The international life requires a lot less paperwork, but there are a few essential details that need looking after. Passports, visas, yellow fever vaccines. All of these documents come with an expiration date and renewal process that needs to be kept on top of. Everyone in the family is not necessarily on the same schedule, which makes it all just a tiny bit more complicated.
Each country has slightly different visa procedures also, which require more or less attention. Happily, Mali gave us 5 year visas with our first application, leading to many worry-free years ahead. Both boys' passports are about to expire, however, so we took a trip to the embassy to start the renewal process. My passport needed renewal a few months ago, which gave me a preview of how things might go in Bamako. While Abidjan was impressive with it's routines and efficiency, Bamako is proving just plain simple. Friendly and welcoming.
The American embassy is no different than any where else. I sometimes imagine there is a universal designer who has taken initiative to stage all the embassies the same. Upon walking in, you are immediately transported to the nowhere time and space, the limbo of American Embassy that could exist on any continent, in any country, in any year. Same decor featuring giant photos or paintings by obscure artists of random American landmarks, same heavy doors that require two hands to push and maybe even a hip thrust. There are the same chairs, same wall coverings and even the same child's play area table and toys. The cashier windows are identical, numbering 1-5, sometimes up to 8, and you never visit them in order. First stop, down to the cashier at 1, then back up to window 5 for dropping off papers and finally over to window 3 for ......saying goodbye? She told us when to come back and assured us that Mohamed's passport would either be done in time for him to travel, or I could just pick it up myself and he could travel with his old one, which was still valid for a few more months.
Nice. Efficient. Kind of busy, but smooth flowing. The embassy in Abidjan was so much larger and always void of people. It's another point of curiosity. The size of the embassy versus the amount of business that goes on there. I can't really figure out what goes on behind all the tempered glass and particle board corners. But I have had the opportunity to take advantage of a few citizen services such as passport renewal and reporting a birth abroad.
Most of the time, getting things done at an embassy is as easy as making an online appointment and showing up on time. There is hardly a wait and things that take weeks or months in country, often take days or weeks abroad. In fact, the hardest part of the whole process is getting the ID photo, which doesn't happen at the embassy at all. Instead, you must first find a photo shop able to supply the all important and ever regulated identity photo.
Photo shops like these abound in Abidjan, where they are overly fond of the 'photo identite.' I remember being tickled by a pricing poster, which offered "normal" or "US format." There is not the same culture of needing a photo for everything you'd like to do or join or even observe here in Bamako. Which, while pleasant, makes getting US formatted passport photos a little challenging.
The first obstacle is the photo itself. All the photo labs (in Africa, I am going out on a limb here and I am just going to make one broad, sweeping statement about every single photo printing lab on the continent) have fallen in love with photo-shop. For some reason, they find it easier to cut out the figure and paste it onto a white background rather than hang a white sheet and take the photo right in the first place. I remember well the photo for my gym membership in which the photo-artist placed a beautiful kimono over my tank-topped shoulders. And (possibly the same) artist who gave the infant Mbalia a new lip, improving her already perfect baby pucker.
Of course, that is all a no-go for official US passport photos. No cutting around the hair (au revoir chop and crop hairdo with your geometric outlines and unnatural angles) no pasting onto a fake white background, no enhancing the eyes or brushing down the forehead shine. Point, shoot, and print. It's the only way.
Luckily, we have one white wall available to us and so I was able to grab a few photos with my phone first. I spent time comparing my shots with all of the examples on the US embassy website, where they also have a convenient photo cropper tool- so you can get the exact dimensions and perfectly position the head where it needs to go.
Printing is the big obstacle. The print shop I have gone to is located right in heart of Hippodrome, tucked back from the roadside of the busiest street in town. It is a small, yellow building with a faint eau d'urine that assaults the senses after walking in. It's filled with men and boys sitting on benches, a few holding old cameras, a few sitting in front of screens. Although one of the guys takes my USB and lifts the photos, I can't quite figure out what his real job is because behind the cashier desk there are two computers and two Asian men, one looking young enough to wonder whether boy might be more appropriate, who do all the fixing. They are pale with bad skin and I wonder if they ever get out into the sunshine. The seats seem molded to their bodies and the younger one has kicked his shoes off, a foot casually tucked up beneath his leg.
