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|  Review on May 27, 2008: |
I130survivor
Rating:  | Review Topic: IR-1/CR-1 Visa
Dakar, Senegal US Embassy
Visa Interview & Visa Issuance
The following is a list of experiences that my husband and I had once we arrived in Dakar for his immigrant visa interview appointment. I originally filed an I-130 at the embassy in Bamako, Mali. I was briefly interviewed by a consular officer there before my petition was sent to Dakar. It was approved in Dakar and I was given permission to proceed (notification of this was via telephone and email). I subsequently purchased a special phone card that allowed me to make a visa appointment in Dakar. What follows are preparations leading up to the appointment, during, and shortly thereafter.
1. Doctor’s appointment: The first thing you want to do get to is get to the doctor as soon as possible. The medical certificate may take as long as 3 days to complete. Consider this part of your journey the great mouse hunt! Depending upon which one you choose (we saw Dr. Hassoun), you go directly to his office downtown Dakar. You can call on the phone to inquire information, but do not count on anyone to be polite to you.
2. Once you have arrived . . .you are not likely to see him, but his receptionist. You will present your passport, color photographs, and pay 26,000FCFA. She will take copy information down from your passport. She will fill out forms for the radiologist and the laboratory (requisition forms if you will) and staple and stamp your color photos to those forms. She will give you a receipt for the money paid.
3. She will tell you to come back once the laboratory results and x-ray are completed and in your hand—not before. Ask her to write down which days and hours the doctor normally works.
4. The choice is yours which office you want to visit first. I suggest you to the laboratory first because it takes the most time. You are going to the Clinique Pastuer. You will be tested for HIV-1/HIV-2 and Syphilis (VDRL).
5. Clinique Pastuer: Come in take a ticket and sit down. The machine is to your immediate right. Watch the monitor for your number to be called. Be patient. Once you are called back by one of the nice Senegalese women, you will present your form with your attached photo. You will pay. I think this is 20,000FCFA. She will give you a computerized detailed receipt and return your original form. Keep all of this together.
6. You will go back into the laboratory to have blood drawn. Be certain to ask when you can expect your results.
7. Now, take a taxi to go to the radiologist’s office. Check in with the receptionist. Give her the form from the doctor’s office. Pay 18,000FCFA. Wait until you are called. This is much faster than the laboratory. You will be called in for a chest x-ray. Sit back down. Shortly thereafter, the x-ray is evaluated for any pathologies and a letter is typed up reporting any or lack thereof. Wait to be called back up to the receptionist. She will give you a nice big, labeled envelope with your x-ray and a letter with your results inside. The letter is in French, but you are looking for something that says absent of pathology as an indication of good results.
8. Now, you are just waiting for your lab results in order to return to the doctor’s office. You can return earlier on the day that they told you they would be ready, but chances are they will not be ready.
9. My husband gave the receptionist a 5,000FCFA tip to try to speed things up. She did in fact call someone to put a rush on his results and he got them sooner that the original time he was given to pick them up that day and he made it back to the doctor’s office the same afternoon.
10. Although you are feeling good that you have completed your medical mission, it is still not over and be prepared to serious wait at the doctor’s office. There are so many other patients there for the exact same reason.
11. The doctor reviews the lab results, radiologist’s letter (NOT THE X-RAY—although you’ve been carrying it around), and any vaccination records you may have. If you have no vaccination evidence, you are likely to get one single 8,000FCFA injection.
12. After which, he writes your medical certificate. Carry it sealed to your visa appointment.
13. Visa appointment day: Get out early. Plan to arrive 1.5 hours ahead of time. You will see people gathered at the corner at the end of the street of the embassy. They are actually in line and you need to find your place. Our appointment was at 7:00am and when we arrived at 5:45am there were already 23 people ahead of us.
14. When the embassy opens you will form a line like in the military and literally march towards the embassy. Only to form another line.
15. You will wait to go up to the glass window to present your passport.
16. You will form another line in front of the embassy entrance door in order to be processed in.
17. As you enter the embassy you will surrender keys, cell phones, and go through a metal detector.
18. As you enter the waiting room, you check-in with the guard.
19. Have a seat on the wooden benches like at a bus station or an old train station.
20. Watch the tv monitor with a short infoshort in alternating English and French on how to obtain an American visa.
21. Wait for your name to be called.
22. Enter another room. This is it! There is no other room! You go directly to the window. The attendant is going down a checklist and will ask for the I-864, DS-230, tax returns, marriage certificate, police reports, medical certificate, and photos. Then you sit back down and wait to be called.
23. You will be called to pay $400 or the FCFA equivalent. It must be in one currency or the other. Immigrant will be fingerprinted. Then you sit back down again and wait to be called.
24. The next time you are called it will be your interview.
25. You both go up at first. You both swear to tell the truth, right hand raised.
26. Wife (American sponsor) sits down while pending immigrant is interviewed.
27. The pending immigrant sits down while American sponsor is interviewed.
28. Both are called back up. Interview is concluded and instructions are given. If all documents are in the passport is to be surrendered. Make certain that pending immigrant has other identification to re-enter the embassy on visa pickup day.
29. Pick up visa the following Tuesday and Thursday.
**My best advice for anyone going through this embassy is to surrender yourself to the process. You may see and experience lots of things that try your patience. Don't publically display your frustrations. This is there world. Just follow the white lines (so to speak) and do what you are told until your loved one comes out with their visa.
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #2917