Through deepening trials, or what's in a name?

As soon as we heard Steve's application was approved, we started looking at flights. Of course, we couldn't make any final travel plans until he had his passport in hand. So, Steve got in touch with the courier, who told him they had picked up the passport package in Dakar, but that there might be a small delay in getting it back to Cameroon because of Eid. "And oh, this is kind of funny," the courier said (paraphrasing here), "But your name is spelled wrong on the envelope."

When Steve told me this, my heart sank. We had known all along that his second last name was misspelled within the immigration "system" and tried mightily to get them to fix it. Likely, the error occurred at the data entry point when someone moved the information from our paper application into the digital records.

To be fair, the error was really just a typo.

A single extra letter.

To be clear, someone put a D where it didn't belong. (Don't even get me started. I have countless tasteless jokes I could make about this.)

Anyhow, I made my first call about it over a year ago after I was approved as a sponsor and saw his name in the first set of documents they sent to me. "No big deal, it will get fixed" was what I was basically told at the time. But it still wasn't sitting right with me so in February I sent an email detailing the mistake, and even said: "we would hate to see this error carry through to any documents required to enter the country."

(Some might call that foreshadowing.)

A full month after that email, in late March, I received a response telling me that the error was "irrelevant" and that it would be corrected at the time the Visa was issued if his application was approved (spoiler alert: nope). So I had stuffed down the anxiety and never mentioned the name error again. (Just kidding. I definitely flagged it in every subsequent communication with immigration/Dakar).

Until the documents actually arrived back in Cameroon all we could do was hope that the error was on the envelope, but not on the actual documents. I mean, they'd had his passport (with proper spelling) in their very hands to affix the visa, for goodness sake!

But sure enough, when Steve received his confirmation of permanent residence and visa, his name was misspelled.

It was about 5 a.m. my time when he called to deliver the disappointing news. By then it was early June and the medical would expire in two weeks. Now that they had issued the visa, it was too late to redo the medical to buy extra time. And, given their track record with the timing of responses, we were sure we wouldn't even hear back from them in time to fix the problem. If he tried to travel anyway, Steve stood more than a chance of being turned away upon arrival, but if he didn't travel before his medical expired, we would have to start the process all over again. Talk about being stuck between a rock and immigration.

Suddenly, I was no longer anxious. I was mad. Enraged, even. Knowing that if it had been our fault, it could have impacted their treatment and even approval of our file was enough to make my blood boil. But, the fact that it was their fault and it was potentially going to knock us back to square one... let's just say I have never felt more ready to knock skulls.

I had to take a personal day to figure out our next steps. Steve sent an email to Dakar and I started off by calling the immigration client service line, which I should have known would be pretty useless based on my previous conversation with them. Next, I sent an email through the general immigration webform outlining the various attempts we'd made to correct the error, and started trying all the numbers I could find for the high commissions and embassies in Cameroon and Senegal, reaching nothing but endless pre-recorded messages. Honestly, I'm dreading seeing my next phone bill.

Coming up against dead ends and not knowing what else to possibly do, I called my MP's office. The manager there connected me to the office of another MP who oversees immigration matters and the office manager was kind enough to make time in her morning to see me if I could make it in by 11 a.m. It was already a little after 9:30 and I had to pull together a slew of documents, but I wasn't going to miss the opportunity.

So I dispatched Steve to scan and send copies of the documents he had just received from immigration and I busted my butt to Staples to print off reams of correspondence showing our multiple attempts to rectify the spelling error. By 3 p.m. we had filled out all the required paperwork to let the MP's office act and receive information on our behalf, and I went to find my first meal of the day.

That night as I went to bed, I barely dared to be hopeful. But by the time I woke up the next morning, Steve had already received a call from the visa office in Dakar telling him that if he would return to the capital city (five hours away) by 8 a.m. the next day, they would authorize someone at the Canadian High Commission in Cameroon to issue replacement documents. (Inspired immigration proverb: An inquiry from above is worth at least half a dozen nudges from below). Obviously, we liked that option better than paying another $450 to send the documents back and forth to Senegal again. Plus, it was quicker, too.

It probably didn't feel much faster to Steve when he then spent five hours waiting inside the High Commission (where phones are prohibited) while the local staff waffled back and forth on whether they needed to issue new documents or just write him a letter or something. Nevertheless, Steve left that afternoon with both a new CoPR and visa in hand.

Praise Jesus, hallelujah!!

But we weren't done jumping through hoops just yet...