Residency and shipment

Two of the most frustrating things we’ve encountered here is the ability to get residency and the slowness of our shipment from the states. We’re close to one but not the other.

We now know our stuff is here at the port in Kuwait. They have all the paperwork and now we’re just waiting for them to sign off on it and we should be able to go claim it. Technically, we should be residents in order to claim it but we had to get some extra letters and paperwork that showed we are working on getting our residency and then we can claim it. We’re very anxious. When we packed up in Utah we expected to have it by the end of November. Here it is almost mid-January and we’re still waiting. Thank goodness for plastic utensils, tin foil pans, cheap fleece blankets, and semi-furnished villas to rent.

Residency is proving to be very difficult. We’ve had to jump through so many hoops. My dad and Todd’s sister and his business partner had to take documents to different places and send them to different places in hopes of helping us get residency. We were told we needed it for insurance, to visit doctors and orthodontists, enroll the kids in school, claim our stuff when it arrived, be able to drive and have access to a car, etc. It has really been stressful but we’ve managed to do all these things without having residency. Evidently, even though it is the law everyone knows it is difficult to get residency so you just have to show you’re “working on it” and they give you a pass.

About 3 days ago Todd was giving me the rundown of the business trips he has lined up for the next month. His company is relocating to Bahrain (one reason being the difficulty it has in getting its employees residency here in Kuwait) so Todd has to travel quite a bit the next few months. He had just finished telling me about the trips to Dubai, Egypt, and Bahrain that he will have to take the next few weeks. Just after he finished telling me the phone rang. It was a guy from his work named Ahmed. Ahmed’s job is to help the employees set up insurance, get them a car, get them residency, etc. He has managed to do it all for us except after having a sponsor back out, we now have to go a different route to residency.

So Ahmed calls and tells Todd what letters and documentation and more copies of passports that need to be made. He says Todd has to travel to Bahrain to get some sort of immunizations and that will speed up his residency here in Kuwait somehow. But then the clincher. After all this, Todd must come to Kuwait and not leave for 4 weeks straight. Then if he does that, a month later he should become a resident.

As I was saying, Todd doesn’t plan on being in Kuwait for 4 weeks straight and doesn’t see a way to make that part happen. Even if it all did happen, we’d be looking at end of March before we have residency. Remember, we’re moving in June or July out of the country anyway. We’ve been praying and hoping that this would clear up but now we think we’ve received our answer. The other night Todd was at his mutual activity and one of his Young Men is from London. They’ve been in Kuwait over a year and still don’t have their residency. And they’ve managed to function here in the country. He attends the same school as our kids do. So if the school has given him a pass for this long, we’re pretty sure they’ll let us ride out this school year and we’ll be ok. Bottom line is despite all our best efforts (thanks Dad, Richard, Stacy, and HyDee) it looks like we will never be Kuwaiti residents.

Our visas expire every 3 months so this may be a blessing in disguise. The company will pay for the family to leave the country and come back to renew our visas so we may get to see another trip or two before the move to Bahrain. There’s a silver lining to every cloud.