NimoMN

Congrats on getting married! I'm not sure about the questions you have since I'm doing a K1 but good luck! When you are asking about DNA, do you mean for kids that are involved?

Just wanted to let everyone know that Sifa passed his medical exam - he went to Dr. Patel in Mombasa and had nothing but good things to say about the whole experience! Next up: interview! Jan 11. I'm flying over Jan 6 to go with him. Can't wait!!

Hello Katie and Sifa...... I hope that your interview goes well and that you had a safe journey. I hope that we hear some good news regarding the interview once you are done having fun in the sun and warmth of dear old East Africa!

Thank you SheFellfromHeaven. I appreciate the well wishes. It has been an exciting and at times frustrating experience. But I am glad to finally be at the end of the visa journey and to know that my lovely wife and I are starting a family and can be together forever is really a blessing. I never thought we get this far. So there is hope and an end to process, I can now vouch for that!

Hello All,

I am not sure how to post in this thread, its been a long time! But I wanted to stop by and let everyone know that my wife was sworn in as a US Citizen on Dec. 2, 2009. It was one of the greatest Christmas gifts we could ever ask for. It is so refreshing to be DONE with USCIS forever.

Then my wife gave me the greatest birthday gift of all on Dec. 30th when she told me that she was pregnant with our first child. It has been a fantastic end to a wonderful year. I really hope everyone going through this process finds the results they want and guickly.

All the best to everyone and I hope 2010 is your best year yet. I know I am nervous and excited about all the changes coming our direction.

Thank you

Congratulations on the good news shefellfrom.

Soontobe I am keeping my fingers crossed everything will work out soon for you!

Congratulations! I am only jealous you will be in UG until Feb!!!!!! Enjoy the warmth and sunshine now that you can relax.

Congratulations! I am very happy for you both to be together in the New Year. I do not have any more to add about the tough transition, stress, potential conflict and such. But for the school part, my wife and I did not want to wait the year for her to establish residency so we looked into private schools. They charge the same tuition if you have lived all your life in the state or not. And the private school tuition was still cheaper than paying out of state tuition rates. The private school was also very familiar with the college that she earned her undergraduate degree from in Uganda. So that made it much easier to have her creditionals evualated. It also turned out that there were many other graduate students attending the university from Uganda as well. So she was able to meet a lot of people to help with easing her transition to life here. Once we were married and had applied to Adjust her status, she was eligible for financial aid. As it turned out, she found a great job in her field, with tuition reimbursement that coincided with starting school. So that was the best move for us at the time.

Just something to think about. But please do not get too wrapped up in getting everything in motion right away. The one thing the whole K-1 process taught me was that EVERY thing takes time. So happy New Year and again, congratulations!!!!!!

Congratulations! I am so happy to hear about everyone getting one step closer to being together, especially during these trying economic times.

We also have had some good news here, my wife's 10 year green card was approved. So we are now officially done with USCIS until 2018! Or until she decides to become a citizen. But I think we will just enjoy the sense of permenance that we are feeling for a while.

After reflecting back on this rocky visa journey, what an apt name that is for it truely is a journey; I hope everyone's visa journey comes to an end at some point. No couple should have to go through all the hoops and hassale that is the burden of our "international" relationships. But there is a light at the end of the tunnel and with time we all will get there. I wish you all a wonderful, safe, and happy New Year! All though I do not know everyone here currently going through the various visa processes, I have appreciated reading your experiences and have only wished for good things for all of us going through this. I only wish I could have offered some advice in the trying difficult times, but know I always offer my support! But this "old timer" will stop ramblingnow. Take care and talk to all my East African friends later.

Jason and Matilda

I just wanted to sent out my congratulations to all who received their NOA 2's!!!!! That is great the system is moving along.

I also wanted to wish everyone a great holiday. We have been receiving a ton of snow here in Minnesota, so my wife and I took some pictures of us in front of the house with our Ugandan flag and sent them back to our family in Kampala and Gulu. They called back laughing thinking that might be the first Ugandan flag to have snow hit it.

Hope everyone here has a safe holiday and a great 2009!

Hello All,

Life is good here. Just working a lot with interest rates dropping and new mortgage programs coming along all the time. I am a project manager for a large mortgage company. I am also a student working on my Masters, so it is finals this week. My wife is graduating with her Masters on the Dec. 19th. So I am busy planning a party for her as well putting together a nice romantic evening for her birthday on Dec. 13th. So between all that and Christmas, I am broke and stressed out. But what can you do but keep going.

