Carte de Sejour
In just two weeks, our 90-day tourist stay in Morocco (Americans aren’t required to have a visa for the first three months) will be up. The usual routine is for expats to head to Spain or France, have their passports stamped, hang out for a few days and then return where they’re greeted with open arms for another three months. The consequences if you overstay your welcome, however, are grave, or so we’ve been told. Morocco is happy to have you, just be sure to play by the rules or you might find yourself deported to somewhere not so friendly. The alternative to this three-month, hello-goodbye schedule is to obtain a Carte de Sejour, which permits one to stay in the country for a year.
Since arriving, the Carte de Sejour has been a kind of Holy Grail for us. I guess we’re anxious to have the validation that this is our home for the year, and on a more practical level, having to go abroad, even for three days, would be a real drag during a crucial phase of the Dar Noury renovation. Hamoud has assured us that the process for obtaining the Carte de Sejour is a cinch, but others have painted a less hopeful picture of frequent rejections, or at least tedious paperwork and lengthy, unpleasant questioning by the immigration officer. Yes, there’s one woman who holds the key to our coveted Carte de Sejour and she’s got a reputation for being averse to baksheesh and for enjoying sticking foreigners with a little what-have-you. Good for her.
Last week, we went to the immigration office to obtain a list of all the requisite paperwork we’d need to get the Carte de Sejour, a sort of preemptive strike. Besides proof that we’ve bought a house, we need two copies each of our marriage license (buried in some box in a storage unit in LA, of course), an attestation from our bank that we’ve received wire transfers from the US and have sufficient funds to live for a year without working, a letter, written by us, that states “on our honor” that we don’t intend to work in Morocco, as well as copies of our passports, eight tiny passport photos and a 60 dirham stamp. Special thanks go out to a certain mother who made the trip to the town clerk’s office in Phippsburg, Maine, where we were married, to obtain a new copy of our marriage license, which she then had scanned and emailed to us. Who says you become less dependent on parents with age! A quick aside: As an alternative to a marriage license, the immigration department will except a livret de famille, or a book containing one’s family history, i.e., who begat who going back centuries. So, so French and rather quaint the idea of having the family tree bound and ready for such occasions.
Okay, so far so good. Only now, all of the documents – every page of every copy – needs to be stamped and signed by a government official, or “legalized.” This means a trip to Hamoud’s accommodating friend, the one who helped us out with all of the paperwork when we bought Dar Noury. Enough stamps to drain an inkpad and John Hancocks later and we’re in a cab on our way to the Commissariat de Police to face the immigration panel.
Our first bit of good news upon reaching the office is that the infamous dame is on vacation until September. We sit down in front of her stand-in, a soft-spoken man who writes in a bird-like scrawl and who proceeds, to the chagrin of others waiting in line for his attention, to fix all of the mistakes I’ve made on the application forms. As with other government offices we’ve experienced, everyone who has business with the immigration officer squeezes into one room, not a waiting room, but the actual office, vying for the few chairs scattered about. The door is left open to the street and those further back in line are relegated to a bench outside in the sun. The kind Official first snickers and then whips out a bottle of White-Out to amend the mistakes in my forms. Among the Frenchies in the room, this brings on exaggerated sighs, foot-tapping and very obvious glances at the clock. Oh, to be invisible!
Although all of our paperwork is in order, it seems we’ve had a misunderstanding. Instead of the two legalized copies of each document, it turns out we need four copies, two sets for each of us. The snafu illustrates how Mutt and Jeff the two of us have become. What were we thinking, that we’d be given one Carte de Sejour to share like our one cell phone? Jeff gallantly steps aside to allow Mutt her chance at a Carte de Sejour first.
What follows is an interrogation by the first immigration officer’s less agreeable partner. Do you speak French, he asks curtly. A little bit, I reply sotto voce, afraid of eliciting more reproach from our fluent roommates. Satisfied, he starts firing questions at me: “So, where were you employed from 1994-1998? What did you study in college? Why did you move from New York to Los Angeles? Any children?” To my “No, not yet,” I get a raised eyebrow. “Bon Appetit magazine, it is French, no?” “No, it’s an American culinary magazine,” I reply. “Culinary magazine,” he says, “that’s very important,” and he makes a note on my application. We can hardly contain our laughter at the purported importance of my short stint at BA, but oh, well. This continues for about 30 minutes and then I’m excused and told to come back tomorrow for my temporary certificate. I’m in the clear and barring further Dowe-Sandes betises, Samuel will be a real Marrakchi tomorrow as well!
