In order to work in Turkey each of us foreign teachers needs a work permit and with that we can apply for a residence permit. Last year that involved the school sending my contract to Ankara for ministry approval, and me sending my passport to the Turkish Consul in Los Angeles to get the necessary stamps. When I arrived last August I went with several of the other new teachers to the police station to pick them up. The school really takes care of things for us. They send in the forms, with the copies of our passports and when we get to our appointment, a school driver takes us, and Azizbey walks us in and does all of the talking we need so that we don't have to wait long before we head in and sign for the booklet.
This year things weren't quite as smooth. All of our residence permits expired on August 31st and even though the school had our passport and applications before then, we were not given appointments until into October at the earliest. Without the residence permit we are officially here illegally and if we try to leave the country, we will not be allowed back in for twice the amount of time that our permit was expired. An interesting side note, if you are out of the country when it expires, there is no problem since you were never here illegally and you can come in on a tourist visa available at the airport.
Fortunately I didn't want to leave the country in September and I was one of the lucky ones to get an appointment for the first week of October. Others have appointments in mid October or even late November. Since we have two longish holidays in that time, this is really unfortunate timing as they will not be able to travel. What makes it more unfortunate is that the school didn't know or didn't tell them ahead of time and some folks have made travel plans that they now need to cancel.
When I went last Friday, there were seven other teachers who were on the same trip. We left school at 1pm on a Friday and through pretty bad traffic made it to the police station at 1:35. Azizbey had three bags of nice chocolates that he brought in with him, through the airport scanner and metal detector, upstairs and through the huge number of folks in the lobby of the residence permit office. It was jam packed! He goes up to the office door with the chocolates and comes back without them to tell us 30 minutes. I have a plane to catch at 4:30 and friends waiting outside in a car with a driver to take me to the airport, but I had originally planned to meet them at 2, so I wasn't feeling too anxious yet.
It is approaching two when Azizbey hands me his phone saying that Dilek is on the phone for me. She says I can leave, I wont get my permit that day, but it is ok, I will go back another day. I met my friends and headed to Mardin (blog post coming). While at the airport, I texted Janelle who told me that she hadn't gotten her permit either, so several of us would have to go back.
The trip was great and I was able to travel just on my California drivers licence, even though I had my passport, I didn't want to risk anyone noticing that I didn't have a visa or a residence permit. I went back to the police station on Wednesday morning and we were in and out in 30 minutes. No problem, and I am legal for two years this time. I wonder what that means if I stop working here...If I come back to visit before August 2014, do I just walk in?
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