Tags: /snark, Corruption, wrong
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And give me and the prospective bride just $2500, and we’ll be almost out of the woods.
According to the Commie Immigration Police, anyway.
On November 3, they gave my girlfriend and I a “pay-us-or-else-go-to-jail” deadline of November 18 for the first $500 payment, then another 3 months for the next $2000.
That second 3 months can be extended to 6 months, but then there will be an additional cost of $500 tacked on, for a total of $3000, or so.
That’s like about 5 or 6 times our total income.
So far, the police haven’t gotten a god-damned dime, and I think it’s almost past the 18th already, or what?
As they say in Spanish, “Imposible es im fvcking posible.”
Tomorrow my girlfriend and I plan to make a special trip to the police office to offer them $12, plus photos of each of ourselves, and a promise to try to come up with more extra money in the future just as fast as we possibly can, so long as we don’t have to deny ourselves too drastically.
Hope it works, because I haven’t been sleeping too soundly, lately.
Like my uncle in his early 70′s said to my dad once when my dad was in his mid-80′s, “I guess if we had worked harder and saved more when we were young, we’d have more money, now.” -
Sheeeit. This place is hairy, Maynard.
I told the police on Thursday that I don’t owe them $500, and they can take me to court if they think I do. I tried to give them the $12 instead, but they wouldn’t take it. They quit talking about jail, but still were saying they’re going to deport me.
Now they want to talk to my boss. The whole fvcking problem IS my boss — he doesn’t have the right to hire me, and so he hasn’t done a visa for me in about 4 years, and so I don’t have the right kind of visa to be working for him. The police are trying to blame all that on me, and hey, it ain’t my fault.
Tonight a friend called a friend who’s in the Labor Department, and an ex-student of mine. He suggested I tell my boss to fvck off, and to apply at one of two other schools in town who DO have the right to hire me.
Otherwise, I was afraid I’d have to move to Vientiane to find a school with the right to hire me … or get deported. I don’t want to do either of those, and don’t want to go to jail, either.
I took the opportunity to tell the police, that me going to jail or getting deported wouldn’t do anybody any good, because I’d just really REALLY like to keep on telling everybody I know that Thakhek is the nicest damned town I’ve ever been in, and if they deport me, I won’t be able to say that anymore, but would be forced to say the opposite, or have it said, please excuse the run-on sentence.
Fvck. When I was a kid, all I wanted to be was a farmer — I thought that if I learned how to drive a tractor, the girls would think it was cool and like me, and that’s all I wanted out of life.
Which such simple desires, how the hell do I get myself in such ticklish goddamned situations all the time?
Now I guess I have to go apply for a new job, and to tell the truth, I don’t even like to work all that much, dang me. -
Sheeit, Wagner – sounds like you’re between a rock and a hard place. And I thought I had it tough!
DO NOT talk to the US consulate, btw. They will, as they almost always do, rat on you in order to get an expat back to the states, like it or not.
Sorry to hear about your problems. I wish you the best.
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Over here, a sort of ace-in-the-hole is to go for refugee status. With your background you’d have a good case to claim asylum.
Is there an AI office over there? Give’m a call.
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Thanks.
A friend contacted another school for me today — in Lao culture, a Lao has to contact the school for a foreigner, even though I actually know the owner myself, and she actually asked me to work for her last year. At the time, I said I was obligated to my present employer, and couldn’t work for her. At the time, though, I still thought my present employer was going to run my visa for me — which he hasn’t done, which is why I’m kind of in trouble.
I go in for an interview at the new place tomorrow.
Yeah, a lot of people here have suggested I go to the US Embassy, and that’s what I don’t want to do.
I don’t know if Laos accepts refugees, or not. I do know they love Americans who are collecting Social Security, because they’ve really got a knack of getting most of that money. So when I mention to the police that I’d like to become a Lao citizen, they make it sound like it’s just about impossible — a Lao citizen isn’t going to get any US Social Security money, and, so, neither are they.
I don’t think the local police really want to deport me, either, because I do know a lot of shit that goes on around here, and they know that I do. Better I be in the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in.
Laos is a pretty nice place, but it’s not perfect.
I gotta get that business visa — I’ve been working on a tourist visa for over a year now, and usually the max for that is 3 months, and work is forbidden …
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