In Lampung: Mar 13, 2008 (Immigration woes part 2)

I have been waiting for a fax for the last three days to be sent from WCS at Bogor to immigration here. They want a copy of the id card and signed letter from Ibu Yani (my scientific counterpart) saying that she is my sponsor. But, really a different office (Ristek) is supposed to be my sponsor for immigration purposes. Of course, when the immigration officer called that office they said oh no we are not her sponsor, it is Ibu Yani and Universitas Indonesia. Everyday I return to immigration and wait there for several hours, but still this fax has not come. Then, today I discovered that WCS staff had tried to send it, but it could not go through seeing as the power and therefore fax machine is not functional at immigration today. Grrrrr. It is really fitting that to describe something not working or not on you say that it is "mati," which means "dead," because I feel like I have been stopped dead in my tracks. I have already been here (Lampung) for a week and made almost no progress at all.

I exerted a lot of energy today and got absolutely nothing out of it, so I am a bit frustrated at the moment. I spent the morning (about 3 hours plus part of yesterday) riding Angkots (little, converted minivans used for cheap public transportation across Indonesia that are really more like clown cars for a giant American like me) from bank to bank trying to exchange my travelers checks for cash. When I finally found one that would do it, they said that they would have to copy and examine several pages from my passport. I was prepared with photocopies of my passport and visa, as well as three other forms of id, but this just was not good enough. I would have been happy to let them make copies from my original passport, but of course immigration still has it, so no dice. I hoped to finish with immigration today and retrieve my passport, but as I already explained that too was unsuccessful. I know that there is nothing else I can do to speed this up, but I really hate losing a month of my allotted 12 just hanging out in offices and hotel rooms.