The nghtmare continues...

Last time I didn’t mention the moment I was sitting on the bus and the phone from the school came saying they wanted to offer me the job. I didn’t mention this ‘cause I was too afraid to be happy. No matter how hard I tried I did feel absolutely thrilled. This was the kind of job I’d been aspiring shortly after starting to teach English. A decent contract in an international school where you enjoy the freedom to work as we do in Belgium or any other western country. It seems my fear was with good reason because when I turned up at the meeting that was scheduled on Monday I was introduced to the person in charge of the paperwork. After hearing my story he asked me to come back on Tuesday to discuss the options. There and then he told me he didn’t think they would be able to hire me on time. I’d have to go to Belgium, finance that myself, and get clearance beforehand… It’ll take a lot of time and money and this dreamjob of mine is supposed to start at the beginning of February. I first went to HRC crying my eyes out and they pointed to the embassy to help me this time, they say they should call the minister of foreign affairs.…
It was another blow to the head, one that’s got me crying in this stupid mall while I was waiting for an appointment with some guy whose phone number I got from my Amharic teacher saying that he could solve paper problems. I was totally desperate: it seemed as if nothing was going to happen just like nothing _but prolonged suffering for me_ had been happening. I felt absolutely beat and hopeless.
I got Holger on the phone and was weeping when the guy who had legal advisor on top of his door finally showed up to his office, only 45 min later than he had said he would. That’s the state he found me in yet after explaining my case Dr. Getatchu ( Dr G.) started phoning influential friends so they could hear what happened to me. He even invited me out to dinner with them and one gave me his phone number?!? ( yes I also thought this was totally weird. On top of everything Dr G. seems to know many people in the school I’m currently ‘volunteering’ in which was also awkward ‘cause I haven’t told anybody there that I may be leaving soon seeing as nothing is sure until now. ). Anyway I agreed skip working with Aaron the next day to meet him ‘cause we had a lot to do. After a long wait including joining him to another case he had to solve we went to immigration and spoke to some people there. We ended up at the same desk I had been several times before only now the guy was nice and told me he knew that no foreigners were treated worse then the ones at GYA but that when he had tried to do something about it his job was jeopardised and so he did nothing anymore. So the contacts GYA bragged about having were real enough it seems. Afterwards I had an appointment with the embassy ( who wrote to the minister of foreign affairs asking to intervene which is very exceptional to do this for an individual and not a diplomat) but by the time they were finished Dr G. was busy with something else and I was told to come to his office as soon as possible the next day. I rushed away from Aaron and called Dr G. asking if I should meet him somewhere only to be told to await him at the embassy who was trying to schedule an appointment with the head of National Intelligence and security, they didn’t manage and after a long wait we decided to go down there and take our chances but by then Dr G. was in court so someone from the embassy accompanied me there only to be turned away by the secretary. I felt drained and cried my eyes out ( I figured all was lost again and didn’t even go to my first level 2 Amharic lesson) until Dr G called and told me what he wanted to do with me the next day. So I rushed away from school again on Friday only to wait in his office for 2hours and 45 minutes before we returned to the same secretary with a written report of my story which got us through the first door to be able to get the phone number to make an appointment on Monday at the second door… Grrr That’s the only thing that happened which is so frustrating. Dr G. did however talk to the people of the dream job and was very self-assured about solving my case before next Wednesday so they sort of not gave up on me just yet, which was super. I just hope he can make it all come true, he says a lot and things do seem to be happening but we haven’t really done that much but postponing to the next day so I hope we’ll be able to really do some of those things on Monday (= tomorrow) seeing as Tuesday is a holiday here…
Sweet Holger brought me extra Belgian candy which he had taken from his visit after he heard what happened. I met him at a concert on Friday which turned out to be horrible but we did schedule then to have lunch on Sunday and play games: yes the addiction that was born in Bilbao has continued. I played settlers of Catan ( not really my cup of tea) and a hilarious homemade version of ‘time’s up’. Lunch was my new speciality: stew and my first goat meat version which was really tasty.
On Saturday evening I went with the friend of my Canadian friend and some teachers from the school I didn’t know very well for some scrumptious Chinese so it’s fair to say I did have a good weekend with no time for emailing so sorry to those awaiting reply…