T.I.A

Things went rather unusual during past month of our vacation in Iran. The vacation has become longer than expected without us asking for it. Our lives are indeed full of surprises! But not surprisingly, we meet most of the share from our traveling in and out of Iran. It was November 11th when government of Libya put together a new passport regulation out of the blue that any individual coming back to the country must have the Arabic translation of their passport be made and stamped inside the passport. This new rule was apparently applied over night without anyone knowing it. I read lots of news about charter planes of tourists sent back and people got deported from Libyan boarders. Libya made a suicide decision for its tourism industry in this time of year when it is best to visit the country. Would someone care?

Why Libya is asking for Arabic translation in the passports? I have no idea!! That looks like one more odd thing about Libya one shall add to the list of many that happened before. The thing is that the visas that Libya issues are in Arabic so why the information in the visa wouldn’t be enough? I read in some blogs that in the first few days after this was applied, the passport control officers were also obscuring the English page of Libyan passport of those nationals who were traveling out and made many of their citizens stranded in airports around the world. This part of the new law was apparently canceled after a few days.

T.I.A: This Is Africa! It also stands for Transient Ischaemic Attack, a problem in human nervous systems in which part of the brain suddenly and briefly fails to function properly because it is temporarily deprived of oxygen by blockage of its blood supply. (Disclaimer: No intention to associate the continent with the lack of Oxygen that I am sure plenty is available maybe some nations need to inhale a bit more or free the blockage).

For us vacationing inside Iran, this brought a new challenge. The Libyan embassy had no idea how to implement this and finally left us on our own. I am getting help from the Iranian foreign office to “invent” a local procedure to get the translation stamped in the passports! For them and the passport department of the Police, passports have standard templates according to international regulations. Iranian passports are become perfectly electronic in the past few years. You fill a form and put your national ID and your unique10 digit post code and receive your passport in the same week by post…no hassle! So no wonder why they refuse to cook another version for only a bunch of Iranians who go to Libya!

Comments

[Ali D]

Hey man
I just saw your post. How things going on there? When did you get back to work finally?