Government Inefficiency

Have you ever read an article about how the USA can't account for billions of dollars in Iraq? If not, here's the first one that came up when I googled, "Billions of dollars lost in Iraq."

It seems pretty mind-numbing and unexplainable when something like this can happen. Well, let me try and simplify it for you as politely as possible since I'm currently relying on the USA government to process Huyen's immigration paperwork.

Look at this notebook with empty folders:


Inside this notebook was my extremely organized I-130, petition for Alien Relative. I had spent hours putting together this notebook so it was as neat and organized as possible. Actually, I can't take all the credit since Huyen cut and glued all of the numbered tabs. The front of the notebook had a cover letter with a table of contents. Here's a small portion of the cover letter that talks about what is enclosed:

I have enclosed the following materials:

1. Completed I-130 Form
2. Completed G-325A Form for the Petitioner (4 copies)
3. Completed G-325A Form for the Beneficiary (4 copies)
4. Passport photo (4X6cm) of the Petitioner
5. Passport photo (4X6cm) of the Beneficiary
6. Copy of U.S. Passport of the Petitioner
7. Copy of all Vietnam entries & exits stamps on U.S. Passport
8. Copy of the Birth Certificate of the Petitioner
9. Copy of the Birth Certificate of the Beneficiary (with translation)
10. Copy of Marriage Certificate (with translation)
11. Employment Verification for the Petitioner
12. Employment Verification for the Beneficiary
13. Copy of Work Permit (with and without Vietnamese notary stamp)
14. Copy of Business Visas
15. Statement from petitioner stating that I will be on the airplane to go back to the US with the beneficiary once immigrant visa has been issued
16. Petitioner’s email address

Supplementary Supporting Documents:

A. Copy of registration form issued by the police station maintaining jurisdiction over Petitioner’s apartment (with translation)

B. Most recent US tax return and W-2 forms (2009 & 2008 copies included)

C. Copy of FBI Background Check (needed for my Vietnamese work permit)

D. Copy of TESOL Certification from HCMC

All in all there were about 200 pages of documents and forms.

Feeling confident about my petition, I went to the US Embassy this morning (I am writing this on 9/23 but it won't post for a couple of days). I approached the Citizen Services window and rang the bell for service. A Vietnamese woman came to the window and asked what I needed. I told her I wanted to file my I-130 package. She told me to pass the package through the small opening in the thick glass window and I did. She looked at the notebook for a second and then asked if I had a Service Number. I didn't. Frankly, I didn't see where to get a number when I walked in and there was only one other American there who was just sitting on a chair not doing anything. Anyway, I need a number and had to leave the window (picture yourself going to the deli counter and there being only one person nearby and the butcher not doing anything yet telling you to take a number...that's sort of what it was like).

I should have known it was going to turn into an annoying morning when all of a sudden the power went out. Yes, even the embassy apparently loses power from time to time. The power came on about thirty seconds later but it took another ten minutes to get a number since the machine had to be rebooted and then refilled with paper. Anyway, I'm getting off topic...

So I go back to the window and before I hit the service button, I see the woman showing my notebook to a few other workers. They must have found 200 pages of documents hilarious because all three girls were laughing at my notebook. I think at this point I let out a deep sigh and rang the bell. The girl came back to the window and I believe this was the conversation:
GIRL: Sir your notebook is very organized but we can't accept it. You need to give us the petition with just paper.
ME: So you want me to remove all the papers?
GIRL: Yes. We only accept it as a stack of papers.
ME: Really? It seem like that wouldn't be very organized and the papers might get out of order.
GIRL: I asked two of my coworkers and they said it must be only paper.
ME: Are you sure?
GIRL: Let me just check with the USCIS office in HCMC.
(NOTE: The USCIS office is the United States Citizens and Immigration Services office.)
(NOTE 2: The girl walked away for about twenty seconds and then came back. I never saw her get on the phone)
GIRL: Yes, the USCIS office says they can only take a stack of papers. Please take them out of the notebook. You can right the numbers on the documents with this.
(NOTE: The girl handed me little post it notes. It was at this point that my pretty transparent face started to say, "Are you f-ing kidding me?". I tried to hide my emotions but the girl clearly knew I was not happy.)

So I took my notebook and sat down and proceeded to take out all the paperwork and make a stack of papers. I attached post it notes to the top right corners of everything and numbered them just like I had already done in my notebook. I then went back to the window and gave the girl the stack of papers.

GIRL: Okay, do you have your business visas in here?
BEN: Yes.
GIRL: Okay, where are they?
BEN: They were in section 14.

The girl then rifled through the papers, making a little mess of everything until she found my business visas.

GIRL: Do you have a copy of your passport?
BEN: Yes.
GIRL: Where is it?
BEN: It was in section 6.

The girl then rifled through the papers some more until she found the passport. She then said it had to be notarized by the embassy (this was the first I had ever heard of this as it wasn't written in any of the forms the embassy had previously given me or put on their website). Next she told me to go pay in the next room.

I went to the next room and was greeted by another worker. That worker had my application with a rubber band around it. That made me feel a little better although a rubber band isn't exactly a notebook with a table of contents and 17 tabs. The girl then asked me:

GIRL 2: Do you work here?
BEN: Yes. My work permit and contacts are in the packet.
GIRL 2: But you have never registered yourself with the embassy?
BEN: No I don't think I have although I have been to this office about five times before and nobody told me I should register.

