Our thinking at the beginning of the day was: a three-hour bus ride, an hour or two in town to get our papers done, and then a three-hour bus ride back, getting back around 3, so late enough to not have to go to work for the rest of the day, and get off early! Knowing how things work around here, it was a bit naïve of us to expect things to be so efficient...
After our 3-hour bus ride, we arrived in Gumare at the immigration office. To provide a bit of background, we had tried to get this process completed in Maun on our way up to Shakawe when we first arrived in the country, but the computer system was down, and continued to be down for all of September. So, it was just our luck that we walked in to the sound of beeping computers and other devices and a stillness in the air -- it turns out the power had gone out precisely one minute before we walked in. After briefly enjoying the temporary cool because the lights were off and there was an early morning breeze coming in from outside, and unsure of how the lines (or lack thereof) work in Botswana, we joined the other people sitting waiting on the benches, where the heat slowly crept up on us.
We eventually got to talk to an immigration officer. After telling him we needed to apply for our temporary residency permit, he asked a bunch of questions to better understand our purpose there, then slowly reached for a folder from where he pulled out a checklist for "volunteers applying for temporary residency". At least he had the right checklist, but the contents were something he had evidently never seen before in his life. The rest of the conversation involved him getting confused over the difference between "volunteering" and "working", him asking how we knew what documents to bring and being a bit surprised that we had them all prepared and filled out (thanks WUSC), and him thinking Canada was in the United States. And most of this took place in Setswana, as a conversation between the immigration officer and our co-worker, despite the fact that the immigration officer could speak and understand English. Our co-workers translations were extremely helpful, but so was reading the expressions on both of their faces as they talked.
To make the already long and hot day even better, we went to a little "restaurant" for lunch, where I discovered a lovely bunch of tiny maggots crawling inside my piece of chicken. Luckily, or unluckily, they were in the last piece I ate so I stopped eating and I don't think I ate any. Though I did not get sick after, I was definitely in a minor state of panic over my health and safety for a few hours afterwards.
After lunch, and, of course, some more waiting, they were finally ready to input our information into the computer. This simple process took probably ten times longer than we expected, because it involved us re-reading out all our answers to the fields on the forms we had already filled out, as the officer held the form with the information right in front of him.
Finally, 6 hours later, the information was all inputted, we had paid our fees, and they even took our fingerprints, which I got a bit excited about. We could be on our merry way back to Shakawe with our residency permits, and no longer have to worry about our passports expiring in 90 days (or what is left of it).
...Wrong again! We left Gumare empty-handed. The whole day was spent approving our application - it now had to be sent to Maun to be processed, and they would then send our final residency permit back to Gumare for us to pick up (hopefully before the end of the 90 days, or else we have to go back to Gumare to get an extension on the 90 days).
After a very interesting day, I re-learned that everything here takes time. Patience is required, but not just with people, which I believe I have, but with processes. And you always have to be prepared for the unexpected. So, there is still another day-long adventure to Gumare yet to come!