ETHIOPIAN VISA

I am a list maker from way back.  From weekly budgets, shopping lists, packing lists, things to do today lists and while I was on my trip I was making notes for my blog and of course lists of things I had to do when we go to internet access, you know people to email, bookings to be made, money to transfer etc….  I am a list girl from way back.  So I made a list of things I needed to get done while I was home and getting my Ethiopian visa was one of the important ones and at the top of the list.

While I was in Chile, I emailed the Ethiopian Consulate in Australia, which is located in Melbourne and the gentleman I was dealing with down there was very helpful.  We went back and forth with a few emails and he always got back to me promptly during the week we conversed.  Basically I can enter Ethiopia on a 3 month tourist visa which I can obtain from the consulate before I leave.  The downside to this is that the visa is valid from the date of issue, which means I would have to leave Ethiopia earlier than I need to if I got it processed in Australia.  So I will now have to get it done in London and as late as I can so that I can stay in Ethiopia till the middle of November to come home for Christmas.  I may even be able to get a 6 month visa in London that you can only get in Australia if you are Ethiopian descent.  In regards to long term living in Ethiopia once I find a job with an approved government registered company I can stay indefinitely or of course if I marry.  If all else fails and I need to stay longer before coming home, I can skip out of the country and then re-enter again to restart a month visa that they issue upon arrival into Addis for 20USD.  So either way, it isn’t too time consuming for me to be able to live/stay and after Christmas I will start in earnest for a job of some sort.

Speaking of visa’s the good news is that David told me that the Australian Consulate has now opened a branch in Addis Ababa.  Currently they had a visa agency looking after the applications of the Ethiopians and then sending then to the Consulate in Kenya.  So this is great news and hopefully will help when we apply for Zeme’s tourist visa for November.  Now that I will also be there, I’ll get some good old fashioned Western time frames going and hopefully get this visa debacle all sorted so that we can come together at Christmas for Zeme to meet all my friends. 

The bane of our existence is visas and I think it is something I am going to have to get used to with Zeme raveling on an Ethiopian passport.  That’s okay, it just means extra planning is involved and we all know how much I like to plan things!!!!

So it another thing that I can cross off that ‘list’ and see what is next to do.