Raised Eyebrows

It's been second instance I have been confronted by Immigration officers in the past two weeks. The first time two young fellows in their late twenties or early thirties, holding some kind of a register, came up to my car when I was parked in the street in Musoma, asking who I was, where I was living, what I was doing, for how long I've been working in Tanzania. Gave them correct answers and they seemed genuinely surprised as they never saw me before. Strange, they did not demand any means of identification, like my passport with residence permit stamp in it...


This morning a Landrover Defender came up to the gate of my mission in Kiabakari and two guys disembarked. I went up to meet them at the gate, thinking that maybe they were lost as many people come either by foot or by car to the mission not knowing exactly where the health center is.

But those two guys were Immigration officers again. So I invited them to the office, they signed visitors' book and asked similar question about me and any other foreign nationals living and working in the mission. I gave them again the same answers and they took note of them.

I used this opportunity to complain about the slow procedures in acquiring residence permits for my volunteers in the past and they agreed that the process may be a bit slow but the delays were mostly to be blamed on the snail pace of the sister in our diocesan curia offices who was dealing with residence permits of all missionaries working for the diocese...

They told me to contact them if I encounter similar problems, so I hope this time, when I am about to start the process of residence permits for Agata, Denise and Thomas, there will be no major dramas. Hopefully. TIA.

Still, the recurring instances of being confronted by Immigration officers who seem to be on scheduled mission to catch illegal immigrants and foreign nationals (which is a very commendable practice and should be done with full force and precision) raised my eyebrows, is not an experience I am used to. It took them twenty years to finally come to me and ask questions as before that nobody ever asked me any questions apart from the national census enquiry back in 2002, where everybody was taking part in it.

As I remarked the other day to someone - the more computerized world we live in, the more handwriting is required and footwork.