Hey, I’ve already done that! And paid big bucks to do it!

Moving to Kuwait has been an eye-opening experience. Things that should be easy (in my opinion), have turned out to be quite difficult. Just the paperwork in preparation was exhausting and confusing – but I got it done. I WAS beginning to wonder if it would all be finished in time, though. I did fingerprinting and a police clearance through Wyoming’s DCI; received an apostille from the Secretary of State; got my blood tests, a chest x-ray, and then inoculations; and then waited on my clearance from the State Department and the Kuwait Embassy. It was overwhelming.

Interestingly, I discovered when I got here that I had to repeat a lot of that process, specifically fingerprinting, blood tests, and chest x-ray! On Monday morning, a small group of us were loaded into two small Kias and driven quite a distance away to be fingerprinted again. We followed our drivers (like baby geese follow their mothers. We probably looked ridiculous) into a seedy alleyway to a government building where immigrants were completing various levels of paperwork. First we waited in a small storefront-type building. There was a man and a woman working there, typing away on old, clacking typewriters. We were given our passports and visas and then taken outside and around to a set of stairs to another room where we waited some more. Our drivers had “wasta” or influence, because we were definitely moved to the front of the line in order to get our fingerprints taken. The police officers were young (and I mean young) men, who merely said, “Relax your fingers” and “Relax.” Not much English spoken there. They used the old fashioned black ink which then covered almost my whole palm. One of the ladies in my group pointed me to the bathroom where I could wash.

I wish I could do justice to the description of this room. I was disconcerted because there was no door. Underneath the Toilet sign, you entered a hallway; the sink was at the end. Then, if you wanted to use a toilet, you would turn a corner to the left where there were several stalls. In the hallway there were black fingerprints of hundreds of people who went before all over the walls and low ceiling. The sink was filthy with ink and there was a single bar of soap on a shelf. I admit that I used the communal bar! I was also happy that Bob, the sole man in our group of teachers, was there with me. We washed and washed, but it was virtually impossible to remove all the ink. Of course, there were no towels or hand dryers there; someone in our group had wet wipes so that helped. And that was the end of our fingerprinting excursion.

After lunch, it was on to blood tests and chest x-rays. We had a long drive to a building where the signs were all about TB prevention. Again, it was good to be American as we were hurried right along. When we checked in, the official stamped my paperwork about ten times. These officials love to stamp things and mark them up. They also staple, staple, staple. We were all told to report to room 20, where we lined up yet again. There were about six or seven technicians in the room, plus a man at a table who checked our paperwork and got the vials ready. Everything has to be checked and doubled checked. Anyway, the needles were large, but it didn’t hurt. What was weird is that I have a huge bruise and red spot where they drew my blood…..I never have that back home.

We then went to the x-ray room. There were eight dressing rooms with curtains hanging over them. We were given gowns and told to change. Well, Ashley said that as long as we took our underwire bras off that we could just keep our t-shirts on, which was a good thing. The dressing room opened directly into the x-ray room, and many women were lined up waiting for their turn. An admitting woman let us in one-by-one. Then there was another woman at a desk behind a window who was hollering at us if we didn’t get positioned correctly for the machine. I was told to come in and give my papers to the desk woman….get this: Bea was getting her x-ray as I was standing at the desk! Here is the situation: the admitting woman is always in the x-ray room, as is the desk woman. We are herded into the x-ray room as x-rays are being taken. The waiting women are lined up at a door that is always open. Talk about scary! We were being bombarded by x-rays!! This is nothing at all like getting an x-ray in the States!!

That is my saga for this day.