Yardies, at home and a farrin' (Part 4)

[BelwinMills 0]

Questions:

Interview???

1) Do I need 2006 tax forms? We had to file an extension due to getting Dwain and ITTN number. Should I email my tax guy and see if he can send me the records he filed for us? Or will I be okay with 03,04 and 05. All 3 years I have made well above the 125 percent poverty line.

2) Do we need to dress nice we are a T-shirt and jeans couple and don't really like dressing up and I hate to wear make up in JA cause it just melts off.

3) For all past interviewers how long did the interview take?

4) If our interview is at 12:15pm how early do we need to show up at the Embassy.

5) The most important question of all where is the best place to celebrate and get dinner after he is approved?

I am praying he will be here for my nieces Birthday party on May 26th. Hoping that this is a realistic goal.

Thanks for all the support and help along the way.

Jax

1. I would definitely try to get some sort of tax info for 2006 - it's better to have at least your W2s for 2006 than nothing at all.

2. I didn't attend in Kingston with hubby, but he wore a button down shirt, tie, slacks, and "shine shoes"

3. His first interview was under an hour, the second one was even faster because he just had to show birth certificate to get approval (if you go to Embassy Reviews, I believe a lot of Yardies - myself included - have posted our interview experiences there)

4. Not sure what the standard is now - hubby was there about 1.5 hours early (from what I remember him telling me)

5. In the bedroom!

Thanks Joneise Nice bedroom LOL I am an

Okay I just emailed my tax guy for my W2's and extension letter let me pray that he has time to get them to me next week.

I have read everyone's wonderful interviews and am prepared. Sometimes I forget the time frame because I have been on here so long. My brain is popping a few fuses at this moment. This is happening at the end of the school year were everything is on over load.

Good luck with all of the moves coming up. All the best with packing. I can really say moving is so tough.

I am fretting about moving one music room from the fourth floor of the school to the mobile unit outside. Worrying about are we going to have enough storage if not I need to organize the garage with work items.

[BelwinMills 0]

Thanks guys! It is such a great feeling Move date is May 4...anyone want to help me pack

We are moving to our house May 1 so you help us and we will help you!

You are moving too?!? Where are you moving too? Got any pics?

Thanks guys! It is such a great feeling Move date is May 4...anyone want to help me pack

We are moving to our house May 1 so you help us and we will help you!

We plan on moving this summer...maybe we can help out each other....if we didn't live in 4 different states

Where are you moving too?

You know I have been thinking about this for a while...go with me on this one...

We should create a VJ community...acreage we can all build our houses on near enough to each other that all the men can do their guy things and us girls can be friends in person...what do ya think Now if we can only agree on a location

In the US maybe we could start our own base like the military and have jobs for all of us on the base. Wishfull thinking and instead of little China town it could be called Yardie village.

Wouldn't that be nice or maybe a vaction village in JA and we could go once a year.

Rhonda have a great night at work . Did you watch that show I think it is called "Notes from the underbelly"? I thought it was funny last night. A good show to tape and watch if your prego. So are you going to find out what it is before hand or have the baby be a suprise?

To all the preg ladies will you choose to breast feed your child?

Everyone have a fantastic night and TGIF soon thank goodness.

Take Care

[rhondapayter 0]

No not yet....it's still really soon. You may start feeling tired and if you are "oh so lucky" to have morning aka all day sickness...you will "feel" pregnant...trust me! From then on it really gets rolling. Just relax, get as much rest as possible and enjoy your pregnancy! I enjoyed every minute of each of mine!

Thanks Myisha So far I'm just really moody and emotional And I have to make frequent trips to the bathroom And sore mammaries. Ok, yeah I guess I do have some symptoms

[rhondapayter 0]

Congrats on all the moves!

Nobody has replied to my last post yet

Well, I sent an email to the Kingston Embassy and they told me I only need to submit the I-134, my W2's from 2006, my filed taxes for 2006, and an employer letter.

That seems too easy!

Input?

You will also need the DS-230, DS-156, DS-156k, and DS -157. You'll also need a few weeks worth of check stubs from your job. And of course, the police certificate, medical completed, his long form birth certificate, and non-impediment to marriage form.

I hope this answers your question

[rhondapayter 0]

Questions:

Interview???

2) Do we need to dress nice we are a T-shirt and jeans couple and don't really like dressing up and I hate to wear make up in JA cause it just melts off.

