We have never had a child in America...so we can't actually testify to how simplistic (or not) the process of getting a baby's paperwork in order is; however, we're pretty confident that the process is much more complicated here in Morocco:
The Moroccan Birth Certificate
Aliyah was born on November 12th. Upon checking out of Clinique Maarif on November 13th we were handed several "certificates of live birth" (one original and several duplicates). In accordance to Moroccan law, we were allotted 30 days from that moment in order to complete the process of obtaining Aliyah's birth certificate. Failure to comply within 30 days leads to a mandated court date where a Moroccan judge will determine whether or not you are legally allowed to get a birth certificate. Rest assured that going through the Moroccan court system is not a one-day endeavor. Further, it will certainly not be done in English...so the hiring of an Arabic translator will be critical. (This did happen to a friend of ours here!)
In order to avoid court, Dave had to spend the days immediately following Aliyah's birth worrying about paperwork in addition to caring for our newborn daughter and a pained wife. The first step in the process was to take the certificates of live birth to Nicole's obstetrician, Dr. Karaoui. Dr. Karaoui had to sign and stamp each of the certificates in order to authenticate the fact that Aliyah was, indeed, born alive.
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| Certificate of Live Birth |
We hired a translator to help with the remainder of the birth certificate process. On November 20th he helped lead Dave to the commune closest to Clinique Maarif, which was difficult to locate. A commune is similar to a town hall in America. Apparently, you are not allowed to complete the birth certificate paperwork at the commune closest to you...you must go to the commune closest to the literal place of birth.
Finally at the commune, Dave laid out the necessary documents needed to complete the birth certificate process: the original certificate of live birth, our marriage certificate, and both of our (the parents) birth certificates, carte de sejours (Moroccan residency cards), and passports. Without the guidance of our paid translator, we would not have known that we needed all of these documents; and if even one of them had been lacking, Dave would have surely been denied Aliyah's birth certificate until all necessary documents could be presented on another day.
Satisfied with the fact that our paperwork was in order, the commune employee tediously filled out two long forms in Arabic, which are to be kept on file at the commune. Then, he used carbon copy paper to hand-write Aliyah's birth certificate in French. This process allowed Dave to leave with one original birth certificate and three original carbon copies. Each additional birth certificate copy costs 2DH (about 25cents).
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| Moroccan Birth Certificate |
The Passport
Many Americans either never get a passport or don't apply for one until they decide they want to endeavor abroad in their mid-twenties. Because we live in Morocco, it was imperative that we get Aliyah's passport much sooner. We have plans to take her with us to Belgium/Netherlands in February in addition to traveling home to America this summer.
The process of obtaining a passport here begins with an appointment at the US consulate in order to declare the birth abroad of an American child. This appointment can ONLY be made through the US consulate website, not in person. The consulate here in Morocco posts random and unpredictable appointment openings on their website (never more than three in one week). Because the vacancies are so limited, they fill up almost immediately after they are posted online. In spite of checking the website every single day following Aliyah's birth for openings, it was not until December 27th that we were able to secure an available appointment!! The meeting was set for January 14th...a day which was not convenient for our schedule by any means, but we had no choice. Dave had to take off work.
In the weeks leading up to our appointment at the US consulate, Dave worked on gathering another long list of required things that we would need to bring with us: Application for Consular Report of Birth Abroad, Application for U.S. Passport, Affidavit of Physical Presence, Moroccan birth certificate, our passports, photocopies of our passports, our original marriage certificate, our American drivers licenses, hospital records documenting both the pregnancy and the birth, Aliyah's passport photo, and $205. Again, if our translator had not provided us with this list of things, then we might have been turned away by the consulate due to us lacking one or more of them. We would have subsequently waited another month (or more) until we were finally able to score another vacant appointment through their website.
Rabbit trail: It is a well-known fact that attractive passport photos do not exist. Well, baby passport photos are especially awkward. We walked to Studio Said in order to get Aliyah's passport photo taken. Thankfully, Aliyah cooperated by keeping her eyes open for the shoot (we may have had to go back on another day otherwise). To take the photo, Dave had to carefully hold Aliyah out in front of a white curtain so that no part of his body could be seen near her face. In spite of this, you can still see Dave's thumb awkwardly poking out from the side of her head in such a way that it looks like she has a deformed, giant elf ear on one side of her face. Also, you can vaguely see an imprint around her mouth where her pacifier was; and the angle of the shot accentuates her chubby cheeks and oversized sweater, making her look much fatter than she actually is. Dave actually finds the photo to be rather cute, but Nicole firmly believes that it will traumatize her for the rest of her life.
