Govern-mental

Govern-mental agencies want us to do some pretty weird stuff sometimes. I had my share.

We got a letter from a Dutch authority that pays child allowance in the Netherlands. We are not talking about big amounts here, it's really REALLLY not much. Anyway, they check every two years if the kids of the families living abroad are still alive and living in the country in question - I can imagine it.

An authority in the host country (for example: Dutch embassy, police, post office..) is asked to fill a form (just a piece of paper which states the names of the kids and there are dots for date of death, in case it has to be filled in). Even the idea of it gives me chills by the way, I will get to the point faster, I am not enjoying this parts of the story!

I went to the post office, kind of shy and feeling stupid, but trying to look confident. "I want to get this thing done and at once!" The clerk at the post office was very friendly, I was hoping he would just sign the paper. He read the letter from the Dutch government and ... sent me directly to the Village Hall. "Mmm, it is not going to be done at once. " A the Village Hall, I got two clerks who looked at me like "What is she talking about?" The nice thing about the Americans is that they seem used to deal with these kind of strange stuff, they almost always take it serious. Finally, after talking a while, they sent me home with the promise that they will call me to let me know which papers I need to present.

That afternoon, I got the phone call. P had to go to the Village Hall himself with his passport and drivers licence- I didn't understand why (why am I never enough????), plus we were to show the kids. So after school, I literally brought the kids to the Village Hall, with their passports, to show the clerk that they are alive. The funny thing is, the pictures on the passports are pictures of kids growing up like crazy. A's passport picture is from when she was 4 weeks old! Luckily, the visa pictures were a bit recent. We passed the test! The paper is signed and on its way to the Dutch Government. We're done for the next two years!