Let the K1 Visa process begin...

As a process, getting married to someone who lives in another country is a bit intricate. That is, if you want this person to be able to live and work in the US.

I've talked to friends and friends of friends who have gone through the process, and the words I keep hearing are "patience" and "contact your Congressman's office" (the latter coming from those who've seen fiance visa applications disappear into the bureaucratic ether).

In Yucatan, you can't help but notice a certain anxiety associated with applying for a visa (even a tourist visa) to the US, largely because it involves completing a face-to-face interview, the perceived directness and intensity of which quickly highlights profound cultural differences between Yucatecan culture and US culture. Add to that a political climate that puts all but the richest Mexicans under scrutiny, plus the MN$1,000 peso fee (US $100 is a lot of money in Mexico) and you've got a good recipe for fear and loathing.

My observation is that Yucatecan culture places a high value on gestures of respect, discretion in how one communicates and, particularly, harmony between people. I know this because on two separate occasions last year, I brought Yucatecans to tears when it wasn't my intent to do so. Slowly, I've learned to be a bit more gentle in my negotiations (though by December, I had still managed to earn the nickname "La Mandona", The Demander... but that's another story). Juan is careful to make me aware of moments when I could have greeted someone before jumping straight to my reason for talking with them. I'm learning.

Since deciding to marry and live in the US, both Juan and I have received all kinds of advice from friends and acquaintances, both in Merida and in the US. Honestly, the best "advice" we've gotten has been the simple gesture of encouragement-- this from the folks who know that the matter of visas is a process and that this takes time, careful attention to details, and patience. Least helpful have been the doomsayers-- those who doubt out loud that Juan will ever be allowed into the US, those who say we're going about it the wrong way (e.g. that we should marry in Mexico and *then* apply for a visa - it is one option, but not the one we've chosen, thank you), and those who share their favorite immigration horror stories as if this is somehow helpful to us.

Being a realist-optimist, I'm taking this one step at a time. And for me, this blog has renewed its usefulness to me in that I can come here to document this process that so many are so quick to characterize.

So it seems a good time to start with the basics: I'm a US Citizen, Juan is Mexican, and we submitted the 129-F Petition for K1 Fiance Visa on Monday, April 16, 2007. Applying from Maryland, where I live, I've sent our petition to the Vermont Service Center (United States Citizenship and Immigration Service, Department of Homeland Security).

I prepared the petition myself, without the help of an attorney, though it took a lot of careful reading and research to feel comfortable with the forms and required documentation. We'll see if that decision comes back to bite us. :)

Through USPS delivery confirmation, I know the packet was signed for by someone in Vermont on Wednesday, April 18, 2007.

The rush of mailing in this petition left me feeling... impatient. So I looked around online and I found this lovely K1 Visa flowchart from a very helpful site, VisaJourney.com. It is here that I learned the lingo of the fiance visa application process.

The first word in my new lingo is "NOA", which means "Notice of Action." This is the first notice you receive that tells you your paperwork is now in the System.

I received my first NOA today, April 25. Next step: "NOA 2", which will be sent when the petition is approved by the kind folks in Vermont. (Hi, kind folks in Vermont!)

Please stay tuned. Meanwhile, keep your fingers crossed for speedy processing.

Can't walk away...

Within days of returning to the US, I knew I wouldn't be able to mark my year in Merida simply as "that year I spent in Mexico." Not at all.

I don't expect you to understand-- not, at least, based on what you see in this blog. I stopped writing sometime in August 2006 when everything came to a crashing halt. It wasn't just my computer's hard drive and my health (a catch-your-attention case of pneumonia), as those would have been mere bumps. Rather, it was the demise and death of a friend in Merida followed quickly by the serious illnesses of two more close friends there that had me looking at life differently. Suddenly, I was living in a Merida that was entirely distinct and more three dimensional than what I had found up to that point. With so much death and recovery, I took to living.

And dancing. That's when I got to know Juan, a lovely Yucateco whom I'd met at the Merida English Library months earlier, and who had made a point of greeting me whenever we ran into each other. We took to dancing on a regular basis, and by the end of September, we had grown fond of one another.

There's a story behind all of that, and at some point, I'll post excerpts from that story. Which is to say that it has not only been written down, but it's been printed and sent in as part of the K1 Fiance Visa petition that we recently submitted to the US Government.

Yeah, Juan and I are getting married. :)