Sudan
Preparation
Preparing for a trip
to Sudan requires a lot of faith. Elizabeth told us to scan copies of
our passports and e-mail them to Sudan, where they would obtain entry
visas. Meantime we made some provisional airline bookings, leaving on
the 17th of October.
So far so good, until we had a call from the travel agent. We had to confirm our flights or lose them. Act of faith - confirm the flights or not? We confirmed them. Well, a week or two later the first visa - Fiona's - was issued. A few days later Phil's visa was e-mailed, but Stan's visa was stuck. The photograph in the scanned image was not clear enough! Some photo-manipulation later, the final visa was issued.
Next - we were asked to bring out some ASB service booklets. An appeal was put out across the diocese, and we were given hundreds of service books, plus letters, shoes and various other items to take to Sudan. The most challenging was a request to bring out some sewing machines. Fortunately this request never developed.
So - entry visa's ready, the next challenge came - just four days before departure. The date on Fiona's visa stated that it would expire at midnight on the 17th - the day of travel, but not the day of arrival. Since the visa was written in Arabic, we could not read this, and assumed that all was well. Fortunately Elizabeth could read the visa dates. The choice - Fiona could travel early, or we could apply for a new visa, but this would take seven days. Our travel agent worked some miracles, and Fiona set off a day early.
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| ©2004-6 St Mary's Church, Embsay with Eastby | Last
modified:
March 19, 2006
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