So the here’s the first (and hopefully only necessary) update to https://cobbsdoeurope.com/2018/07/09/passport-misadventures-continue-for-the-cobbs/

Basically when I left the office following my epic, rightfully-deserved, meltdown, the employees followed me out and forced me to name my date and time that I would come back in to “fix” this (though the guy who made the error told me he would fit me in “any time”). I was still in no state to make a plan, but I told them I would be back Monday (after pay day 😂). But, obviously this was a stupid plan. I live 20 min from another country – I can’t be without a passport for any longer than necessary. Justin obviously agreed with us this and wanted to rectify this pretty much immediately. So we went back first thing the next morning.

“Ma’am when we asked you to decide when to come back, you said Monday”. You’re kidding, right? The woman in the office kept trying to calmly argue that they needed to know when because they don’t have enough staff. Guess who doesn’t care? THIS GIRL. I was getting a little argumentative, but Justin was trying to remain calm. This is the woman who couldn’t “find” (refused to look) for the kids’ passports last week while her colleague was on vacation (back to this in a minute). She also proceeds to ask me if I have everything I need to file for a new passport, including the paperwork.

So when they said “we’ll take care of everything for you”, they meant, they’ll send me away 3 times and continue to give me false information. First, she told me I have to bring in the form MYSELF, that she isn’t able to print it. Though after I brought in the filled out version from home on my second visit of the day and I had accidentally printed two pages per sheet (WHY DIDNT I SEE THAT AT HOME – QA, Libby!!!), she was magically able to print the form from me. Interesting.

Then they told me I couldn’t use the passport picture I brought (this was actually true) because it was more than 6 months old, and since it was the same as the one from the passport, they would know. Great, gotta go to the In-processing building for pictures. As we decide this, she’s still basically trying to shove me back out the door.

Justin, not ok with any of this whole process, proceeds to ask her about the passports from last week. He asks her if they were, in fact, in the building while she refused to look. We knew they were there because he called the Embassy, called the US Embassy mailroom, the US post office in Brussels and then visited our local post office, all of who confirmed they were there. She said they were there but he “didn’t know who they belonged to, so he put them in a different file”. Strange, they have our last name on them. Even if they didn’t happen to be the parents’ last names, wouldn’t it be safe to file them accordingly? Wouldn’t we still ask BY NAME? Anyway, so Justin starts into his best “disappointed dad” talk, which is better than anything I would’ve said. I hear part before I go get my pictures.

He asks her calmly (again, thankfully he’s not me), why she refused to even look last week? Why she acted so put out by his request? He asked if she worked for the Army and if she was a GS. Yes to both. So he asked “so you’re here to work for the army as a service, right?” Yes.

I left, but he said he continued with the “disappointed dad” talk. He told her that, in general, it’s very disappointing and frustrating to do anything with the GSs here (and anywhere really), since they constantly act like you’re interrupting them and that you’re putting them out to actually do their jobs. Then he continued with – “you’re here to help the military members, the members that have done multiple deployments, have missed births and birthdays and anniversaries, etc,” but that they really just make it so much more difficult.

These are privileged orders over here – for us and for her. She gets compensated similarly for cost of living and housing, yet they don’t want to actually work. It often feels like you just need to know someone that has made a mistake somewhere to find out the true way to do something, rather than relying on the people who SHOULD be helpful. (In case anyone here is wondering, I’m the mistake…DONT DO THIS!!!). He said she seemed emotional when he left.

So meanwhile, I get my pictures and with the information will be back at 1 pm (it’s currently like 8:30) just like I told them.

I go home, do all the research myself on which form, etc. Print everything necessary (except that the actual form I need was printed 2 pages per sheet! Doh! It’s definitely a comedy of errors). Go back at 1. Wait for the passport guy, the one who made the error, to finish whatever he was doing, to help me. As we realize my printer error, they’re magically able to print me another copy, but try to tell me I filled out the wrong form. I really don’t believe them, so I insist on filling both out (wait for it…they’re BOTH wrong, but I don’t find that out yet). Apparently he has no way of getting ahold of anyone to verify the form outside of emailing. Ugh.

Both forms are filled out with the idea that once he knows which one, he’ll send that one (I can never be sure what really happened). I also included a letter (as directed by the “damaged passport” form explaining what happened. Who knows if he included that either since it’s pretty damning of him.

Now I need to pay. Guess what? ITS MONEY ORDER ONLY. MONEY ORDER??????? Don’t you think this was pertinent information this morning???? Why did that not come up a SINGLE TIME?

