My Central African Republic Problem

The second country on my itinerary is the Central African Republic, and even though I have just arrived in Macedonia, most of my mental attention is being diverted toward CAR right now.  That’s because in twelve days I need to board a plane bound for CAR, and I don’t yet have a visa to enter that country. 

From the beginning, I’ve considered it essential that I go to sub-Saharan Africa for my research on development.  It’s the region that has been most disadvantaged by the global economic system historically and currently.  If I studied development--presumably to my own benefit in terms of resume and graduate school applications--without going to the region in which development finds its gravest challenges, I would consider it cowardice and intellectual dishonesty. 

Through email correspondence with the World Bank’s team leader in CAR, I decided that’s where I wanted to go.  The country embodies many of the features that slow development in Africa.  It is land-locked, culturally diverse, mostly agricultural with a very small population, and it has had decades of political instability, separatist movements, and regional wars spilling over into its borders. 

Because the CAR doesn’t have the resources to keep an embassy in a country like Turkey (where I was living for the last year) I had to consult the CAR’s Special Consul in Istanbul.  First I was told I needed a visa, but it was really easy to get one.  A month later I called again to find out the exact details, and I was told I didn’t need to arrange a visa ahead of time.  Based on this, I bought my plane tickets and let the weeks pass by.

About a month and a half ago, I felt uneasy, so I decided to check with the CAR’s embassy in Washington D.C.  In a surprisingly sarcastic tone, the CAR embassy informed me that, indeed, I needed to apply for a visa. Visa requirements include an invitation letter from someone in CAR and a letter from my advisor guaranteeing I would return to America afterward (do they really have a problem with illegal immigration by Americans?)

Initially, my contacts refused to write an invitation letter since it would implicitly endorse my research.  Eventually, one contact agreed to write the letter, but I found myself in an unfortunate race with time.  On May 31 I needed to fly home from Turkey, which required my passport.  That meant that when I received my invitation letter, around May 25, I still couldn’t send a visa application to the CAR embassy because then I wouldn’t have my passport a week later.

So now I have flown to Macedonia with the completed visa forms.  My first task in Skopje has been to express mail my visa application to the CAR embassy in Paris, and now I wait.  If within twelve days my passport and visa return, then I’ll be off to CAR.  If not, however, I go to Plan B.

PLAN B:

Arrange additional research either with other aid agencies in Macedonia (currently I’m only researching USAID), or expand my research of USAID to one or more other countries in the Balkans.  I would be in the Balkans for an extra two weeks.  Currently, I have a flight from CAR to Georgia on July 1.  If I never make it to CAR, however, I obviously can’t make that flight.  In this case I’ll take a bus from Skopje, back across my familiar campgrounds in Turkey, and east into Georgia.

As you can see, Plan B is not terrible.  I would simply have more research from the Balkans and no research from sub-Saharan Africa.  This would be disappointing to me personally (and a waste of some expensive plane tickets), but not the end of the world.  So can I trust European mail carriers to deliver on time, CAR embassy staff to be quick, or customs officers not to pocket my $150 in cash for the visa?  Yikes.