Background info: We’ve been preparing documents to apply for my
permanent residency in Slovakia since November 2012. Finally, despite a couple
bumps along the way, the application is in and we were called in for a real,
live questioning!
By 19:00 we were all together with our translator (Ester), and
entering in through the služobny
vchod (not the door that people push and shove each other through at 7:30am, 4
days a week), and into the corridor that you can see behind the iron gate near
the work stations 7 and 8.
You know, the place you go when they put you
in handcuffs.
We put down our things, handed our IDs over, and Ester and I
immediately were led to a small office down the corridor.
I had big expectations for this room- I was picturing
something dimly lit with nothing but a thin wooden table and 3 wooden chairs.
Maybe an old Soviet lie detector sitting in a corner, and of course a locked
door.
The room was small, with one door
on each of three of the four walls, but the two doors on the sides were blocked off
by old furniture. There was a desk with a computer, cluttered with papers and
junk. That's where the officer sat. I sat on a rolling office chair, and Ester sat on a wooden bench.
There was a yellowed map of Slovakia on the wall to the left, and a large map
of the world to the right, next to the computer desk. The wall opposite the open door had a
window; the silver metal blinds drawn shut. The door stayed open through the
whole interview, and Erik could hear everything I said from where he sat by the
entrance. (And he said he was proud of me for my answers :) )
The officer was tall, but not thuggish like some of the
other guys spotted around the office during the day. He had a sharp nose and
thin cheeks, and eyes which were small and almost sunken in. His full,
dehydrated lips all but hid the crooked teeth that sometimes affected his
pronunciation of the letter S. His blond hair was styled like GI Joe. His countenance showed complete
concentration, and as he stared at the computer the crease between his eyes got
deeper and deeper.
 |
| I really wanted to find a picture of someone who he
resembles, but I couldn’t quite find it, so here’s a picture of Rolfe the post
boy from Sound of Music. |
So the interview began- he gathered some of my personal
data: Name, date of birth, education, permanent address, and residence in
Slovakia. I was a little nervous, what if I say something wrong and quickly
fix it, but they think I’m lying? What if he asks for my zip code that I can
never remember?
It took him forever to type everything in, probably because
he was using only TWO fingers! Mavis
Beacon must’ve been deported…
Tich…tich.tich..tich
tich tich…tich..tich..tich
I looked down at my legs and saw that they weren’t crossed,
nor were my arms…open body posture. Maybe I wasn’t really as nervous as I thought…
Once the preliminary data was entered, he explained very
nicely that I shouldn’t take this so seriously, or be offended by any of the
questions; it’s just protocol to weed out the couples with less valid
marriages. (I guess.)
(I tried to ask if Americans are typically the ones to stage
marriages to sneak into Slovakia, but I didn’t actually get an answer to that
question.)
Okay, okay, I’m calm,
but I’m still going to take this seriously.
So many questions! Starting with some basics about Erik- his
name, date and place of birth. Oh crap,
where was he born? I think it started with a T. “Can I look at the map?” The officer found the
info on Erik’s ID entered it into the computer as if I had given him the answer.
Whew!
How did Erik and I meet, and can I describe some details
surrounding our first meeting? Did
anyone arrange this meeting with the purpose of introducing us so that we would
get married?
Turns
out he didn’t want quite as many details as I was ready to supply :)
What do I know about Erik’s family? Not much.. Does he have 3
brothers? Or was it 4? Is one of them in Spain, or was that that other guy from
Erik’s childhood who went to Spain?
What kind of
education does Erik have? Did he complete maturita? Or attend university? For
how long? I pulled the ol’ American excuse, “We don’t have maturita where I’m
from, so I don’t remember if he has it or not- it’s not something I’m really
familiar with, so that part of his education just isn’t that important for me.” (That’s true actually- I don’t know if I’m
even spelling maturita right.) Recording where Erik attended after high school
was a bit of an obstacle as far as spelling goes. Calvary Chapel Bible College
Europe in Vajta, Hungary turned into “Ts-al-vary Hg-apel Biblia Shkola, Vajta Madarsko”
“How do you spell Vajta?”
“I don’t know, it’s Hungarian...”
The officer leaves the room to ask Erik, who explains the
whereabouts of the school, “in V-a-j-t-a (ok, the spelling’s not that hard for
that particular word), the nearest big city is Szekesfehervar. Feeha, who knows how to spell that?! It’s
south of Budapest…”
What is Erik’s current career?
How many dates did we go on before we got married?
Did anyone tell us that we should get married to each other?
Whose decision was it for us to marry? Mine, his, did we
decide together, or did someone else decide for us?
Did we live together before we were married?
Where was the wedding ceremony and reception? Who paid for
it?
Who were the witnesses at our wedding? Did I know them
personally?
Who attended the wedding from my family? Who attended the
wedding from Erik’s family?
Were we offered any compensation money for marrying?
Do we live together? Do we communicate with each other by
phone? What language do we speak together?
Am I interested in learning Slovak?
Do we live together in intimacy? <giggle>
Are we planning to have children?
What are our other plans?
Have we spent any time apart since being married?
What does Erik like to do in his free time?
Why do we want to live in the Slovak Republic?
Why do I not want to live in America? Like,
the most difficult question ever! “You know, when you spend a lot of time
outside your country and then you go back home and it’s hard to adjust because
you feel like a foreigner, but you’re technically at home and you just feel
like you don’t fit in and you can’t adjust…”
Can I please expand on my reasons for not wanting to live in
America? “Well, I just feel like I don’t want to live there because blah blah blah…” The officer: “I’m just going to write, ‘I
would like to stay in Slovakia so that I can live together with my husband as a
family.” Yeah, ok, that’s also true…
If I’m not granted permanent residency in the Slovak
Republic, where will we move? Uuuh, Japan?
Where do I work?
What countries have I been to in the Schengen Zone?
Have I worked anywhere else besides America and Slovakia?
Did I have a work permit for those places?
How did I arrive in Slovakia?
What do I know about Erik’s health condition? What do I know
about his faith? (grouped as one question)
Has Erik ever been to jail or been on trial for committing a
crime?
Have I ever been to jail or been on trial for committing a
crime?
Does Erik currently have any financial debt?
Do I have any financial debt in America?
The interview is now over, do I have any suggestions for them?
Get a chair with some lumbar support for
yourself, and invest in typing lessons! And could you iron that wrinkle out
from between your eyes?
“No, I don’t have any suggestions.”
As I wait outside your
office at 5:30am I sure have some suggestions, but right now, no, I have no
suggestions that I would like to share.
Ester and I re-read the answers to all the questions again,
fixed some spelling errors, and signed all five pages of it in blue ink.
Meanwhile, Erik and the officer called our landlord for more clarification of
the fact that we do have permission to live at this address.
Then it was Erik’s turn to answer questions while I sat in
the corridor near the guy at the front desk. He was watching something like Doctor
Quinn Medicine Woman in Slovak on a 13" box TV, and
working on a computer (but from the sound of his constant mouse-clicks, I think
he was working on the same thing I was working on with Erik’s phone: Solitaire). Erik came out of the room, and we were given
our IDs back, at about 22:15. The
officer apologized again that we have to go through this process, but it’s just
protocol. He’s not sure he can push our papers through any faster though because
there are other applications in front of mine that are close to expiry, so they
have to finish those first.
What’s next? His boss will read the reports from both our
interviews and make a decision. And they might come for a home check to see
more evidence of the legitimacy of our relationship. Then we’ll get my permit??
We’ll see!