Thankfully the US Post office on base does that. Pack up all 4 kids again and go back to the post office, then back to the office. From there, he was supposed to take care of it. I asked how I will know anything or if anyone will contact me. His answer is “no, you’ll just be alerted when it comes in”.

So I’m still sitting here stewing on it, unsure what actually was sent and feeling uncomfortable. So I call the Embassy (why didn’t I do this in the first place??? That’s right, their hours are 8 am-10 am, though I really should’ve made it happen yesterday).

Talking to passport services, I’m about 3 minutes into my ridiculous monologue, when she asks if she can pause me for a second. She wanted to transfer me to her supervisor because they’ve had so many complaints about this guy!!!! I didn’t say his name, but she did! She knew!

She assumed I was calling to file a complaint, which I was sort of, but I also wanted to figure out the status and if what he sent was correct. So she transferred me. Apparently multiple people were already aware of the situation, so he must’ve actually emailed (there’s one positive for him).

First thing when I talk to consulate is that BOTH forms were wrong. Within 3 seconds, he confirmed which form I needed and was very clear that this was a no-fee situation since it was marked by error. I do not need a “new” passport, I need a replacement. I do NOT need to appear before a consulate or an official passport person, I just need to send in the form with the picture. Gee, how much easier would that have been if the guy had known that? I could’ve spared them lots of yelling and my blood wouldn’t still be boiling 4 days later.

The consulate was also sympathetic and expressed the same concerns I have – that living so close to another country’s border, it is impractical to be without a passport. Thank you for understanding, Mr Consulate, since the people here don’t think that’s a concern.

He confirmed they do not have my paperwork yet, but that I should mail the CORRECT form today and they will contact me when all the paperwork is together.

Please pray with me that this is the final step and it is actually smooth sailing from here…and that I get my $110 money order back and can figure out how to cash it.

Well, I know it all looks like a big, never-ending travel party over here, but I gotta keep things interesting so every once-in-a-while I like to mess up BIG.

I know everyone makes mistakes but mine just happens to be the gift that keeps on giving. If any of you read my last blog, I mentioned how I just happened to throw away FIVE passports (conveniently all but mine – funny, not funny, wait for it). Just walked in from the car with the garbage and plopped all of them in with it (think Kate, the mom, from HOME ALONE tossing Kevin’s ticket). I didn’t realize until it was too late and the garbage had been picked up.

Fab-u-lous.

Justin made 2 phone calls to the US Embassy to figure out what to do, but you can only call between 8-10 A.M, and same for emergency passport services – only between 8-10 A.M. So he just went – to Brussels – the busiest, international, head of EU, worst traffic’d city ever. But turns out you need an appointment to get an appointment, basically. He needed an emergency passport for travel the next week. Great. So, he had to go back the next day. But they can’t process an emergency passport during the appointment, so he had to go back 2 days later to pick it up, then 2 weeks later to get the real one. The embassy is only about 35 miles away, but it takes an hour via train or longer to drive. He tried both. The day he took the train, it was delayed an hour and a half. One of the days he drove, it took him 2 hours one way…in the middle of a work week. Three days out of a work week! But this part gets even better in a minute, too.

Ok, so then we have to take all 4 kids to get theirs. (They weren’t traveling so didn’t need emergency ones) They have to appear in person. You have to have an appointment. Of course the whole month of May was booked by the time I looked on May 10th. So June. Ok. They miss school. We drive. We wait for our appointment, though once you’re there it seems that times appointments aren’t even a thing – you just pull a stupid number. Our pictures from our library (that I paid for) are the wrong size (they’re “European size”). We use the booth at the embassy. It only takes cash (maybe even just coins). A 2 year old in a crowded DMV-type place in a photo booth is a real peach. He had to sit on the bench and look at the camera, but we couldn’t be in with him because it was too close. It only gives you three tries. This is the best one 👇🏻. Luckily this one worked and they cropped the hands (Justin’s and Bennett’s) out.

We finally get to the processing guy and he asks where we want to pick them up. Wait, this was an option for Justin? So he says they can send them to the base we’re at. Perfect! Now we’re only out $600 for five passports ($115 each + €5 pictures) and FOUR trips to Brussels because I got garbage happy.

Fast forward two weeks (amazingly quick turn around!), and Justin gets an email that they’re in! We try to go get them because we’re trying to leave the country, only to be told there is ONLY ONE guy who handles passports and he’s on vacation. I’m sorry, what? Absolutely bureaucratic nonsense.

Add another week (we’re at 2 months now), and the guy is supposed to be back. My first attempt to pick them up and the door is locked. Typical government hours, my bad. I go back an hour later. He has them. Perfect. *Almost* whole again.

