|
|
| Senegal |  Review on December 6, 2005: |
Chris W
Rating:  | Review Topic: K1 Visa
There are three choices for embassy-approved doctors, I went with the first one (Dr. Hassan Bahsoun). After you turn up at the doctor's office, they send you to the Institut Pasteur for the blood test, then an approved radiographer for the chest x-ray. I went to the doctor in the morning, then went straight for the chest x-ray. Total wait time (including getting the x-ray back) was about an hour. Then off to the Clinique Pasteur for the blood test. That took about 30 minutes, but had to come back at 5pm for the results (regardless of when in the day they take your blood). After I got the results, I took the x-ray with results and the blood test results back to Dr. Hassan's office. He did a quick examination, then went over my medical history & immunisation record. Got the all-clear, then he wrote up the form for the embassy & put it in a sealed envelope to give to the embassy. Easy (enough). Cost was just under 70,000 CFA.
Went to the embassy at about 7am on Wednesday morning, with a 7:30am interview time. Was refused entry by the girl who works at the gate (and I was with my USC fiancé) because my photos were 1.9" x 1.9", when apparently they need to be exactly 2" x 2". They also needed to be on a white background too, even though the handout from the embassy says white or off-white is fine. I must say that this particular girl was very rude to deal with. Went to Safari Photo (on Rue Georges Pompidou) to have some more photos taken, 2" x 2". That took about an hour, then back to the embassy. Got to the embassy, waited for almost 3 hours for our ticket number to be called. They directed us to the cashier who asked for USD$100 or 60,000 CFA. Paid in CFA, and he had a checklist of documents for us to present. First up was the medical results, handed them straight over. Next were the forms -- interestingly, you now need two copies of the DS-156 (though only one of the DS-156K) but you do not need the DS-230 at all. I think these are both recent changes. After that was the affidavit of support -- I handed over the I-134 but did not need any evidence to back it up, even though my USC is well below the poverty line! I was planning on self-sponsoring but they were fine as things were. They didn't even want my USC's W-2s or 1040s! After that, I handed them both my police clearances ( for Australia and Mali) and did not get them back. They took my Australian birth certificate (and gave it back at the end of the interview, I think) but did not even want to see my USC's birth certificate!
About half an hour after that, they called us for an interview. I got interviewed by the IV unit chief (PM me if you want their name), we had a friendly chat for a few minutes and then was told our application looked fine and to come back at 4pm (usual time is 3pm) the next day for the visa. Went back the next day, and my USC got into a verbal stoush with some horrendously rude Senegalese security guards! After about 30 minutes they called me over to give me back my passport, fresh with visa inside. I got a one-page handout (complete with spelling mistakes) letting me know the visa was valid for 6 months but must be married within 90 days, not to get married beforehand, how EAD works and so on. Left the embassy, and then flew back to Bamako the next day. And that was that. I was way overprepared for what they wanted... but I guess better safe than sorry.
Note that I'm an Australian, not Senegalese; and thus the chances of the application being fradulent were obviously much, much lower than a typical "African" case would have been. Their checklist even had a nice big space for "fraud indicators"; so I'm sure that there are many cases -- especially seeing as the Dakar embassy handles IVs for around 6 countries -- which are less than kosher. I'm almost positive that's why they were fairly friendly towards us, though I'm sure that our being very organised and knowledgable about the process helped us through.
| |
|
Consulate / USCIS Member Review #293