mmarlo

Psssshttt, I got you all beat!

While Skydiving.

Wow you must be fast!

Good luck, and keep us posted!

I haven't had Fufu, but I've had the East African equivalent--ugali. It's not bad!

I hear the sweetest part of the fish are the eyes, but I never ate them. The key to eating a whole fish is to use your hands.

Goat meat is great, as long as you emphasize that you want a lean cut. In East Africa anyway, you can usually select the piece of meat you want hacked off by the butcher and you can insist that all the fat get cut off. Then it's great! Goat kidneys and testicles, however, are disgusting, and I won't eat a liver, whether it's from a chicken, a goat or elsewhere.

I don't care for chicken gizzards, which is a problem because they're always offered to a male guest, and I was often a guest. At first it was a problem, but when you pass them on to the eldest male in the room, he's certainly not going to turn them down.

I've had really good matumbo ("stomachs"), but in general I just don't like the thought of it or the thin, twisty intestines--no matter how well they're cleaned!

I wish I had tried the sweet white ants while I was in Kenya, but I never really found a good opportunity.

You guys need to be more adventurous!

I'm going to hell for this please don't hate me I had sexytime when I was a teenager in the bathroom at church. Restaurant bathroom, on the groun at a drive in, in an apple orchard, pool, hot tub, in the parking garage at universal studios in hollywood (got caught). haha. I am a bad girl

Excellent! God Bless girls like you!

Airplane (on a red-eye a few months back). We were sitting next to a priest, which I guess makes it even worse. Flight attendant banging on the door. How embarrasing. We didn't get in any trouble though.

Also, on the deck of a sailboat, at anchor, with dozens of boats around. Thanks to the pea-soup fog, no one saw a thing.

And a train.

I think a Cessna with the auto pilot on next time would be easier than the red-eye...

hmmm..sounds like you have a thing about transportation....plane..boat....train

You never know when you're going to die. Might as well enjoy yourself for as often and as long as possible, wherever, whenever, however.

OMG, she's so cute!

At Pier One in Montego Bay, Jamaica, oceanside.

That's hot.

Hehe, I've got an answer for that question! We were camping in the mountains in Germany and decided to go off for a little walk after it got dark and proceeded to start having some "sexy time" further up the mountain away from all the other campers. Little did we know we just so happened to pick an area that was covered in fire ants. Needless to say it was a very "hot" experience, but not necessarily in the way I wanted it to be... Ahh, memories!

Wow, I guess my story wasn't unique! But at least I avoided the fire ants!

Sexy....hmm...I wonder why it always evolve around sex. I am attracted to personality more so than sexiness. My wife is embarrassed to be sexy. LOL. She is a natural beauty requiring no make up or facial powder.

Being beautiful is one thing--a good one--but being sexy, spontaneous, and in the mood nearly as often as me is another--and a much better thing (if I had to choose)! Fortunately, I get both.

Dang, I must be boring and unadventurous...

Try something new. Spice it up!

Yes.

Well I'm stumped.

I just took the advice of this thread and called up a local travel agent... The guy on the phone said "Have you looked at the airline websites? We can't do cheaper than that". I couldn't help but laugh. The guy sounded so disinterested in my phone call. I'm pretty sure that <insert travel agent here> would be fairly underwhelmed knowing that they have this guy working for them.

It probably depends on the agent, if they work for a consolidator, possibly what country you're flying to, etc. For more complicated flights and to destinations that aren't 'standard', it seems you should always at least check with one or more travel agents. Possibly for more common routes, the best you may be able to do is through online sites--sites that search across airlines and from the airlines' sites themselves.

mountainside in western Kenya...

...and in the matatu (mini-bus public transport) on the way home...

with the road conditions and potholes that must have been one heck of a bumpy ride !

mountainside in western Kenya...

...and in the matatu (mini-bus public transport) on the way home...

As I understand it, you can easily enter the country as a tourist, and you could backpack around, but I don't think you could legally work while here.

charlesandnessa, because you have all the hearts and the last 2 are bigger, i must know how many posts you have. it must be over 9,000.

You can find out by clicking on the user-name and when the drop-down list appears click on "Find Member's Posts". If search flood control doesn't give you an error message, it will show the member's posts, and in that view, it will show below the user's name how many posts he or she has. In Charles' case, you'll see that he has 13353 posts (at least as of 10:03 EST 04/22).

Very cute. Thanks!

Sounds like one good use for cyrogenic technology.

It appears that in our case, we're going to have a wedding party at Christmas this year with her family in Kenya. It should be a lot of fun, and I hope this allows us to incorporate a bit more of her tradition, as opposed to just making a cash payment.