He asks for the old ones. I tell him I DONT HAVE THEM and that these are replacements because the other ones were lost/trashed. I tell him I have mine so I can pick theirs up (ID verification!) I check the kids passports to make sure they’re ok. I go to sign for them and I hear a hole puncher…

HE PUNCHED MY PASSPORT AND CANCELLED it.

The only passport that made it through the previous mess – cancelled. I lost my ever-loving mind in there. Straight screaming like a lunatic. Screaming. “There’s nothing we can do,” he says. “You’ll have to get a new one.” But the best part – it is in NO WAY their fault? Telling me that I absolutely have to pay the $115 to have it redone.

What the what? I’m still totally fuming. He didn’t even bother to match it up to an old one before cancelling. Had he looked at them? Did he see they were FOUR KIDS??? This is his job! His only job! All he does IS PASSPORTS. There was no QA before ruining my passport????

So here’s the other kicker – after we tried to get the passports the first time, we were told that you can do the WHOLE process from the base . We didn’t need to go to Brussels Embassy at all 😳. (We had asked around and been told they “no longer” do passports on base, but that, like a lot of “information” here, was false).

I lost it. He wasn’t sympathetic at all other than offering to file for a new one at any time (“I’ll fit you in any time” blah blah). He offered to do it right then, but I was in no state to deal with it. I had to leave. I had a mascara-stained, beet red face, a child with a yucky diaper who was hiding behind a chair because “mama you scawy”, and refrigerated foods in the car.

Here’s hoping going back tomorrow works out better, and that the turnaround is just as quick as the kids. At least my pockets will be ANOTHER $120 lighter 🙄.

(FYI: I’ve been working on my Rwanda blog for a while (it’s coming!) and it’s hard to be this angry over something that I know really isn’t that big of a deal in the whole scheme of things. Just know that I know that 😊 and thanks for reading!)

There’s so much to say and so many different roads that my thoughts lead down that it’s hard to really pin down a cohesive thought about my trip. But before it gets lost in my mind, I want to write some.

(I should mention that this trip would not have been possible 1. If I weren’t in Europe for many reasons – I have the time available (not working), the distance is much shorter and I have stupid travel anxiety (and it was a little less money with the shorter distance) 2. Without the contributions and prayers of my family and friends)

“How was Africa?”

I’ve been asked so many times how the trip went, but what is anyone really asking? Are they asking how MY trip was? Like did I have a good time or did it change MY life? Asking how the medical clinic days were and if we made amazing medical interventions? Asking how we were received by the communities we ministered to? Or are they asking from the religious side and how many people accepted Jesus?

I really should ask more questions when they probe so I know which path to take, but either way, it was a complex trip that is hard to have a quick answer for.

Rwanda

The country is beautiful. It is also a very small country – roughly the same size as Massachusetts (sq meters anyway). It’s in the middle of Africa where the land is very lush. There are miles and miles of banana trees and so many other green plants. We saw millet (kind of like a corn), corn, papyrus, potatoes, banana trees, sunflowers, and others I didn’t get the name of. The ground/dirt is hard red clay and when it’s not the rainy season, it is very dusty. Our clothes were all covered in red dust. (Pictures at bottom)

Rwanda is also very clean. In fact, it’s considered the cleanest country in Africa. The whole country gets together one day a month and has a “clean up” for a few hours. They don’t allow plastic bags of any kind – so no ziplock bags, grocery bags, etc. The plastic bag ban is part of the country’s initiative to be green and clean. One of the reasons plastic bags were banned is because burning them (how they get rid of most garbage) releases toxic fumes. Another is that if they weren’t burned, they were often disposed of improperly and could cause flooding from damaging their drainage system.

I read this beforehand and am glad I didn’t take any. I think they just throw out personal ones (some they let slide) at the airport, but I’ve read you can get a hefty fine for having them in the country – so much so that there is a black market type thing and smugglers try to bring them in across the borders. 😳 For ziplock? Seems kind of crazy, but let me just tell you how difficult it was to not have them. It’s one of those things you just don’t even think about UNTIL you can’t use them. I desperately wanted to put my red clay clothes and shoes inside of a grocery bag, but I didn’t have any.

Medical clinics

We had 3 medical clinic days (shortened from 4 for some paperwork/legalities as it was the first time for them in Rwanda) in the Nyamata area. I would guess that the total area we covered was 30-40km (15-20 miles?) The hardest part is to see the patients that stood in line for hours and couldn’t be seen. It’s painful and heartbreaking. While we were limited and not everyone was seen, I am confident we healed many and truly believe having a team come at all gives them hope.