Since arriving, the Carte de Sejour has been a kind of Holy Grail for us. I guess we’re anxious to have the validation that this is our home for the year, and on a more practical level, having to go abroad, even for three days, would be a real drag during a crucial phase of the Dar Noury renovation. Hamoud has assured us that the process for obtaining the Carte de Sejour is a cinch, but others have painted a less hopeful picture of frequent rejections, or at least tedious paperwork and lengthy, unpleasant questioning by the immigration officer. Yes, there’s one woman who holds the key to our coveted Carte de Sejour and she’s got a reputation for being averse to baksheesh and for enjoying sticking foreigners with a little what-have-you. Good for her.
Last week, we went to the immigration office to obtain a list of all the requisite paperwork we’d need to get the Carte de Sejour, a sort of preemptive strike. Besides proof that we’ve bought a house, we need two copies each of our marriage license (buried in some box in a storage unit in LA, of course), an attestation from our bank that we’ve received wire transfers from the US and have sufficient funds to live for a year without working, a letter, written by us, that states “on our honor” that we don’t intend to work in Morocco, as well as copies of our passports, eight tiny passport photos and a 60 dirham stamp. Special thanks go out to a certain mother who made the trip to the town clerk’s office in Phippsburg, Maine, where we were married, to obtain a new copy of our marriage license, which she then had scanned and emailed to us. Who says you become less dependent on parents with age! A quick aside: As an alternative to a marriage license, the immigration department will except a livret de famille, or a book containing one’s family history, i.e., who begat who going back centuries. So, so French and rather quaint the idea of having the family tree bound and ready for such occasions.
Okay, so far so good. Only now, all of the documents – every page of every copy – needs to be stamped and signed by a government official, or “legalized.” This means a trip to Hamoud’s accommodating friend, the one who helped us out with all of the paperwork when we bought Dar Noury. Enough stamps to drain an inkpad and John Hancocks later and we’re in a cab on our way to the Commissariat de Police to face the immigration panel.
Our first bit of good news upon reaching the office is that the infamous dame is on vacation until September. We sit down in front of her stand-in, a soft-spoken man who writes in a bird-like scrawl and who proceeds, to the chagrin of others waiting in line for his attention, to fix all of the mistakes I’ve made on the application forms. As with other government offices we’ve experienced, everyone who has business with the immigration officer squeezes into one room, not a waiting room, but the actual office, vying for the few chairs scattered about. The door is left open to the street and those further back in line are relegated to a bench outside in the sun. The kind Official first snickers and then whips out a bottle of White-Out to amend the mistakes in my forms. Among the Frenchies in the room, this brings on exaggerated sighs, foot-tapping and very obvious glances at the clock. Oh, to be invisible!
Although all of our paperwork is in order, it seems we’ve had a misunderstanding. Instead of the two legalized copies of each document, it turns out we need four copies, two sets for each of us. The snafu illustrates how Mutt and Jeff the two of us have become. What were we thinking, that we’d be given one Carte de Sejour to share like our one cell phone? Jeff gallantly steps aside to allow Mutt her chance at a Carte de Sejour first.
What follows is an interrogation by the first immigration officer’s less agreeable partner. Do you speak French, he asks curtly. A little bit, I reply sotto voce, afraid of eliciting more reproach from our fluent roommates. Satisfied, he starts firing questions at me: “So, where were you employed from 1994-1998? What did you study in college? Why did you move from New York to Los Angeles? Any children?” To my “No, not yet,” I get a raised eyebrow. “Bon Appetit magazine, it is French, no?” “No, it’s an American culinary magazine,” I reply. “Culinary magazine,” he says, “that’s very important,” and he makes a note on my application. We can hardly contain our laughter at the purported importance of my short stint at BA, but oh, well. This continues for about 30 minutes and then I’m excused and told to come back tomorrow for my temporary certificate. I’m in the clear and barring further Dowe-Sandes betises, Samuel will be a real Marrakchi tomorrow as well!
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6:50 AM
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