Their fingers fly across the keyboard as photos flash on the screen. They lighten, sharpen, crop, change closed eyes into open, bend corners and add frames all without even appearing to glance at the picture itself. They are lost in their music, each connected to headphones. I assumed the shop belongs to them, or a family member. It is a somewhat depressing, curious kind of existence.
The place is always busy. The guys are forever arranging photos of weddings or birthdays or other family occasions. I think for a moment of Enjoy Poverty, the documentary about a guy who wants the Congolese to benefit from their poverty by taking pictures of it (rather than the foreign journalists who swoop in, snap photos and then sell the misery for hundreds of dollars.) The photographers are clearly uncomfortable taking pictures of starving children near death and the big outlets refuse to buy them anyway. The documentary evoked ....a strong reaction. To say more would digress completely from the topic, leading down a wormhole of unknown dimensions. I was bothered by the film, and perhaps that was the point. But I can't quite jump on the Renzo Marten bandwagon just yet.
Back to the shop. Where they are doing a hefty and profitable business printing photos of happy occasions. I am mesmerized by the boy, who cuts out a pair of eyes from one photo and then flips through the series, to another picture where he pastes and arranges the eyes overtop closed lashes. I think it is the same person. Sometimes its not. I watch him move a lip up and then down until it is finally in position, momentarily creating a bizarre wedding day animation.
We wait for 20 minutes before I decide to put the pressure on. I stand near the desk, watching, wondering how much longer until my 2 photos appear. Just print. I inquire, I stand, I sigh. I look at the clock. I even talk to myself. Out loud. Finally I see Mohamed's face on the screen. I see the boy begin to trace around his figure and I speak to the clerk, telling him once again- no photo shopping. Just printing. Exactly as it is. I have been here before. Several times. You might think they'd know me by now. I gesture. I huff. I insist verbally and physically. Anything I can think of to get my point across. Just. Print.
It's closing in on 30 minutes and I want to leave. It would be so satisfying to gather my things and step out into the hot Malian day. If there were any way to leave here and go somewhere else and still arrive to our appointment on time, I would. The man at the counter tries to hurry the boy along, yelling at him to be quick. It's the first time I've heard this kind of exchange between them. It makes me wonder who is in charge after all.
The boy finally prints the photos and becomes sullen. He lets the desktop go quiet and turns to his phone. I catch a glimpse of a smooth faced Asian girl. Fantasy or friend, I can't be sure. I am not up on my Asian pop at all. I wonder why this boy is here and not in school. I wonder how these two came to be here in this photo dive tucked away in Bamako, Mali. And I imagine possibilities of what their life back home was like, if this represents the dream.
Eventually the photos are presented. I am not convinced they are American size and I forgot to bring the application page which would allow me to check. All I can remember is 2x2 which is no help in the metric system. They tell me it's 5x5 and I have to believe them. But it's apparent that I don't, not really. They want to trim the photos for me, but all I can imagine is the slow, methodical cuts that will make us later and later. I tell him no problem, I can cut them myself. Completely against protocol, I know. More white lady fit throwing.
We take our photos, as I vow never to come back. I've had one too many outbursts here. The clerk still thinks I am angry. Really, I'm just uncertain. I am frustrated that I didn't check the metric measurements and I hate how much time it's all taken. Surely there is another photo lab I can torment. Better yet, hopefully we have completed all the required paperwork for the next several years.
Oh but my guys are handsome. Growing. This will be Mohamed's last 5 year passport. He'll be 20 the next time he needs a new one. And then 30. The years pass just like that in my mind. For a minute I am stunned. I imagine the young Asian guy, fingers older, still flying across the keyboard rearranging memories into perfect moments that never existed.
