Overseas Briefing - 02/17/10

POITIERS — “The immigration office really doesn’t appreciate it when people are late. It is absolutely essential that you don’t miss your appointment.”

The coordinator for the Middlebury schools in France offered us this advice the week we arrived. In order to get your visa validated, you have get a radiology exam and various other evaluations of your health. I read my letter from the OFII (Office Français de l’Immigration et de l’Intégration) and soon forgot about it. Feb. 9 or something. Whatever.

A month later, coming back late from class, I re-read my letter and discovered that it was not the 9th, but 9 a.m., on the 3rd. It had been that morning.

“Say you had gastroenteritis,” my host mother suggested.

That seemed like a little more information than the immigration office needed about my made-up illness. (I have since found out that French people sometimes use weirdly specific medical terms for more general maladies.)

I resolved to present myself to the OFII the following day, my paperwork in order, tearful apology rehearsed. I had most of the required documents — all that remained was purchasing a “fiscal stamp.” I wasn’t quite sure what this was, but I knew I had to get it. Just one stamp. How hard could it be?

I soon learned that the sort of stamp I needed was going to play a little hard to get. Fiscal stamps aren’t like regular stamps. You can only get them at the public treasury, which proved to be quite elusive as far as buildings go. I quickly got sidetracked trying to follow my host mother’s hand-drawn map, and after 15 minutes or so was already asking random pedestrians “Where is the treasury?” and being pointed in wildly different directions.

Apparently, there was more than one treasury. I inquired at the post office, the convenience store, the town hall. Finally, I found it: a practically unmarked little hole in the wall. Unfortunately, my stamp of choice was out of stock and they sent me on my way. By this time I was starting to panic, thinking the OFII might be closed by the time I got there. I ran across town until I arrived, out of breath and in a cold sweat, at treasury number two. I forked over my 55 Euro, hoping to receive something big and official, something to justify my hour-and-a-half long wild goose chase. The woman handed me back an innocent little pink postage stamp. I don’t know what I was expecting.

But the stamp was only my ticket in. I took the bus out of the city center and soon found myself wandering up and down a God-forsaken highway of gas stations strip malls, and, supposedly, the OFII.

“Excuse me, I’m looking for the radiology office,” I asked random passersby, feeling more desperate and ridiculous each time I said it. I walked into a bank and asked the teller if she knew where the OFII was. “Next door,” she replied.

Readying myself for the pitiless immigration officials, I walked tentatively up the stairs and into the OFII office. I tried to compose myself, thinking this might not be appropriate behavior in front of a representative of the French government.

“Unfortunately you can’t have your appointment now.” My heart sank.

“Is there any way I can reschedule?” I asked anxiously, hoping she didn’t say anything that sounded like “deportation.”

“Oh, of course; it’s no problem. You can come back in two weeks.”