Brazil or Bust
During my daughter’s senior year of college she applied for several domestic and international internships. She received her degree in Biology and has always dreamed of having a career working with animals. Fortunately for her, and not so fortunate for me, she was awarded her number one choice, Brazil. With all the talk of crime, human trafficking, and the Zika virus alert, I was less than enthusiastic about the news. She was also awarded another internship in British Columbia, Canada, that I was excited for her opportunity.
She worked it out with both places that she would go to Canada for six weeks first, then only a few days after her return would leave and fly to Brazil for the next three months. Wow, that was a lot to take in for a mom that would lose her daughter to adventure much quicker than expected. After I had time to research her locations, facilities, and people in charge, I did feel a little better; but still apprehensive about her safety while traveling alone to far away lands.
Since she was determined to travel to the north and south of the USA borders, I better strap myself in and go with the plan. There was lot to do in the next six weeks. She had traveled to the Bahamas one month earlier for a hands on experience of collecting data, counting fish, tagging iguanas, and learning the ecology of the area, which meant having her passport was already complete.
Trying to understand exactly what else was needed to enter each country was somewhat…..wait, not somewhat…..incredibly hard to understand. Nothing was easy to decipher. What she needed for Canada seemed less complicated to figure out and since it was the first trip, we tackled it. As far as we could tell, all she needed was her passport, and possibly a work permit (even though she wasn’t getting paid).
When it came to Brazil, for the life of us, we couldn’t figure out what she needed for a visa. There were so many documents listed, it wasn’t possible she needed them all, and trying to locate a contact and phone number was impossible. It took days of researching, googling, and flat out guessing what was needed. We did know that if she went to the Brazilian Consulate she would have enough time to get her visa. What we didn’t think of was even though my daughter would bring the needed documents, for some reason we thought she would leave the same day with the documents in hand. When we realized that she wouldn’t get her documents returned, she had exactly ten business days before she left for Canada. Panic set in and she desperately got everything together and had her plan in place for the next day.
I was unable to take off work so she would be on her own. The counsulate only took so many visa application requests from 9:00 to 11:00 am, on a first come, first serve basis. Once she was able to get a ticket and reserve a spot we both felt better. When it was her turn she provided the following required documents: her passport, plane ticket, itinerary, birth certificate, bank statement, receipt from the on-line form, passport photo, proof of immunization, and a money order for the visa. Upon inspection, the clerk stated if she didn’t have the following additional documents her visa application would be denied: a contact person in Brazil, including phone number, and a signed document from her father about the bank statement. Pure chaos happened for the next ninety minutes, as we desperately tried to beat the clock. Scrambling to get a letter, signature, sending it to a friend that worked in the city, finding the friend’s location even though her navigation stopped working due to a lost signal……ARGH!
Amazingly enough, she got to the window with ten minutes to spare, and the same clerk announced the letter from her father must be notarized, and oh, you also need a letter describing the reason for travel……WHAT THE?! DENIED….oh, the agony of defeat. With less than the needed turnaround time, she went back the next business day and fingers crossed, is praying that it will be processed in nine days. If that works out it will be Brazil or bust! If not, we have one more crazy idea up our sleeves, but I am hoping for the former, because my heart can’t take much more panic…..UGH. Here’s to not leaving things to the last minute!
xoxox……Sheryl