My opinion is YES It always looks more professional and like you actually made an effort. We didn't dress up too formal - I wore a sundress and sandals and Tony wore dress pants and a polo shirt. "Dress for Success"

Questions:

5) The most important question of all where is the best place to celebrate and get dinner after he is approved?

5. In the bedroom!

Maybe Jax will be the next one to end up Preggo

[rhondapayter 0]

Rhonda have a great night at work . Did you watch that show I think it is called "Notes from the underbelly"? I thought it was funny last night. A good show to tape and watch if your prego. So are you going to find out what it is before hand or have the baby be a suprise?

To all the preg ladies will you choose to breast feed your child?

Everyone have a fantastic night and TGIF soon thank goodness.

I LOVE that show I watched the very first one which was an hour long and it was soooooo funny! Then I watched the 1/2 hour one yesterday. I'm sure it will be my 2nd favorite show (after Grey's Anatomy of course!)

Yes, we want to find out the sex. And yes, I'm going to try to breast feed. At least for the first few months while I'm on maternity leave. After I have to return to work, I'll have to see how it works out.

[nannygirl82 0]

Future Mrs.... when i went to the interview all they wanted was 1 year!!! but like darlene said better to be over prepared!!!

about the co-sponser yes they need to fill out the 1-864...you need form them...bank statments, letter form their employer, and a copy of their birth certificate...all that info is with the form....you don't need to get it noterized either

[nannygirl82 0]

Jamie, Dee and ricardo's wife....congratz on the new places!!!!

Guess what add my name to that list as well....i got a letter from mgt. that they are renovating the older apts.(lucky me i have a older one) so we have until the 30th of june to get a new place...or move into another one here that already has a waiting list of 6 other people... as if i didn't have enough already....

[waynegeraldine 0]

I might seem a little impatient, but is is normal that my file has not been touched since the 5th of April which was coincidentally the same day I received my NOA1.

I'm just a little worried that it has not been touched, I look at other timelines at Vermont and it seem like they issue NAO2's or RFE's within 2 weeks of the NOA1. I'm just wondering whether or not they lost my package or something. At one point should I consider calling?

Thanks for your help.

Edited April 20, 2007 by waynegeraldine

[Shemmy 4]

We plan on moving this summer...maybe we can help out each other....if we didn't live in 4 different states

Where are you moving too?

You know I have been thinking about this for a while...go with me on this one...

We should create a VJ community...acreage we can all build our houses on near enough to each other that all the men can do their guy things and us girls can be friends in person...what do ya think Now if we can only agree on a location

We plan on moving back to Virginia before the end of the summer..we're in Maryland now. Looking for places now. We need more space and more bathrooms....it's hard sharing a bathroom with a teenage girl and a husband who thinks he's the sexiest Jamaican man alive

Edited April 20, 2007 by sjb1221

[morantbaygirl 0]

We plan on moving this summer...maybe we can help out each other....if we didn't live in 4 different states

Where are you moving too?

You know I have been thinking about this for a while...go with me on this one...

We should create a VJ community...acreage we can all build our houses on near enough to each other that all the men can do their guy things and us girls can be friends in person...what do ya think Now if we can only agree on a location

We plan on moving back to Virginia before the end of the summer..we're in Maryland now. Looking for places now. We need more space and more bathrooms....it's hard sharing a bathroom with a teenage girl and a husband who thinks he's the sexiest Jamaican man alive

Okay our compound can be in Virginia . We can make this work We have artist, musicians,teachers, nurses, clerical and government workers what else do we need and who am I missing?

Oh yeah and most of our husbands can cook!!! The Yardie Compound

[Shemmy 4]

Okay our compound can be in Virginia . We can make this work We have artist, musicians,teachers, nurses, clerical and government workers what else do we need and who am I missing?

Oh yeah and most of our husbands can cook!!! The Yardie Compound

I vote for Atlanta

[Yaads 0]

Morning everyone...

I have shared my complete story with a couple of people and some have encouraged me to share on the Yardie thread…I haven’t had the courage to do so before now but I can see that it might be helpful and felt that now is the right time. Also I have been getting a lot of questions via PM about my life and the move and just wanted to answer them all at one time...So this is my story and even if it is useful to ONE person than it is worth it.

