Visa Denied

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Travel. Not yet, still waiting for the visa.

I haven’t visited other countries for a while now, and the pandemic is innocent. It was long before that. That is why I’m not clued up about visa requirements.

Aviation museum.

Has the visa gone digital, like everything else? I have a vaccine visa in my phone, that the mall demanded in 2020 if I wanted to sit down on their steel chairs and eat my sushi.

What is the current situation? Do you go online? Do they still require that the dead-like photo should be a particular size? I’m writing from previous experience which was not pleasant. The long lines outside embassies! They became longer after increased terrorism and embassy staff became more and more rude.

The visa cannot be digital because the passport must be stamped, right? Frequent flyers get new passports quite often because they get filled in quickly like a James Bond 007 passport: Vancouver, Johannesburg, Dakar, Tel Aviv, Geneva, Atlanta, Nassau, Havana, Miami, Paris, Moscow, Dusseldorf and so on.

Digital or not, passports must be stamped. It is a labour issue. All those passport agents will be unemployed if we scanned visas like the access cards we use in office buildings and health centres.

What I don’t miss in other countries are sullen looks of immigration officials who think I’m trying to sneak in their country and ask for asylum. How conceited can they be? Canada and I are quite comfortable with each other thanks very much. We have some disagreements, but which country doesn’t?

By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.

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