due to the dam hitting a critical level, they have to start water restrictions. By that they meant those north of the ministry get access to water 6pm-6am and those south get it 6am - 6pm. Luckily, my place has a water tank - but we shall see tomorrow when the water restrictions kick in whether this water tank has sufficient water to service all of us for 12 hours before being refilled the next day. Meanwhile, I am loading up on pots, buckets and bottles of water (just in case).
Until next week!
PS - I did have a good time at Strawberry Hill (Blue Mountains) for a Cuso International volunteers meeting, and I saw TobyMac and Kirk Franklin!