Pre-Departure Logistics

Before one can travel to Africa, one must acquire a visa.  Mine was to be a business visa for obvious reasons.  But, aside from that, I also had to go through this whole ridiculous process in order to get a work permit for Ethiopia.  So, for anyone who would ever need a work permit, please take careful notes here. 

The first step is to get one of your college transcripts.  Then, have it notarized and authenticated by the secretary of state in the state in which it was issued (eg. If you graduated from Villanova, as in my case, have it notarized by a Pennsylvania notary and then send it or take it to Harrisburg to the Secretary of State to have them authenticate it).  Those are steps 2 and 3 respectively.  Next, step 4, this whole packet must be authenticated by the U.S. Secretary of State in Washington DC.  This can be done either by snail mail or by personally appearing in that office, which is only open from 7:30AM – 11AM M-F by the way.  After you finally get the signature from Hillary Rodham Clinton or whomever is the Secretary of State at that point, then you take this blessed mess of thrice-authenticated documents to the Ethiopian Embassy for its authentication – step 5.  What a run-around.  I’m going to make a flow chart for this thing.  If you plan on doing all of these steps via mail, be sure to first have at least 3 months for all its processing and also to visit all of the offices' websites so that all is in order before you send the document in or visit the offices.

I finally got this crazy visa and document authentication after three tries and trips to the Ethiopian Embassy in Washington D.C. and a eleventeen stories, one of which includes a protester who shows up almost daily with a canvas American flag lawn chair, a half-Ethiopian-half-American flag, and a megaphone.  This guy was intense.  He loved protesting the Ethiopian government.  When he would become tired, he would just take a 5 minute break and go sit under the tree by the sidewalk and take a drink or two of water and then proceed to go right back at it.  I saw him 2/3 times I was there.  God bless him.  He was exercising his freedom of speech outside the gates of the Ethiopian Embassy.  Gotta love America.