Residency Permit Process

*This is one of those posts that is more for me to have for memories but maybe not that interesting to everyone else.

Ohh the joys of living in another county!  There are so many different hoops to jump through to legally live on the other side of the world.

First of all, the very first step of getting a residency permit in Qatar became very complicated when they decided that we HAD to be paid in Qatari Riyals into a Qatari bank.  Umm....No.  Never in our time over-seas have we been paid in anything but USD into our home bank account.  This would make taxes, 401K, etc. all very complicated.  Luckily, with how things work in the Middle East, you just have to know the right person and certain steps can be bypassed.  With a little help, this step was skipped right on by and it was time for me to do the other portions of the process (Micah already did the following parts).

Early one morning I was picked up by the guy with Chevron Phillips, Jeevan,  that helps get this type of stuff taken care of and me, Jacob, and two other ladies headed off to the medical clinic.  The first step was to get our documents translated.   We paid our 10 riyal/per person and waited as the lady translated our stuff with a typewriter.

When that was finished Jeevan pointed us into a big building and informed us that men weren't allowed in so we would have to navigate the rest of the process alone.  Fun times.  The first step inside was to go into this tiny room and I think get a stamp on our papers and be asked if I was pregnant. Haha.  Nope, not pregnant.  Then we went back into the big room and paid for everything that was about to happen.  At least I think thats what we paid for... All of this I must say was done by just trying to guess what they wanted us to do next.  At this point no one was very helpful so it was just luck if we were right.

Now all the paperwork stuff was finished and it was time to do medical stuff.   We started off trying to get our blood drawn but the line was so long that they sent us to the other end of the building to get our chest x-rays.  Since I had Jacob they told me to "go give baby to husband".  When I told them husband wasn't there they kinda looked at me funny.  So the other two ladies went first and as soon as they finished I went in.  When I left, Jacob started crying which actually helped me out!  They rushed me into the changing room which was multiple women at a time (who needs privacy??) and rushed me out.  Then they had me skip all the other ladies in line to the front to get my x-ray because "baby cry too much".   The nurses took one quick x-ray and I was all clear.  So I guess the key here is to bring a baby with you and make him cry.

From there we headed back to the blood drawing area and proceeded to get in the line which was still pretty long. Next thing I know a nurse comes and takes me out of the line and brings me to the front because "babies go first".  It was very helpful but the other ladies didn't get to skip with me so I still had to wait.  Ohh well. As I'm sitting in the chair waiting for my blood to be drawn, the lady who just had hers done comes back with blood pouring down her arm and onto the floor.  Yikes!! She gets way too close to me for comfort so I'm pulling my legs in and holding Jacob back to keep from getting blood on us.  Fun times!  If you know me, you know I don't do well with having blood drawn so this just added to my nervousness.  But Jacob was sitting in my lap so I had to do my best to hold it all together and not hyperventilate or pass out!  Luckily, my experience wasn't so dramatic and ended quickly with no blood spillage.

Once that was complete we were able to leave the medical facility and drive across town to a separate place that pricks your finger to find out your blood type.  Why is this in a different place?? I have no idea.  Why won't they accept all of our medical records with our blood types on them?? I have no idea. Now this portion of the process Jacob had to do as well.  I was so nervous that he was going to freak out.  Surprisingly, he did just fine with only a little crying.  While we waited they informed us all of our blood type, which we already knew, and we were finished for the day.

That was the medical portion of getting the RP.  Once the medical results were cleared, we had to have a separate day to be picked up again by Jeevan and go get our fingerprints done.  Fingerprinting was a pretty simple, straightforward process.  Except that my fingers didn't seem to want to roll correctly across the screen so it took like 15 tries/finger.  The sweet girl doing my finger prints kept saying "relax sister".   I have to admit I was pretty tense and I think trying to hard to make it work.  I figured out I did better if I turned around and didn't look at the computer screen.

At last the Residency Permit process was finished!  I finally have my RP card and was then able to go get my permanent drivers license.  I'm so happy to be done with all of these appointments!