Embassy Episode

asalam alaikum
     Last week was spent trying to get our Machine Readable Passports from the Embassy here. Although the MRP system came here in November, the process has picked up recently, as many countries have laid down the rule that Pakistanis will not be allowed entry in their country on Manual (hand written) passports any more.
     I found out yesterday, that the Embassy had issued a hand out to the Pakistani Mission schools here, but as my children dont go there, I had not found out about it in time.
    Day 1- Visited the Embassy at 8am, and was surprised that no one was around. I parked the car and read the notice board, which mentioned the steps for getting a MRP (in urdu :) ). A small notice somewhere down mentioned that the embassy is closed on account on 12th Rabbi-ul-Awal.
    Went home and search the net .. The Embassy website was not a help at all. On the local discussion forums, tried to see how things are working out.  Not a very rosy picture.

   Day 2 - Reached the Embassy a little after Fajr. There was a long line of men there and my husband got our names written on a list, got a number 122. After 2 and a half hours in line, someone started calling out names and about 50 people went in and the doors were locked. Lots of people were still outside. There were heated words and arguments to be heard. After another 2 hours, we managed to go inside and went in the waiting room. Tried to find out what the process really is. The day ended with a conversation with the MRP Officer, who refused to talk to me and refused to make passports after number 120. A lady there, adviced me to come early (4am) and she wished my family would them get the passports.

   Day 3 - Reached the Embassy again after fajr, and was happy to see no one outside the gate. It was a Family day. My husband called to say our number is one and then called back again to say it is 174. I told him I dont see any 174 people here, so he asked me to come to the gate myself. There were hardly 20 people there, and the numbers started to increase with each minute. The man making the list claimed to have come at 1:30 in the morning with his family of 7 waiting in the car. I told him that the Embassy staff does not honour this list that he had so painstakingly put together and asked him why on Earth would he come here at 1:30 in the morning. He had no answer to both my questions.
    I talked to a lot of families there and asked them to stand in a line, as the Embassy staff will make them come in, in that line. Some agreed and some wanted to go according to the list. When we called out the names from the list to make a line of first comers, there were only 6 or 7 people there from the first 75 names. So much for that list.
    After a lot of arguments with the Embassy staff, and more arguments with the Police, the list was torn up, because only a handful of those people were actually there, and we went in by line around 8:40am. Alhamdolillah. Raced through bank payment, fingerprinting and picture, and then came the hurdle. The link from Pakistan main server was down .... Come 12pm, the link was established and we verified the data and got our tokens for Passport Collection.

   My thoughts on the system there:
1) Many people had written their names on the list, who did not want the Machine Readable passport. Such names ought not to be on it.
2) Many people come and write names for people who are not there at all, their friends, neighbors, colleagues from work. These people might not be able to make it to the Embassy that day also, which is unfair for those people who physically turn up at the Embassy, stand in line and miss their office/school/work day. Such people ought to be more considerate and not tell others to write their names if they will not bother to show up.
3) A lot of people write their names and then go to office and then ask their families to come and collect tokens for them. Again not fair on those who have actually turned up.
4) The Embassy ought to issue tokens and give a time to the people to show up, instead of them having to spend the entire day at the embassy.
5) MOST IMPORTANT: In this day and age, it is strange to know that the Main Server can be down, and hold up Embassies all over the world, with no back up!!!! We spent 3 hours at the Embassy extra, just because the server was down.
    The same day, my in-laws had gone to get their MRP renewed in Karachi also, and they had to wait because the server was down.
6) Another important thing: The Embassy ought to tell the people the process of getting MRP and make it fool proof and VASTA-proof.

I could write a lot more, but the system will only work, if the people will make it happen that way. My prayers for that.
Ma asalaama.