On the visa front, we are still waiting to hear our petition for her 10 year green card. We filed back in June, so it should be any day now. But I have heard of cases taking up to a year. I can not complain though, at least we are together and working towards our mutual goals. So all in all.......... things could not better.

I really hope everyone has a joyous and peaceful Holiday season and wonderful 2009!!!!!!!!!!

Take Care

Hey everyone! I posted this on the June forum--I am so excited!!!! Naraj--how is your fiancee doing? I'm sure you are so excited to see her soon! thank you for all of your help!!!

APPROVED!!!!!!!!!!!! :dance: :dance: :dance: :dance:

Wow, I can finally write this message I have been longing to write for so long!!!! I took Mike and Gracey's advice and called USCIS. The first worker refused to "escalate my call" saying there was no supervisor available, and that she had all the info to help me. She actually got an attitude about it--I hung up on her I was so frustrated! Called back and the next worker was so nice-- I calmly explained my situation and asked to speak to a supervisor just to be sure about my case. She agreed to escalate my call and the nice supervisor told me what I wanted to here:

APPROVED November 12th!!!!!!

YAY!!!!!!! Thank you everyone for all of your support and advice--I really would have gone crazy without you! Now I hope that the second stage will go more smoothly....but I'm not holding my breath! Just SO GLAD to have some inkling that this will all be over soon.

I just wanted to say congratulations!!!! I am very happy for you both. And I am so jealous you will be Kampala for the Holidays!!!! I can think of a lot worse places to be. Enjoy and have a rolex for me!

Congratulations! I wish you both the best and that you are together very soon!

Glad to hear that things are coming together and you will be reunited pretty soon. And I can not believe you have not received the NOA2 yet! WOW!!!! But it sounds like you are handling things VERY well.

As for our kwangula, I paid: 10 cows, 10 goats, and 10 chickens. We also had some other things to buy like a suit and dress for her aunt and uncle. We paid for the transport of the family committee from Gulu and Attiak to Kampala. Then we had the traditional sugar, kerosene, matches, tobaccoo.

The best part was the fines we had to pay. It was quite the experience and had both sides of the negotiation comittees laughing. We had to pay a fine because my best man (my best friend that I grew-up with and have known for 25 years) left his shoes on when walking into her families house. We had to pay because we sat int he empty chairs her family had set out. We should have sat on the floor. We also paid a fine to have the ceremony in English.

We also had to bribe her uncles and brothers to bring my wife from where ever she was hidden in the house. First they brought out three younger girls and asked if she was amongst them. We said no, they responded that was all the daughters they had. So we paid a little money and then three more mature women came out. They asked which one of these daughters we came for and we responded she was not amongst those women. They again said that was all the daughters they had in the house and why can we not find the daughter we came for.... don't we know her. So we paid a little more money and then she came out all happy. The actual negotiations lasted for about an hour.

We had about 200 people there total for the dance and dinner after words. So it was really the first time I got to meet ALL her family and the tribal elders. Luckily I had 12 friends plus my mom, sister, neice, and aunt fly from the US over there with my wife and I for the wedding, kwangula and all the other stuff we planned like the safari and fishing on Lake Victoria. We did the kwangula at the start of our trip. We had our church wedding the week after and the regular reception after that at Serena Munyonyo.

Now you know basically everything we did for our wedding. It was a blast from when we landed to when we had to leave. All my friends and family said it was a trip of a lifetime. So that made me feel a lot better after asking them to spend so much money to go.

Take care and thanks again for starting the thread.

:lol: :lol: Reading your description of the kwangula had me smiling! Ah yes....I have been to a few kwangula's of friends and one negotiation meeting, and it was a blast--it really is a communal event. We want to have some sort of ceremony in his village in Masindi (he's originally from Arua, but his family moved south looking for work)--but I'm not sure if it will be super traditional as my family wouldn't really know what to do with all those cows and chickens We might just have a huge feast for everyone with dancing and music. We still have some time to figure it out!

Take care, and thanks for stopping by. I'll keep you updated as things progress

This is to those who have already completed the medical exam (Naraj, ARK...)

How much did the medical exam and vaccinations COST?

I can't find information on this anywhere. Thanks for your help!

Sounds like a plan. Hard to tell its a slow day at work. I am just sitting on conference calls for the next 2 hours.

So I figure I might as well try and learn how to post on here so that it shows the message I am responding to. I managed to mess up my previous post.

Glad to hear that things are coming together and you will be reunited pretty soon. And I can not believe you have not received the NOA2 yet! WOW!!!! But it sounds like you are handling things VERY well.

