Switter: Undocumented Immigrant, Part 1

I didn’t know, but I meant well.

I wrote this a couple of years ago, but it’s good to remind folks from time to time why staycations are such a great idea.

I try to be a law-abiding person. I always mean well, but there are so many laws in so many countries, it is hard not to be a crook. As Stalin's ruthless secret police chief Lavrentiy Beria once said, “Show me the man and I'll show you the crime.” Well meaning guy that I am, I don't need Beria. I'll confess to my own crimes. It's better to come clean. Pro tip: Beria was shot for his crimes of shooting people for their crimes.

Most of my crimes came from needing to be an undocumented immigrant in some country or another. Sometimes it's easier to come clean and do the right thing, but other times, the laws stand in the way of crime-free living.

For instance, I often took high value equipment with me to a certain country in East Africa. We were allowed to import the equipment duty free, but the process required weeks of bureaucratic wrangling, which eventually was resolved and the equipment was released to us for use in the field. On one trip, I noticed that my shipping boxes had chalk marks on one side. I figured out that the marks alerted the customs inspectors that they needed to open and inspect the box, because of an X-Ray inspection before the box was released to the baggage conveyor. The inspected boxes most often were locked up in customs storage until the paper chase was completed.

On my next trip, I saved the moistened towelettes from the airline and used them to remove the chalk marks before customs inspection. None of the boxes were inspected. There's the crime, but think of all the time I saved our staff and the customs bureaucrats. Was that such a bad crime if it could be committed with moistened towelettes? Or was it an act of mercy?

More often, the crimes involve me as an improperly documented immigrant. During most of my career, I needed two passports, one for most countries and one for countries that were on some other country's stink list and who would refuse you entrance if you had an entry stamp from the country they didn't like. I had a special passport for travel to South Africa during the apartheid era, when most African countries would deny entrance to anyone with a South African visa. The same condition existed between Sudan and South Sudan, and Israel and many Islamic countries. Usually one can plan in advance, but sometimes changes come while one is enroute, so flexibility is required. To do what I did for a living, I had to be like a mud flap on a truck: flexible and willing to travel.

Once, I needed to travel from Denmark to a former Soviet Republic via Moscow. Because I was in transit through Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport, I didn't need a visa. When I attempted to return back to Denmark, I learned I now needed a transit visa because the US suddenly required transit visas for Russians and Russia retaliated against US passport holders. When elephants dance, the grass gets trampled.

South Sudan, prior to independence, started to refuse entry to travellers who had Sudanese visas and entry stamps, so I needed a new “clean” passport. My plan was to use the new passport when I arrived in Kenya, because I needed the new passport to have a Kenyan visa and entry stamp before I could get authorization to enter South Sudan. Unfortunately, I was jetlagged and forgot to use the new passport when I went through Kenyan immigration. When I went to the South Sudan office to get my travel authorization, the clerk went page by page through the new passport and handed it back to me. “You are not in Kenya legally. You cannot enter South Sudan.” The new passport was completely blank.

What to do? I decided to go back to Kenyatta Airport and see if I could talk an immigration official into stamping an entry stamp in my new passport. I asked for assistance and was taken to the chief immigration officer at the airport. When I told him what I needed, he laughed at my predicament and asked me when I needed to show my entry into Kenya. I told him and he set his stamp accordingly.

Properly documented, I returned to the South Sudan office, handed my passport to the same clerk, who examined it page by page. When he found the Kenya entry stamp, he was satisfied that I was legal and processed my South Sudan travel document.

Sometimes, I was unaware that I was not a properly documented immigrant. On a trip to Jakarta, Indonesia, the immigration guy carefully calculated that my passport expired in five months and twenty-nine days. He told me I had a very serious problem because Indonesian immigration law required a passport to be valid for at least six months upon entry and apparently, each month is thirty days. I replied to him that I had five months and twenty−nine days before my passport expired, and since one of the months was February, which had only 28 days that year, I had a one day safety margin and planned to stay in Indonesia for two days. Unmoved by my appeal to reason, he raised the ante and said that I had a very, very serious problem, but when he saw I wasn't at all concerned about my problem, he directed me to his boss′s office, where things escalated further. The boss told me I had a very, very, very serious problem and it could be resolved, but if I was not willing to cooperate I must leave on the next flight back to Singapore. I explained to him that it was cheaper for me to return to Singapore, get my passport extended, and return to Jakarta than it was to solve my very, very, very serious problem, in which case the“government”of Indonesia would not receive the solution to my problem that would allow the “government” of Indonesia to get the foreign aid grant from Switter needed to buy a new flat screen television for the “government” of Indonesia’s home bedroom.

When it sank in that a quarter of a loaf of bread was better than none, and that I indeed would return to Singapore, I saw in his facial expression that he realized he overplayed his hand. When I returned two days later, I was served by the original immigration officer who was still stuck with that old 13” black and white tv he inherited from his grandmother, and thought happy thoughts about his boss who was stuck with a 20 year old 16” color t.v. Moral of the story: never let your greed get in the way of your greed.

Work visas were always a roll of the dice. A work visa in Zimbabwe took at least six months to process. In Azerbaijan, I sent our passports on the afternoon of our arrival to the proper ministry and they were returned the next morning with our residence visas. In Botswana, it was easier to exit every couple of months for a few days and return for a new visa good for two months.

But the most pleasant residence visa process I experienced was when I entered Malawi from Zimbabwe via Mozambique (the route I later traveled with my in-laws). When I arrived at the Malawi border post with the military convoy, it was after dark. As I got out of my car and walked toward the immigration hall, a Malawian immigration official saw me and walked toward me. “Are you Mr. Switter?” I said yes. “Welcome to Malawi. We were expecting you. I will process your residence visa for you now.” God bless Malawi.

To be continued.