Honestly, I don't think sending the letter had an effect. I got an email from the congressman's office asking for Jacinta's name and date of birth (which I had already provided them with) after she had already had her interview and got approved. Then I got a strange voice mail message from another congressman's office, also after the interview, informing me that she had *missed* an interview scheduled for March 26. I tried calling the congressman's office on two separate occasions but couldn't get a hold of them just to see what the story was they had gotten. I don't understand it because Jacinta did go to the Embassy on the 26th--that's when she dropped off her packet 3 information to the Embassy and found out that there wasn't a separate letter she needed to schedule the medical exam. I don't know if they considered that a "missed interview", or if the Embassy's record-keeping is just that f*d up.

My fiancee's medical seemed to be more invasive than most. The exam didn't quite become "internal", but the doctor did seem interested in getting to third base. He had her strip naked, turn around, and then with rubber gloves and a flashlight wanted to check out her female parts. You can read more about the experience here:

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.ph...mp;#entry791406

I hope your experience in China will be better than ours in Kenya. Good luck.

Best of luck to you. Let me say, though, that I wouldn't put too much faith that the petition is in God's hands because if you think that, you could end up getting very annoyed with God. God didn't create governments and bureaucracy; man did! Glad we can all share our experiences here and help each other through it. Let me ask--where is your fiance from in Cameroon? What is his native language? I worked with a Cameroonian lady for some time in Columbus, OH, and she taught me a bit about her native language--Bakweri (or Mokpe), which is a sister language to Douala.

Ghana may have a slightly different procedure, but the general instructions are the following (which I found here: http://www.***removed***/visas/kvisa/consulate-process.html --not a VJ site, but I have found it useful and mostly correct):

Step 1:

Immediately return the following documents for each applicant:

* Completed DS 230 Part I Biographic data form

* Clear photocopies of the biographic data page of your passport and the last page of your passport which contains your parents/spouse's names, and any other page(s) which may indicate any change in name/date & place of birth/marital status

Step 2:

Obtain the following documents which pertain to you. Do not send the documents to the consulate now. You will need to submit them at your visa interview.

* 2 photographs

* Passport

* Birth certificate

* Police certificates

* Deportation (Applicants who have previously been deported or removed at the government expense from the United States must use Form I-212, Permission to Reapply after Deportation and follow the instructions included on that form.)

* Court and prison records

* Military records

* Proof of legal termination of prior marriages

* Proof of relationship

K1 visa: Evidence that you have met your fiance(e), and proof of a valid engagement. Some examples of evidence are family and other photographs (old and recent) showing the parties together, letters, cards, correspondence, and telephone records.

K2 visa: Proof of relationship with K1 visa applicant

K3 visa: Marriage certificate. Optionally bring marriage photographs and other proof that the marriage is genuine.

K4 visa: Proof of relationship with K3 visa applicant

* Form I-134, affidavit of support

Consulate requires evidence that you won't need to go on welfare or receive other government assistance.

If children are immigrating with you, separate I-134 forms are not required. Listing them in Question 3 in Form I-134 is sufficient.

More details. That web page describes details specifically for sponsoring visitors. However, the documents required are same for any visa.

As soon as you have collected all the above documents, read the document called "Applicant's Statement" (enclosed in Packet 3), sign and date it, and return the checklist to the consulate together with a photocopy of all applicants' passports. You will not be schedule for a visa interview until you complete, sign, and return this checklist to the consulate.

After they receive the checklist, they will schedule your visa interview at the earliest possible date. It is not possible to predict when the interview will be scheduled. Generally, the visa interviews are scheduled within 2 to 4 months of the consulate receiving the checklist from the visa applicant. When your visa interview is scheduled, the consulate will send you an appointment letter (Packet 4) which contains instructions regarding the interview. Normally, You will not receive further correspondence from the consulate until the visa interview is scheduled. You may check the consulate web site to see whether your appointment has been scheduled.

Additional Information: Please inform the consulate immediately of any changes that may affect your visa application, such as your change of address, your change of marital status, the death of the petitioner, birth or adoption of any children by you. Failure to keep the consulate informed of your current address at all times may result in the delay of the issuance of a visa to you.

I have found plenty of incompetence at the US Embassy in Nairobi, but this is beyond belief. I am curious to know about exactly what the Embassy told him about returning the Packet 3/4 materials. In Kenya, they require you to make an appointment over the phone to return these materials, so if you just went to the Embassy, you would be turned away no matter what, unless you had an appointment. I'm wondering if perhaps this is what happened, and they said they had no record of him having an appointment for that day--not that they have no record of him period.

Does Ben have any copies of the packet that the Embassy had given him. They may have given him a letter, which would have been specific to him and would be proof that they did have a record of him, so if there is a problem it's on their end. This really doesn't make any sense, but it should be fixable--but maybe not as quickly as you would like or as quickly as you and Ben deserve.

The NVC should also have a record of having sent his file, as well as access to the the DHL signature showing that the Embassy did receive the file. There should be enough of a paper trail to get it fixed.

The one concern that occured to me though is: when does your approved petition expire? This was a big concern for Jacinta and me, but eventually we got everything approved--and just in time.

Awww. Let us see a picture! :-)