Please note that this is a PERSONAL account and this is what is happening to ME….I am telling MY story and nothing more…

I went to JA as a missionary. I never stayed in the resorts or did the tourist thing. I stayed in a house with other missionaries the first 2 trips and the rest of the time I stayed in house with a JA pastor, his wife and numerous children. I have always stayed in a little town where I was the only white girl for many miles. I have stayed places without indoor plumbing, taken the showers under the small stream of icy water, used outhouses, gone without electricity, caught water on the roof in big containers to use for bathing and cooking (after boiling it of course), I walked everywhere I went or took taxi’s, hardly ever rented a car, stayed with Andre’s family only on the last trip all the others we lived apart, I have held down a job in JA and gone to work daily, I stayed for months not weeks or days and I can speak fluent patois. I went grocery shopping at the linstead market and cooked for the whole family at times. I had enormous responsibility and at one point I was in charge of getting a little girl (3) up and bathed…doing her hair, pressing her uniform, getting her dressed and walking her to school. I immersed myself in the way of life down there and was very much apart of everything. I knew the culture as well as anyone not born there could. I became so immersed into the community that I was the “browning”. I was treated like a local and I lived like a local. I became a part of a family and a church family. I was no longer thought of as the american in JA but as the yardie who just happens to have come from the US.

I was on my 3rd trip when I met Andre through some of my good friends. We just hung out in groups a couple of times but that was all. On the 5th trip we “officially” started dating and I went to visit 3-4 times again after that staying for MONTHS at a time. We talked on the phone for hours and did the whole LDR thing. We officially started dating on Dec. 27, 2001…engaged May 2004…visa petition March 2005…married Sept 27, 2005. So we knew each other for well over 5 years and had been dating for 4 years probably a good year and a half of me actually being there in JA. We knew each other. I thought we knew each other as much as anyone who could know each other did. We had our ups and downs as any normal relationship would have but I honestly thought that we would be together forever.

He came here and we got married a week later. Things went downhill pretty darn fast to be honest. By Christmas 2005 we were having full blown fights and he had packed his bags a dozen times (sometimes I packed for him) We fought over everything. I tried my hardest to put myself in his shoes. He started lying to me about everything, driving without a license, drinking heavily, into porn, drinking and driving (while heavily intoxicated), being gone for long hours without any notice or phone calls. He started “stealing” money even though we each agreed to give ourselves monthly “allowances” which we could each spend on whatever we wanted (trust me this “allowance” was a good amount of money). You have to realize that this is coming from the man that was a strong Christian and was even the pastor/official of the Wednesday night services at the church we attended together in JA. He had been a Christian for almost 8 years when we got married. So where did the guy I used to know go? He didn’t want to learn how to do anything the american way. I took care of all the financial stuff, all the bills and he didn’t even care to learn about it. He didn’t want to learn how to pay bills, balance a checkbook, taxes, insurance, work stuff etc…I wasn’t expecting him to do it all by himself but I just wanted him to learn how to do it so he could be of help to me and understand how to survive. Once he started working he became too tired to do anything else…unless of course it was something he wanted to do. He couldn’t come home in the evenings or stay home on the weekends and eat meals with me or go for a walk with the dog, couldn’t go to the movies or even sit and watch them with me, couldn’t go grocery shopping, couldn’t go to the movies, couldn’t go our to clubs, couldn’t go to church, couldn’t go out with our couple friends, couldn’t do anything with me because he was always “too tired” but the minute one of his buddies called him up he was out the door for hours…even after telling me 20 mins before that he was too tired to eat dinner with me or do anything else yet I would watch him walk out the door 20 mins later to be gone for hours.

