Ta Gueule, Bureaucracy!

Good morning, Maria Carolina. My name is The Isle of Guadeloupe, and I would like to present you with the ideal Toussaints Vacation Package. Listen, and prepare to drool...

On Monday, October 26th, at approximately noon, you will recieve a very fancy looking letter from the government of France. Praying that Michel Foucault has been appointed as the Sociological Spokesperson for Gringo immigration, you will tear the envelope delicately, with a smug smile on your face...it's about time that La France offered you citizenship. You are, afterall, Simone de Beavoir's intellectual BFF;Jean Paul Sartre held your hand tenderly as you waded through the muddy notions of "being and nothingness" last year, and you watch "Amelie" about twelve times per year. "I'm totally being offered the legal right to purse my lips at irrelevent points in time for as long as I l live," you will think, sighing with joy.

But alas, Maria Carolina, you will have trompe-ed your poor, little, helpless Canadian soul. Instead of an abstract invitation to join the "imagined community" of France, your eyes will meet a short and cold convocation to the Office of Immigration and Integration in Point a Pitre, asking you to complete the transactions that will permit you to legally reside in France for the next six months.

What will be most spectacular about this letter, is that it will tell you that you have to be at a hospital for YET ANOTHER MEDICAL EXAM, two hours ago, and THEN in the capital city for your official meeting in one hour.

You're totally pumped. This kind of incongruency is your idea of the perfect holiday...Recieving a legal invitation two hours too late... partay time!

You'll go home and call the good folks. They'll promise that "il n'y a pas de soucis", and to come to Point a Pitre on Wednesday and you'll have the meeting then. You smile with joy and agree.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009
You'll wake up at the beautiful hour of six am with the sweet sweet kisses of muthaeffin mosquitoes and the off-tune sing-song of hypothermic sounding roosters. In honour of the fantastic day that awaits you, you will break your fast with stale cereal doused in tepid, concentrated guava juice, because you purposely ran out of milk the night before.

Pysched for the appointment, you'll revel in the joys of nausea for the whole two hours of bus ride to Point a Pitre.

"Sit down and don't talk" the government official will instruct you kindly when you arrive at the office.
"Ok" you'll respond angelically. "But I should explain to you that I recieved the letter too late and I haven't yet had my medical..."

"If you could be quiet that would help," he'll snap back. "Do you have your passport?" he'll grill.
"Yes"
"What about your proof of lodging?"
"That too", you'll say.
"And your medical examination documents?"

"Well, no, unfortunately, because as I began to explain earlier, I received the convocation for the medical appointment too late and..."

"Whoa whoa WHOA, you mean to tell me you expect me to do something for you here if you don't have the necessary documents?" he'll stand up and look around the room spastically, like a fly trying to find its way out of a locked room.

"I called yesterday and you said that..."
"Yeah. You just didn't know, did you? Go talk to the secretary. Goodbye."

You'll go talk to the nice lady at the front desk who assures you you will recieve a phone call "within the next month" informing you that you will have to PICK UP another letter revealing A NEW MEDICAL EXAMINATION and BUREAUCRATIC DATE in Point a Pitre. You'll ask her to kindly direct you to the closest internet cafe so you can rant to your people back home in Canada who will understand your frustration.

Happy Effing Holidays.