The Visa Stamp Circus

On return from
A visa outing
To neighboring Cyprus,
A ritual escape
I am forced to do
Every ninety days
If I want to stay
Here in Turkey,
I was confronted with
A ridiculous
Battle of wits
With a mindless
Immigration official.
She had been told
That visa stamps
Must be sold
In the currency
Of the country
From which the traveler
Is a native of,
And in my case,
That meant
The United States.
The only problem was
I did not have any
US Currency
On me at the time.
All I had was local
Turkish Lira which
She wouldn’t accept.
Now I know in Istanbul
The stamp must be
Paid for in Turkish Lira,
And there is a handy
Currency exchanger
Available should I not
Have the local currency,
But this was Adana!
I was told that I would have to
Get my Turkish money
Exchanged into US Dollars
For her to sell me
The Visa stamp I needed.
This created a challenge
Because there wasn’t any
Currency exchange
In the airport,
And besides,
I couldn’t get through
Immigration Control
Without the stamp
To find one.
What would have happened
Had I been a citizen
Of Canada or Mexico,
And the same issue
Came up?
It became a circus
As the customs people,
And the immigration police
Tried to reason with
The obstinate official
On my behalf,
And it took
And hour and a half
Of our combined efforts
To get her to budge.
There I was,
Extremely tired
From having been up
And traveling
For the last 36 hours,
Trying to reason with
An intransigent bureaucrat.
This ended out being
A classic example
Of why it is so difficult
To do business
Here in Turkey.
Even the simplest
Of matters can become
A roadblock
In the absence of
Common sense,
A commodity which is
Apparently in short supply
In certain areas
Of government.