The clinic was set up in 4 stations – triage, provider, pastor, then pharmacy. Each patient was given a large index card to fill in their name and age, then the card was taken from station to station and filled out. At the triage station, our nursing interns (with translators) took down vitals and main complaints. Then the patients waited to see the providers. We had multiple nurses, a NP, a pharmacist and 2 Rwandan doctors seeing patients. After the patients saw the provider, their medication card was brought to us to fill while they were visiting a local pastor where they learned about Jesus. Then they came to us to pick up their medication.

The team saw 925 patients and dispensed 4375 meds. The most common complaints seemed to be headaches and back pain (I’m sure from carrying/pushing goods), dry eyes/eye pain- so many of them had very, very red eyes from the dust, worms, complaints of malaria and lots of other infections.

The Pharmacy

As mentioned above, after the patients saw the provider, they visited a local pastor to learn more about the Gospel, giving us time to prepare their medications.

The card the patients carried from station to station had all the information on it by the time it reached us – Age, vital signs, pregnant/breastfeeding, gender (had to ask our fellow teammates to help us out with this one!), chief complaints, and provider’s rough diagnosis. On the back of the card, all of the medications we stocked were listed and the provider circled what they wanted.

Similar to my real-life pharmacy gigs, I feel like I literally questioned every. single. one. “Are they pregnant?” – can’t have aspirin or ibuprofen or that antibiotic or that one. “Are they breastfeeding?” – can’t have that antibiotics, switch to that one, and add 8 months of multivitamins (same for pregnant mamas). “Do we think they really have a UTI or STI?” – let’s switch antibiotics. “Doesn’t prilosec interact with this antibiotic?” – change to tums. “Doesn’t cipro interact with that?” – maybe I should change to cephalosporin. “Can you give Prilosec to someone with tapeworms?” – TUMS (tums is the answer to everything, except it has to be separated from lots of antibiotics by a few hours). “Is this a small child?” – needs a liquid. “Can a 9 year old swallow a pill?” – change that to tablet (my 10 year old can’t swallow, but my 9 year old can – turns out they all can at like 4 there). “Is the age on this children’s medication appropriate? It’s by age and not weight and our kids weigh more. Is the dose the same?” (It just said age 1-2, 2-5, etc).

Just like I know it is hard for the providers to work without any physical tests or labs or anything, it was SUPER difficult for me and my obsessive self. I’ve only worked in environments with access to SO MUCH DATA, that I barely know what to do without it. Add that to the fact that we had no internet to check anything extra out (I do have a very nice app downloaded, but that can only reassure you so far).

Another seemingly strange hurdle for the pharmacy is the plastic bag ban. How in the world do we get medication to patients (hospital pharmacist here) WITHOUT a baggie??? I live for baggies! Baggies in baggies ON baggies 😂! Well, you can see what was prepared ahead of time for us in the pictures below – the Mississippi team prepacked all the meds in little paper bags. They looked lovely, but paper tears VERY easily. We had pills falling out left and right.

Finally, once I had obsessed over the accuracy of each medicine enough (and ran it by Ginger – she SO loves working with me 😂), we would pass the medications to our translator, Emmanuel. Emmanuel is from Rwanda, speaks excellent English and is in medical school in Moscow (so he also speaks Russian). He was fantastic. We were so very blessed to have a medical student to translate and counsel our patients.

We had three pharmacists on our team (which is a lot!), and one was brave enough to step out of the pharmacy’s somewhat relative comfort zone and help the providers. She did an awesome job. I think I would have been far too out of my zone to do that, but I kind of wished I had. My interactions with the patients were so limited being behind the scenes and I am sad I didn’t push myself a little harder, though I know I was valuable where I was.

Some things that stood out: patients mostly wrote the year they were born for their age; it is very difficult to determine gender from their names, hence us needing help from our teammates; all the mothers carry their babies on their backs wrapped tightly in towels/long cloths – even as little as 1 week old; they wear their nicest clothes for the clinic;  lots of mothers and children dress in matching fabric (just like me!), children around 9 and up picked up their own prescriptions and listened to the counseling; they really liked to gather around and just watch us; and kids constantly trying to sneak in past our caution tape to steal empty water bottles or empty medicine boxes…which leads me to what stuck with me the most.

