In July of 2005, I started working at FINCA International where I worked for the following 4 years; my interest in international relations and conflict resolution growing with each year of employment. In September of 2008, I started dating a man named Hisham. Born to Palestinian parents, Hisham subsequently lived in Kuwait, Cyprus, Jordan and the United States- where we met through a friend at a DC bar. There's more to that story but I'm going to save that for another post:)
Hisham and I dated in Washington DC for 7 months from September 2008 until March of 2009. It was a truly wonderful 7 months - Hisham was refreshingly devoid of game playing and disarmingly mature, not to mention funny, handsome and an excellent cook. In late march 2009, Hisham traveled to Jordan to visit his family for a two week vacation. Soon after his arrival I received a gchat that his return visa to the United States had to undergo "administrative processing" that may take longer to process than the two weeks he was slated to be on vacation.
A series of deadlines followed, and at each, rather than a lovely American stamp in his passport granting re-entry, we were faced with more processing. I know that compared to many people and families who face immigration issues, this situation is quite mild. Also, I took some comfort in knowing that this experience was a lesson in compassion for me: many have to deal with visa processing throughout their respective lives.
The most challenging part for me was not knowing when he would be able to return, and, not knowing, or being able to find a suitable answer to the seemingly simple question: What does administrative processing mean? What does it entail?
I'm not going to get into the nitty-gritty of the visa process, suffice it to say, that though I asked--many a qualified person, many a time-- I never received a suitable answer and the weeks drug on. The most challenging part, for me, was the ambiguity. I could do long distance, but not knowing when the situation would end was hard to sustain. We finally decided to set an internal deadline, a date by which, if he hadn't received his visa, we would decide I would move to Jordan. We decided on August 17th.
What liberation followed! We had taken what control we could and just had to wait for the 17th.
Well, if you've read this far you know what happened next. His visa was still processing on the 17th. We decided I'd come. I rented a POD. Resigned from my job. Bought packing tape. Dismantled both of our apartments into labeled cardboard boxes. Then we finally got what we'd been waiting for: in late September, about a month after our internal deadline, Hisham received his clearance to return to the States. What followed was, I think, one of our most important conversations to date, and, as I said....we decided to live in Amman. On Oct 21st, I flew to Amman.
(Image: night falls over Amman the terrace of books@cafe, one of our favorite spots)
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