{"id":2343,"date":"2010-04-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-15T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/?p=2343"},"modified":"2010-04-15T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-04-15T00:00:00","slug":"an-alien-in-kabul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/an-alien-in-kabul\/","title":{"rendered":"An Alien in Kabul"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\"><span style=\"font-size: 8pt;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"review_photo\" alt=\"www.proofofalienlife.com\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.foto8.com\/live\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/proofofalienlife_280.jpg?w=1200&#038;ssl=1\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/>\u201cHECHLAND is a country not so far away.&nbsp;&nbsp;The Minister of&nbsp;So On and So Forth is as inept, as he is good at having his palm greased.&nbsp; His staff&nbsp;excels at taking tea &#8211; and lots of it all day &#8211; and do their best to do little else.&nbsp; Hechland brings tears to the eyes of Afghans every Friday night at 8.30pm, as they roll off their toshaks laughing.&nbsp; Hechland, or &#8220;Nothing Land&#8221; is a very popular comedy from the nation&#8217;s number one channel, TOLO TV.\u201d <strong>Advert for TV programme in Afghanistan<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Not so funny if you are a kharaje (foreigner) trying to navigate the system of Ministries and Government Departments that exists in this city. Trying to achieve anything, be that permission to visit a prison, apply to set up an NGO or a simple company is a game of persistence, dogged determination and blind faith that someone, somewhere, eventually will tell you what to do or at least try to help you achieve your aims.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I have lived here for two years and still cannot explain the visa situation to anyone wanting to visit Afghanistan. Whether you employ a fixer, a translator or someone \u2018well connected\u2019. It\u2019s always the same. The path is a mixture of scorpion tales and disinformation. It\u2019s like playing chess, blindfolded, underwater in Farsi, backwards.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Last month I applied for an extension of my visa. Armed with a \u2018stamped\u2019 letter from the British Embassy, a current passport, a contract from my funding body and a NATO media accreditation card (for which I had previously had to provide a retina scan, fingerprints, blood-group along with my religious preference and tribal loyalties). A very kind man, at the Ministry Of Foreign Affairs, politely informed me it wasn\u2019t enough and that I had to provide a letter from a news-agency or media group and have that letter \u2018stamped\u2019. They love a good stamp here. It harks back to the halcyon days of the Taliban, many of whom were illiterate and couldn\u2019t sign their own names. Which can create all sorts of complications if your trying to \u2018officially\u2019 get a woman stoned to death. Despite what people may say about the barbarity and brutality of the regime they had their paperwork sorted.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, in a bit of a rush to get this done I duly obliged and indulged them in their request by forging a letterhead (logo courtesy of Google) with an, \u2018official\u2019 rubber stamp (made in the bazaar in under an hour). I could have returned to the Ministry as a counterfeit \u2018Director of the CIA\u2019 and no one would have batted an eyelid. My media accreditation was instantly (next day) approved. All I had to do now was take it to the Consular Section for another stamped letter to take to the Minister of Information who would give another stamped letter to take to the Passport Office where they would issue a three-month Extension Visa which I could then take back to the MOFA who would then issue a six-month Work Visa. Plan sailing. That was until the Consular Section said my visa was a \u2018Visit Visa not a \u2018Stay Visa\u2019. That my six-month \u2018Visit Visa\u2019 could not be extended and what\u2019s more, it should never have been issued in the first place.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>To add a bit of colour this all take place this in a decaying grey concrete Soviet-era office block. Most of the conversation takes place in localese. My Dari is shit. The MOFOs at MOFA can do no more for me. I get packed off to Ministry Of Information and Culture and told to ask for a tourist extension even though I am NOT a tourist. The MIOC is a monolithic building surrounded by blast walls and razor wire. There\u2019s a lot not going on here. The lift hasn\u2019t worked since the Russians left. Naturally my appointment is on the fifth floor.&nbsp; Friendly faces and amused looks greet me at every turn. No one can or will help me. Afghan tea and sympathy is all I get as I work my way down through four more floors unfolding and refolding my ever-increasing sheaf of \u2018stamped\u2019 paperwork.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s now Thursday lunchtime. The weekend starts here. My invalid \/ illegal visa expires in one day. I am an alien. I\u2019m an illegal alien. I\u2019m an Englishman in HECHLAND and tears are now rolling down my eyes. I am laughing like a drain. It\u2019s just another absurd day in Afghanistan.<br \/><strong><span style=\"font-size: 8pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\">The Afghan Hound<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">&#8211;|&#8211;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">(Part 2 \u2013&nbsp; Registering a company in under 3 months \u2013 coming soon, if I&#8217;m still here).<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">&#8211;|&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>My invalid \/ illegal visa expires in one day. I am an alien. I\u2019m an  illegal alien. I\u2019m an Englishman in HECHLAND and tears are now rolling  down my eyes. I am laughing like a drain. It\u2019s just another absurd day  in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2342,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[19],"tags":[638,1183,1186,1184,1181,625,1185,1187,1182],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>An Alien in Kabul - FOTO8<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/an-alien-in-kabul\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"An Alien in Kabul - FOTO8\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"My invalid \/ illegal visa expires in one day. 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