Red tape

Hopefully we can go this weekend to Bujumbura.

A couple of weeks ago my colleague in Bujumbura asked for some help, and I (and Hazel) would like to go there for a few day. So...

It turned out that our visas for Rwanda just expired, so we had to get new ones in order to be allowed back. So on Monday we filled in the form and gave 8 photos each, just in case. It should take a week. So I made very clear, we need it in a week, so should just work.

During the week it became clear this was not going to happen. This Tuesday I got the forms back with the comment that the photo was not correct. Somehow it was OK for the ministry, but now the immigration office needed one with a white background, not grey. The Dutch photos always need a grey background and we specially had some extra made in The Netherlands in order to have some quality. So we should get our passports back this Thursday, so we can leave on Saturday. Let's hope we get our Burundi visas at the border, we have no time to get those here.

The good news regarding red tape: Rwanda jumped 76 places on the 'Doing bussiness index'. This is surprising and very welcome. The country is developing and is very dependent from (foreign) investors. They cut the time to register by 255 days, imagine what it used to be.