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A Volunteer and the FBI

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Some of you might have heard of Christine's troubles with the FBI (a friend of Jelte thought that gave her a lot of extra credit). Signing up for a volunteer job involves filling out a lot of forms; one of those is a criminal record check, which after 9/11, in the USA, is being handled by the FBI. We were warned about their bureaucracy but didn't expect that they couldn't read Christine's fingerprints which we heard a week before our intended day of departure to Dushanbe.

A frantic couple of days followed with Christine re-issuing her fingerprints (three sets to be on the safe side), follow up calls from England and Holland to chase the FBI,  all in the hope that we would make our scheduled departure from Frankfurt on Sunday Oct 2. We almost made it (one UPS delivery too late) but are happy to report that we are getting out of Europe on Wednesday October 6, arrival in Dushanbe, Tajikistan on 3.20 AM local time October 7.  A huge THANK YOU  to 'Monica' at the FBI from Christine.  She's sure that without your incredible customer service and efficiency, she would still be languishing in Holland.  For the followers; in hours, Dushanbe is + 13 from LA, + 5 from London and + 4 from Amsterdam (so we will start really bright and early).

Every cloud has a silver lining of course, since the short delay gave us the opportunity to stock up on necessary supplies and medicines (thanks to our local GP), download all the books we wanted on our Ipad and to catch up with old friends in the UK and Holland.

So now it's on our way to Frankfurt to catch a 'plane to Tajikistan, where, it seems, they are waiting for us. There were already reports in the local press about two tourism advisors, who were on their way (that's us folks). Can't wait to get going....

Comments

  1. kay*October 5, 2010 at 10:31 AM

    so glad to read an update from you guys and i'm glad that everything worked out! so excited to read about your adventure and to hear more about what it's like in Tajikistan - and pics too!

    and yay! you decided on an iPad! how are you liking it?

    safe travels - looking forward to your next update from Taji!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Andi of My Beautiful AdventuresOctober 9, 2010 at 5:50 AM

    Good luck with your trip! What an interesting country you're going to.

    ReplyDelete

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