My take-aways

Food. Yes, I’ve seen the commercials and knew to expect the whole gammut of emotions when you see a hungry child. But being there and physically being present for it is just so much harder than you would think. I struggled with eating while I was there. I really, really didn’t want the granola bars I brought (or the PB or tuna). The team kept pushing us to make sure we ate while we were working. But I just couldn’t force myself to eat another Nature Valley bar. As I’m whining to myself, I look behind me and see a kid about 7 years old had snuck under our caution tape and was sitting by us. He was eating one of the boxes the liquid medicine came in (like a children’s Tylenol box). He’s tearing off bits of thin, papery cardboard to eat and I’m having an internal struggle about a granola bar? Ugh. There were a few ladies working with me who have been on multiple missions and they said it’s not uncommon. I just couldn’t let it go! I know they didn’t want me to keep talking about it, but it will be forever etched in my mind. I also saw a kid on the street chewing a ginger root – I wouldn’t be able to handle one bite. How do I recover from that? How do I stand over the garbage and toss out the food my kids refuse to eat? How do I not get crazy angry at my kids for not eating said food?

Glasses. Another thing that stood out to me, which I didn’t put the pieces together until after, is that some complaints of eye pain are likely because they don’t have any way to correct vision loss. I did not see a single person with glasses. I know a lot of missions have eyeglasses clinics, but that wasn’t a part of our ministry. I’ve worn eyeglasses since I was 8 and it’s one of those necessities I am 100% oblivious to – it never crosses my mind because I’ve always had them when I need them. One lady mentioned that she “just wants to read her bible”.

Trash. Aside from the humanitarian points, one of my huge take-aways from the trip was not only how little trash there was in general, but how much trash *I* seem to produce. I couldn’t get over it. I kept looking for a place to put my granola bar wrapper (when I humored eating it), but there weren’t any. As we set up and worked in the pharmacy, we also acquired more and more garbage and I kept shoving it in my pocket until we found a small box. Once we initiated the box garbage, it instantly overflowed.  When we left, the box was burned (good thing there wasn’t any plastic bags!). Of course it makes sense that they don’t produce garbage like we do since they eat mostly produce and meat and don’t have access to the inordinate amount of stuff we do, but the difference is so stark.

Years ago I worked with an Indian pharmacist and had a conversation that has stuck with me since…and it’s about garbage. We were talking about how I missed a week or something for the garbage truck. He told me how they rarely even have ONE bag a week. They eat mostly fresh foods, so what garbage they have is mostly compostable; whereas, my family produces unbelievable amounts of garbage – prepackaged foods, cleaning products, diapers….the list is never ending. Every day, I’m shocked we can fill up an entire garbage can and I think of him almost every time.

The religious component

The other huge side of the trip was sharing and spreading the Word of God. I wasn’t directly involved in this side being in the pharmacy, but everyone who came on the trip was not medical. One part of the team was dedicated to working on building local churches for the pastors that were with us, and another part of the team was dedicated to working with the children at the local schools, teaching them bible stories and playing games.

Over the 4 days we had to minister, these teams were able to totally brick one new church (after dealing with multiple, multiple legal hurdles), and were able to teach 5600 children the Word of God.

Finally, though all their hard work, they had 162 new Christian believers!

MY trip

If I’m being honest, my personal trip went great. I had easy travel, good accommodations, etc. But it kind of pains me to say that, because it really wasn’t about ME.

I’m still trying to wrap my mind around the trip. It truly was an incredible experience. Its hard to see a life that is so different without feeling the guilt. The team leaders try to stress not to let the guilt creep in, but that is so hard.

Just like the people of Rwanda only know their own culture, I, too, only truly know how to be American. It is where I was born and raised. It IS what I know. IT IS ME. The difference is how very little access they have to anything else, where we seemingly have access to everything. They’re so interested in us because most of them haven’t seen “Mzungu” in real life before, let alone a pop-up medical clinic full of “Mzungu”. (Mzungu = white person).

As much as I’d love to believe I am soooooo well-rounded and understand all different ways of life, I really am only touching the surface of life outside of the US. I am so fortunate to currently live in Europe and learn more about their culture (which can be quite different, believe me) and even more fortunate to have had the opportunity to travel to Rwanda and experience some of their culture.

As great as our access is to the world these days with the internet, it still doesn’t prepare you for the true experience of being in it. And while I feel the pang of guilt, I’m trying to remind myself that I have the skills and opportunities and resources to DO MORE and help more.

I hope to be able to do more mission trips in the future, so stay tuned!

Absolute BEST part

But before I go, I must share the BEST part – the overly excited, joyous screams and fanfare we received driving through the country to the clinics. It seemed like everyone came out to watch, but ALL the children screamed and screamed with excitement. It was emotionally awesome. I hope I never forget how they sounded as they screamed “Mzungu! Mzungu!!” when we drove by. I’ll post a video on FB.

The trip in pictures!