A Somewhat Costly Mistake

Oxbear was gone the whole morning, picking up Joe’s completed passport and getting official papers signed at the ICBF.

While he ran around the city doing that, I waited in the garden watching Yali kick around a partially deflated basketball. It’s fitting. Basketball courts and volleyball courts seem to only be used for soccer around here. Why they built basketball courts and volleyball courts in the first place, I don’t know. Occasionally – between kicks – Yali threw himself on the ground in a dramatic flop. I certainly wasn’t throwing up any yellow cards. When he got tired of kicking around the basketball, he just poured handfuls of dirt on it.

 

Oxbear joined us halfway through lunch, setting Yali’s dark red passport on the table. One more step checked off that long list. Just two steps left.

We hoped.

 

At 2:30, Andres drove us back to the doctor. Two hours later – and a lengthy tournament of paper airplanes between Yali and Andres – we met the embassy-approved physician. He spoke English.

As he browsed Yali’s thick stack of medical paperwork, I read his accreditation on the wall. He studied in Boston.

“So his right kidney is missing,” he noted after awhile. “That is okay. A human can live with one kidney.”

Finally got that one cleared up.

“He will maybe need braces for his legs. His legs will only get worse.”

Sounds like fun.

“He has no more heart murmur though.”

Good.

“Oh, and his mother was indigenous.”

Nice.

In the end, he passed.

 

While Oxbear did a sandwich run that evening, the Program Director called me.

“I have bad news for you,” she said. I could hear the deep apology in her voice. “They wrote up Yali’s passport wrong. You have to go again very early tomorrow morning. And … you have to pay again.”

Sure enough, they had somehow reversed his given name and surname. Only the doctor’s secretary had finally noticed it. Good thing I hadn’t bought our tickets home yet. Well, well, you win some, you lose some.

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Jamie Larson
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