by Gary P. Barth, M.D.
Our very coordinated launch of the inaugural corneal transplant service in Western Nepal was nearly hijacked by Chilean Embassy employees. Despite the complexities of procuring many pieces of donated eye surgery equipment from various individuals and organizations as well as nine donated corneas from various state eye banks, the simple delivery of our passports to the Indian tourist visa service in San Francisco went strangely awry.
Two weeks before departure, I pasted a downloaded printed label for the Indian tourist visa service on a Fed Ex cardboard mailer, I hand-filled out the same address on one of the usual triplicate forms; and then, fatefully to reduce possible troubles, I drove it myself to the Fed Ex regional center near the Santa Rosa Airport. At the counter, an employee added some confusion. She typed a “third” stick-on label. The top line said India tourist visa, but the address she listed was on Market Street, not Mission Street.
As the days passed, I kept trying to get my passport and visa back; the India tourist visa service insisted they had never received it. Due to the unknown mislabeling of the address, my computer queries were unsuccessful. Finally, the day before leaving, I stayed at the regional Fed Ex office for more than 90 minutes while my vote for “employee of the year”, Diane, went though all the triplicate forms that had been collected. This labor-intensive task was often interrupted by her need to service those that came to the counter. Finally, at 6:30 p.m. the night before leaving, we found the slip and the new address of 870 Market St., Suite 1062.
The morning we were to leave, my wife, Kevin, and I headed down to San Francisco to find out if this was the address that hopefully had my passport. We arrived at 870 Market Street to find ourselves in front of one of San Francisco’s landmark pre-earthquake buildings, the imposing twelve-story Flood Building. We went up to the tenth floor. In relatively unlighted, 100-year-old corridors, we found a door marked “1062”. We knocked, but no one answered. Near this door was the office door for the Chilean Embassy.
When the office opened a 8:30, the staff was eager to help us locate our passport, Within minutes, they found the envelope with the India Visa applications, the money order written to the Indian tourist service, and the Fed Ex envelope with the name “India tourist visa” written three times. Lord only knows when they would have tumbled to the idea that, for the past week or so, they had someone else’s passports and visa applications.
Next stop was to cancel the US Passport emergency appointment we had that morning and head over to the India tourist visa service. There, we found that they could not accept the money order since it included an $18 fee for sending back the passport. We had to redo that and return again between 5:30-6:00 PM. True to their word, the passports and visa were there to pick up. We left there to go down to the airport for a on-time departure on a somewhat unusual departure day.
Travel often has its own rhythms and surprises. Hopefully, the strange travels of our passports will be over for the duration of the trip, and they will stay with us for the next few weeks.