DEEP BREATHS.... Anyway, I paid the $355 fee and was told the USCIS office in HCMC would get in touch with me. I can only assume they'll be getting in touch with me to say that some forms/documents/pictures are missing from my application.

Farmer's Daughter!

(PICTURE: I should have picked up one of these translators ages ago.)

In order to submit the I-130 package to the United States Immigration office, I have needed to get many documents translated. It's been really interesting to read the translated version of some of Huyen's and my documents. My favorite thing so far has been Huyen's birth certificate which lists her parents' occupations as "Farmers." You know what that means: I married the farmer's daughter!

The day after getting our marriage license, I went to the translation office to have it translated since the license was the final document we needed to begin immigration. I showed up at the office before it was open and had to wait a few minutes for some of the staff. Finally someone showed up and took me into the office where it didn't take me long to realize that NOBODY SPOKE ENGLISH! Sure, the translator was not one of the people I talked to but you would have thought that the people working in that office would have picked up a couple of words of English here and there. That said, you would have thought I'd have picked up a lot more Vietnamese than I have. Touche, Ben. Touche.

11,471

(PICTURE: This about sums things up. My back is hurting already.)

After getting our marriage license, I was finally able to fill in all the missing sections of our I-130 packet for US Immigration (Step 1 for Huyen getting her green card). For the first time in my life, I checked "Married" on an application. This got me thinking: How many days had I been "Single"?

I typed into google, "How many days have I been living" and there was a link to a Days Alive Calculator. After punching in my birthday, I learned that I'd been alive for 11,474 days. Since I did this search on Day #3 of marriage, that meant I had been single for 11,471 days. Not a bad run!

We're Married!!!!!...Legally.

It's official: Huyen and I are legally married! After months of dealing with the Ha Nam justice department, we've finally gotten our marriage license.

Fittingly, the closest I came to snapping was on the afternoon of the 20th. For the 100th time, I asked Huyen to call the Ha Nam office and ask them what the delay was since they were legally a month over the time limit to process our marriage paperwork. While on the phone with Huyen, I almost lost it telling her to demand an answer from the office. Two minutes later Huyen called me back and said, "I canceled our marriage." I naturally said, "Thank god. I knew this was a huge mistake," and then she happily said, "Kidding! Our license is ready!".

The next afternoon we drove to Ha Nam and had our very romantic legal ceremony. Basically we were brought up to a conference room and the guy who interviewed us stood in front of us and talked a lot in Vietnamese. When he finished speaking Huyen said, "He wants to know if you still want to get married." I smiled -- not knowing if Huyen was tricking me into something dastardly since I couldn't understand a word the guy said except my name -- and replied that I did. The man then had us sign two copies of the wedding license and then put our names into the Ha Nam wedding registry.

After we took our first wedding picture with the man who married us (see top picture). Some people say that marriage is like a prison. Well, my first wedding photo sure felt like a mug shot.

As I've written on here in the past, getting the license was a formality for us to begin immigration processing to the United States. Huyen and I consider our actually wedding to be 12/19 when we celebrate at her family's house.

Plastic Glove

(PICTURE: Would you like a glove with your Coke?)

This story just happened to me and it is disgusting, odd and downright unexplainable.

Huyen and I were sitting outside, under an overhang, eating dinner. I had just finished my last bite of grilled buffalo and had saved a sip of coke to wash it down with. As I lifted the glass of Coke to my lips, something landed right on the rim of the glass. I moved the glass away from my face and saw a plastic glove. How the glove got there was a mystery. I immediately looked up but there was the overhang above us. I looked around me, but nobody seemed to be in possession of any gloves or have the motive to throw one at me. As I looked around in confusion I thought that maybe it was the wind. However, there wasn't even a lick of a breeze. This is one of those things in life that just doesn't have an answer.

I've eaten a lot of weird things in my life but nearly putting a used plastic glove into my mouth would have topped them all.

Trivia Question: What is this?

Trivia Question: What is this thing that I'm cleaning?


A) A medieval torture device commonly referred to as "The Rack"

B) A Vietnamese sled for the rare Sapa snowfall

C) Su's dorm room mattress

The Answer: C

They Grow Up So Fast

It seems like just last week that Huyen's brother Su was sharing a bed with me. Okay, it was actually last week. For about a week before Su began university, he was back at my place co-starring in my personal version of "Perfect Strangers." The last time Su stayed at my house, Huyen and Su shared a bed while I slept on the floor. We tried this arrangement for one night but I woke up the next morning with a bunch of mosquito bites on my feet (those bastards never show their face until I'm sleeping without a mosquito net!). Fearing Dengue, I told Su and Huyen that for now on the three of us would share my bed. Anyway, once I reclaimed eight inches on my bed the three of us began to reenact our own version of "Three's Company." Okay, enough of the old sitcom references.

After a few days of cohabitation, Su was admitted into his university's dorm. In a case of perfect timing, Su had to return to Ha Nam the day he was scheduled to move in. This meant that Huyen, Huong and I got to move Su into his dorm...sans Su. I can assure you that I was the only non-Vietnamese person in the dorm that day. I got plenty of stares and one brave freshman even asked me, "Are you studying at Transportation University?" As much as I would love to go back to university, there's no chance in hell I would be willing to stay in this dorm:


(PICTURE: Huyen cleaning Su's bed. Huong checking out the other freshmen.)