At first when Pedram told me about registering as a resident in Belgium, my naive self asked “can I do it online?”  “Nope”, he replied, “we like eye contact.” 

Oh, they like eye contact, but they also like paperwork.  And money.  And being frustratingly complicated.  I could write a book about how hard it was for me to get my registration, but I won’t.  Because I am afraid of the commune (local government) — they have a ridiculous amount of power, and they like to wield it Napoleon style.  Without a residency card, I cannot drive here, get a cell phone, open a bank account, etc.  

Our commune has a beautiful town hall — but sadly I don’t get to visit it. 

Town Hall in Ixelles

I report to the ”Bureau des Étrangers” (Office of the Aliens). 

Bureau des Etrangers

How to describe this office — in the summer it has a pungent odor, in the winter, a whirling sound fills the space (they don’t turn on all of the ceiling lights, furthering its likeliness to a third-world center feuled by gas generators).  It is small, dingy, dark and claustrophobic.

There are three windows:

• EU (which includes American, Canadian, Swiss, Japanese and Korean citizens) YEAH!
• Non-EU,  but also helpfully lists many EU countries such as Poland and Hungary, informing them that even after 4 years of being in the EU, you are not accepted in the club yet. 
• The third window is unlabelled, the absence of an earthly geopolitical designation perhaps indicating that it is reserved for Étrangers of the intergalactic variety.

There is no line to wait in because there is no room, and the idea of a ticket machine has not quite made the leap to the Bureau des Étrangers.  You have to make significant eye contact with everyone in the room to make it clear, ”I am after the woman with 3 small screaming children”

Once you get to the front of the line, the bureaucracy comes in.  They ask for all formal documents that have ever existed, so I come loaded.  I have learned from my mistakes, at first thinking that my Washington State driver’s license could serve as identification (ha ha ha).  

I have gone to the commune no less that a dozen times, each time completely confused with why I do not leave with a ID card.  I have paid the fee, went to the police station, had the police visit me, filled out the forms, given them copies of my passport, my birth certificate, Pedram’s passport, our wedding certificate, the confirmation of our name change in US from 1995 from Yeganehfar to Yeganeh, the corrected version of the Luxembourgish wedding certificate that has my correct birthday, my Iranian ID card, a certificate informing them that the US government finds me suitable to live in Belgium, etc etc.  But there is ALWAYS something missing.  I decided to take a small break from the Bureau, going again for the first time in 6 months today.

Oh the fun that I have missed.  This morning, after three different people taking a look at all my documents, they tell me:

“Everything is fine,”

Audible sigh of relief….

“but we need the original copy with an apostille stamp of this document confirming your name change.”

What? 

First Pedram and I tried being nice, explaining that getting these apostille (official stamps) is not so easy, and with all the other documents, it should be clear that my name is Yeganeh.  Then we got a little heated.  Then he got pissed.  And then I got angry.

With my voice shaking (and with Pedram behind me complaining about paying taxes for such ridicule), I pushed him aside and asked if I could speak in English.

“Listen. I have been here for over a year.  I have been to the American Embassy twice, put on a head scarf and been to the Iranian embassy, I have asked my parents to overturn their home for random documents, have been to the police station, had the police come visit me, have learned more about my family history than I ever wanted to know, and sent my in-laws on scavenger hunts in Luxembourg.  I am running low on patience. I am not a criminal and my family decided 15 years ago to drop THREE letters from our family name.  I have many many US government documents that show my correct name.  Why can’t you just accept this? WHY WHY WHY?!!!!!”

To be fair, everyone at the commune and police station has been incredibly nice.  They understand my plight – but not really, because they insist on these forms and stamps – yet they always smile.  But, no matter how hard I try, I can’t get them to take any pity on me.

“We understand, but there is no other way.”

So now I either have to 

• Go to the US embassy and ask them to produce this magical stamp
• Ask my parents to find something similar in King County
• Go to Luxembourg and see if they will change the wedding certificate
• Get a medical exam and a criminal record report from the US embassy and try to get the registry as an employee here (but then I would have to be single).

And that is how, after 13 months in Belgium, I do not have a residency card.