So, Islamabad again, + this time a piece of cake, after the dress rehearsal yesterday, with a minibus to the very door of the embassy itself. And we were ushered immediately into the Consular Waiting Room, where we found quite a no of our compatriots already waiting, our compatriots, I would judge, because they were clutching British passports, tho’ they were dressed, for the most part, like wandering nomads. I am not being critical, no Britain for the British sentiments here, it’s one of the legacies of a faded empire (did Rome have a “Rome for the Romans” National Front movement, I wonder); if we didn’t want them to be British, we shouldn’t bloody well have conquered them. And besides , it makes the place colourful + interesting. Who’d want to live in Sweden, where they’re all blond + beautiful.
When our turn came we went to the window + I explained the situation + our requirement precisely. We were expecting a fuss, but rec’d merely a nod + a request for our passports, + then we were asked to wait. We waited for about half an hour, + I remember thinking wouldn’t it be wonderful if that were all it took, + even now our letter of recommendation were being typed out (I could hear a typewriter clattering, in a desultory sort of way). And then I told myself not to be silly, one thing at a time, + that I’d be happy enough to be told to collect the letter this afternoon, or tomorrow morning. But then, a few mins later, a different consular officer popped his head round the door to say he’d typed the letter out + it was awaiting a signature. Remarkable.
Ten minutes after that we had the precious document in our hands. And a pretty scrappy thing it was too, a form letter, + with a typing error tippexed out, but presumably it was adequate for the job in hand. And, to our pleased surprise, it hadn’t cost a penny, while we’d been told to get the same job done in Delhi cost £10. And far from it being an extraordinary request, it was quite clearly something they knocked out as a matter of routine most days of the week. But we were impressed by the efficiency – it was still early enough to get around to the Iranian embassy, + try to get our application in there.
Not that we had any idea where it was. We stood outside the door for a couple of minutes trying to work out how to find out, + then Val went back in to play little girl lost. It worked a treat. By chance, there was a driver there, who tried to give directions, but when he saw that she had not the most rudimentary notion of the geography of Islamabad, offered to give us a lift. We weren’t slow in saying yes, + soon were thundering along the broad avenues at breakneck speed in a British Embassy minibus. He was a good as his word, + dropped us off at the very door, so that we found ourselves going in at the same time as a tall + burly New Zealander.
The waiting-room here was far more pleasant+ civilised than the Delhi one had been – spacious, comfortable, + with lots of glossy magazines laid out on coffee tables, depicting Iraqi war crimes in gruesome detail. We were the only ones there, so were dealt with straight away… not that the people handing out forms were noticeably friendlier. I ventured to ask, as the forms came thro’ the tiny window, how long it would take to process the application. He looked at his watch. “They will be ready at 2 o’clock,” he replied. We were both shaking, I think, when we sat down + began to fill the forms out, + didn’t dare to look at one another. It was only when we got outside that we could look at each other, + almost cry with the relief of it all.
We did, tho’, wait for the Kiwi to come out – he had been wanting to apply for a tourist visa, + we wanted to advise him of our experience in Delhi. He turned out to be helpful + friendly, + was able to tell us of a shopping centre nearby where we would be able to while away the 4 hours till 2. Which was what we did – looking at the shops (of a more Western nature than most, this being in the diplomatic enclave) ate at a small café, sat in the sunshine. Arrived back on the dot of 2, + I was called to the window. The man took great delight in telling us we’d only been given a week instead of the 10 days we’d earlier been told would be OK, + then decided to question the fact that we had Hong Kong passports, but eventually he had to give the passports over. Five weeks to say no, 4 hours to say yes – stupid. We asked for, + rec’d, some of their information, including a couple of natty postcard sized pictures of the Ayatollah, + then were on our way once more with a spring in the step. Ha ha, once again we were on our way, + under our own steam.
We shot back as fast as we could, + then went straight to the stn to get our student tickets to Quetta, the railhead for Iran, + for the first time today ran full-tilt into bureaucracy, when we discovered the DS’s office was just closed. No student concession till tomorrow, + as the daily train to Quetta left at 5 am, that meant our departure was delayed until the day after. We ran back + forth, as before, chasing from one office to another, but as before the result was we found ourselves banging our had against a brick wall. This time it was Val who was furious, while I remained rather phlegmatic about it all. We were, in any case, very tight for local cash, so leaving tomorrow would have caused all sorts of problems on that score too.
Val gradually calmed down over tea + biccies, + then we spent the rest of the afternoon in domestic cosiness, Val sewing, me writing. Late on, I went out to buy some fried fish, while Val prepared some salad + bread + butter to eat it with. It turned out to be a bad idea, not because of the meal itself, which was fine, but because I got so cold waiting for the stuff to be cooked. There was quite a queue, so I was standing out in the cold for 20 mins or more, + returned frozen + aching, so that even the 2 pots of tea we ordered didn’t warm me up properly. I climbed into bed as soon as possible, + was ill most of the night, alternately sweating+ seized by bitter chills. Illness again, huh – Diary of a Hypochondriac.
Except that, in truth, I was ill for much of the time, one way or another. But in fact that was of small concern, in comparison with the fact that we had our visas, and so once more had a clear shot for home. We would have to get through Iran, of course, and were not exactly sure how we were going to manage that, but one step at a time. Our first task was to reach Quetta, in Pakistan’s far west, and that meant a long but easiiy managed train ride, even if we did have to wait day or so more. It was the relief of the thing that hit us most; for so long we had been relying on – eventually – getting a visa, then it had been denied, and now it had somehow just been handed to us.
Interestingly, I had not even thought about Quetta for a very long time, but one of the young women in my asylum-seekers theatre group proudly announced herself as Baluchistani… and Quetta is the regional capital.
