I wish I was blogging about Jersey Shore … but I'm not.
I knew that getting our residence permits would be less than enjoyable … I didn't realize it would be hell.
So, "The Situation" goes like this; we must have our residence permit within thirty days of arrival or we are only allowed to stay in Turkey for a total of ninety-days.
We were well aware of this and were asking the AIESECers to take us to the police station almost immediately after we arrived. We were told that the "reception officer" who deals with residence permits and such was away for Ramazan and Bayram. Of course. So we waited for his return on Monday and started hounding him like a telemarketer. Do we have our permits? No.
We took one look at our visas and said they were the wrong visas. Our visa are "training and internship" and should be "AIESEC internship". This is because the Turkish government changed their regulations on internship visas in July. Apparently, AIESEC did not consider this vital information for us to know. So, at this point we know that there are going to problems.
To troubleshoot this problems we get advice to "tell a little lie" to the Turkish police and government that we are not getting paid. Um, I've seen Midnight Express and I'm not down with lying to any government … especially the Turkish government. Regardless, this proposed "little lie" will not fix the issue because with the changed regulations it is mandatory to get a work permit before a residence permit.
So, the reception officer makes a few calls to the embassies and government. No new information came out of his calls. He tells us that we will all go to the police station on Friday to figure it out. We are on him like white on rice all week. Friday rolls around and he is a freaking no show.
So, my flatmate who doesn't know too much about the procedure take us so that we don't waste any more time. At the police station it was confirmed that we indeed do need to have our work permit prior to our residence permit. Both permits can be yours for the price of $1000 Turkish lira. Just a small fortune.
To further complicate "the situation", all of the AIESECers leave tomorrow morning to go to a conference for four days. Meaning, we have two days when they return to figure out all this out.
Keep your fingers crossed …