Basically I chalk it up to what I like to call Married Bachelor syndrome with a touch of “kid in the candy shop”. He wanted the perks of marriage…sex, someone to clean and cook, take on all responsibility of a household, someone to work and pay bills, and be there on his terms but wanted the freedom of being a bachelor…no responsibility, partying all the time, getting plastered, going out til all hours of the night doing God knows what. He would go out and never once did it cross his mind to call me. I once came home and got the message that he would be home at 10pm…he had left at 1pm… well I waited and waited with no phone calls or anything…didn’t even have a clue where he had gone… and he finally rolls in at 2:30am wasted. He didn’t think there was anything wrong with it and I should have just gone to sleep and “not worried about a thing. He is a grown man and can take care of himself”…this happens a lot. I eventually found out that he had been borrowing money from a friend to spend on whatever and also to send to JA for his family so now Andre owes his friends tons…not my responsibility. Well one night we got into an argument and Andre had been drinking...He kept threatening me that I should “just wait and see what will happen to me” he kept saying it over and over “you just wait and see”. Well I am not one to be threatened so I got right into it and told him to “show me now…why wait?” He ended up pushing me a couple of times that night and grabbing my hand really hard and throwing me and my arm into the wall. He also raised his hand and told me that if I didn’t stop talking I “would get it”. I told him we would either go to counseling or I was leaving…that was Sept of last year (2006). We went to counseling a few times but then Andre was “too tired” to go anymore and stopped. Andre thinks that if I would just be a better wife THEN he could be a good husband. He blames everything and every action he does on me. While in counseling he admitted that he is lazy about some things (like doing things with me, talking to me, spending time doing things I like to do) and he admitted that marriage is nothing like he expected and it is a lot harder than he wanted. He is not willing (at least at this point) to change anything. We basically live separate lives now and he is totally ok with that. He disappears all the time and he has never called me to tell me that he will be late or that he is not coming home…I am just left to wonder.

I will be moving out the end of this month to my own apartment. He is incredibly ok with this and feels like with a separation it will “give him time to work on things”…more like it will make him feel less guilty of being a crappy person and treating me bad. I can’t live with someone who is verbally abusive (calls me all sorts of nasty things, threatens me), drinks too much, into porn (more than just the average), goes out at all times of the night and all days of the week…misses work because he is too hungover or leaves work in the middle of the day because “he just doesn’t want to be there anymore”. He makes no effort to talk to me or even do anything with me. I spent the last couple months trying to be selfless and make every effort to do things with him, give him his space, let him get it out of his system only to be shot down and repeatedly disappointed. He just doesn’t want to be with me or do things with me…yet he doesn’t want to be without me because its “free” sex, housework and money. Trust me there is only so much a girl can take. All of these traits are new and I didn’t see anything like this while I was in JA…there was minimal drinking, no porn, church every Sunday, church activities during the week, we ate every dinner together, spent every night we could doing stuff together or in groups. I believe that he came here and now wants to live the “american bachelor dream” He is acting just like a college student who just moved away from their parents. He even admits that…but doesn’t see it as being a problem.

So we have agreed to separate and if he gets his act together then hopefully we can resume counseling together ( I go alone right now) but if not then we will be divorcing. It isn’t something that I want…not at all…but right now he doesn’t want to be a husband…and I can’t wait forever for him to choose me and our marriage over everything else. I don’t see why he will make the effort when we are living separate when he can’t make the effort when we are living together…it will only be more work to drive over and see me or call me on the phone. He can’t bother to do things with me or talk with me now…why is he going to do it now that there will be more work involved (driving to see me, arranging things over the phone). So I am not getting my hopes up but I am keeping hope alive as much as possible.

That is just a glance into our lives…there is SOOOOO much more but I didn’t want to type it all. Hope that made some sort of sense.

I TOTALLY understand that not every guy or every JA guy is like this…Trust me I do. I am just telling you my personal experience. Any of the vets can tell you that I never saw this coming and that I honestly thought we had the greatest relationship…I even avoided the “usual” pitfalls (quick engagement, resort romance etc). Again I am just telling you all this so you see a side of the story that most don’t come back to tell. I don’t think it will happen to everyone…not at all…but it can happen and it does…it happened to me. Please save any negative or b!tchy comments to yourselves…No one needs them…especially me. Also if you have any questions or anything I am very open and willing to share.

Much Love my Yardie family,

Jamie

Edited April 20, 2007 by Jme3584

[Shemmy 4]

((((((Hugs to Jamie))))) We love you Continue to be strong

[*JG* 2]

Congrats on all the moves!

Nobody has replied to my last post yet

Well, I sent an email to the Kingston Embassy and they told me I only need to submit the I-134, my W2's from 2006, my filed taxes for 2006, and an employer letter.

That seems too easy!

Input?

You will also need the DS-230, DS-156, DS-156k, and DS -157. You'll also need a few weeks worth of check stubs from your job. And of course, the police certificate, medical completed, his long form birth certificate, and non-impediment to marriage form.

I hope this answers your question

They asked for 3 years of my taxes.