As for our kwangula, I paid: 10 cows, 10 goats, and 10 chickens. We also had some other things to buy like a suit and dress for her aunt and uncle. We paid for the transport of the family committee from Gulu and Attiak to Kampala. Then we had the traditional sugar, kerosene, matches, tobaccoo.

The best part was the fines we had to pay. It was quite the experience and had both sides of the negotiation comittees laughing. We had to pay a fine because my best man (my best friend that I grew-up with and have known for 25 years) left his shoes on when walking into her families house. We had to pay because we sat int he empty chairs her family had set out. We should have sat on the floor. We also paid a fine to have the ceremony in English.

We also had to bribe her uncles and brothers to bring my wife from where ever she was hidden in the house. First they brought out three younger girls and asked if she was amongst them. We said no, they responded that was all the daughters they had. So we paid a little money and then three more mature women came out. They asked which one of these daughters we came for and we responded she was not amongst those women. They again said that was all the daughters they had in the house and why can we not find the daughter we came for.... don't we know her. So we paid a little more money and then she came out all happy. The actual negotiations lasted for about an hour.

We had about 200 people there total for the dance and dinner after words. So it was really the first time I got to meet ALL her family and the tribal elders. Luckily I had 12 friends plus my mom, sister, neice, and aunt fly from the US over there with my wife and I for the wedding, kwangula and all the other stuff we planned like the safari and fishing on Lake Victoria. We did the kwangula at the start of our trip. We had our church wedding the week after and the regular reception after that at Serena Munyonyo.

Now you know basically everything we did for our wedding. It was a blast from when we landed to when we had to leave. All my friends and family said it was a trip of a lifetime. So that made me feel a lot better after asking them to spend so much money to go.

Take care and thanks again for starting the thread.

Hello All,

I can not offer any advice about going through the Nairobi consulate, but I can offer support. My now wife is orginally from Uganda, but we met while she was living in London so we went through the London embassy. I just wanted to make sure to join the new and wonderful East Africa thread. We are in the process of removing conditions on my wife's 2 year permenant residency card. We also had our religious and traditional tribal wedding in Kampala last June.

On a side note..... I am sorry we lost touch Madwoman. But I am not very good at navigating Visa Journeys messaging system. I had responded to your email and not heard back from you. So I am sure I had messed it up in some way and not sent it correctly. But thank you for starting this thread.

I wish everyone the best in their Visa Journey and can unequivocally say it is ALL worth it in the end.

The movie is really good, but the book is ALOT better. The ending in the movie is about the half-way point of the book. So if you get a chance, go and pick it up..... its a page turner. Dont read it at night as it might keep you up not wanting to stop. The hardest part is to seperate what is fact and what is fiction. Some of the characters are real, some are not, but the author blends them together into a great story with enough non-fiction to keep you guessing as to what is fiction and vise-versa.

But I agree 100%, Forrest Witaker did an excellent job! My wife said he nailed the Ugandan accent and his Kiswahili was pretty good also. It was all shot on location so she loved that as it was like taking a drive down some of the streets of Kampala in some of the scenes. Even the hotel she used to work at was one of the locations they shot the film at.

We waited 1 month for ours to arrive and it never came. We went back into our local social security office and the woman there said that they sent it;but since they typed our city name in incorrectly it was never delivered (they added an extra letter at the end our city name). She also told us that we should not have waited so long. If its not a problem getting time off work, I would go back into your local office and see what is going on. Our local office (Minnesota) told me that it should not take longer then two weeks and if the address doesn't match exactly to what is in usps.com then it wont be delivered and will not be forwarded to if you have moved.

After that we received the card in 7 days. It was delivered 3 days later but put into our neighbors mailbox by mistake of the postman.

Good luck!

Hello,

Not sure if this will help you, but it always helps me when I am feeling stressed. It is a very long poem, but it is a good one. So here goes......

Desiderata by Max Ehrmann 1952

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,

and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible without surrender

be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly;

and listen to others,

even the dull and the ignorant;

they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,

they are vexations to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others,

you may become vain and bitter;

for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;

it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs;

for the world is full of trickery.

But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;

many persons strive for high ideals;

and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.

Especially, do not feign affection.

Neither be cynical about love;

for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment

it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,

gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.

But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.

Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyone a wholesome discipline,

be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,

no less than the trees and the stars;

you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you,

no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,

whatever you conceive Him to be,

and whatever your labors and aspirations,

in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,

it is still a beautiful world.

Be cheerful.

Strive to be happy.

Take care and I wish you all the best!