Traffic in Casablanca is always crazy, so it took longer than we expected to get into the city and we were running late. To make matters worse, the only parking spot we could find was a 10 minute walk away from the consulate. Thankfully, we arrived on time for our appointment in spite of these traffic/parking obstacles. We made our way past the outside security checkpoint and onto the metal detectors pretty quickly. At the metal detectors, however, we were held up.
The metal detector area is what you must go through before being allowed to enter the main consulate doors. The security team in charge of this area consists entirely of Moroccans who speak little or no English. Immediately, we felt unwelcome; and we were frustrated by the fact that we had to put up with the inefficiencies of Moroccan business norms within a building that is supposedly designed to welcome Americans. Our phones and camera were confiscated and put into a holding container behind an old, rickety desk where they would be "watched". As we looked around, we observed that the entire interior of the US consulate building (not just that desk) is startlingly neglected. The windows are dirty and broken, the ceiling is tainted with holes, there are pieces of plywood nailed carelessly over parts of the walls, etc.. It wasn't what we expected it to be.
After we were informed that our electronics must remain at the front desk, our diaper bag and Nicole's purse were thoroughly searched. The granola bar snacks that we keep in the diaper bag were pulled out, along with travel-sized containers of lotion and hand sanitizer. Had we not accidentally forgotten our emergency bottle of milk in the car, this would have been pulled out as well. Surprisingly, we were told that we could not bring these things into the consulate building either and that they would not hold them with our electronic devices. Our options were to either walk across the street in order to throw them into the nearest dumpster (we could not discard anything there) or bring the items back to our car, parked 10 minutes away. We opted for the latter. Dave took all of the illegal items, and our electronics, and headed back for the car.
20 minutes later, Dave retraced his steps through the US consulate security checkpoints and made it back to the waiting room. The waiting room was too small for the stroller, so we had to stand awkwardly on the side of the doorway until we were allowed to enter the main doors for our 10:30 appointment. It was well after 11:00 when our turn to enter finally came around.
The "appointment" consisted primarily of a thorough review of the forms/documents we had brought with us. We spent an hour waiting for an American employee to complete paperwork on our behalf internally; and then we made everything official by swearing to the veracity of what we wrote both verbally and through our signatures. Before we could leave, we were asked to present our American drivers licenses in order to authenticate our residencies back in Maine and complete the passport application process. We had brought these with us....but we had accidentally stuck them into the bag of snacks and lotion which Dave was forced to bring back to the car. Blah.
We had planned on our consulate appointment lasting about one hour, allowing us to get back to GWA by noon so that we could eat lunch and feed Aliyah. Stupid. We should have known that nothing here ever goes as expected. It was nearly 12:30 and Aliyah had been hungry for thirty minutes. Dave also had a 1:00 meeting at work which he was already going to be late for. Yet, we were determined to complete all aspects of our appointment since we had gone through such trouble in scheduling it and getting there.
We made our way toward the exit and walked the 10 minutes back to our car. Nicole got set up to feed Aliyah in the back seat, and Dave set off to return to the US consulate on his own with our licenses (meaning he had to go through security for a third time). We had parked along a street filled with pedestrian traffic, so Nicole's preference was to bottle feed.... but the emergency bottle of milk we had brought with us was still partially frozen and Aliyah refused to drink it. Nicole was forced to use a cover and pray that the Moroccan men passing by did not show too much curiosity over what was going on. Unfazed by her surroundings, Aliyah was comfortable enough to eat a full feeding while, at the same time, letting out a massive explosion of poop all over her clothes. Thirty minutes and an outfit/diaper change later....we were finally done with our appointment endeavor and we left empty handed. The passport would not be ready for at least 10 days, and we would be contacted via e-mail when it was ready to be picked up.
Lesson learned: When it came time for Nicole to pick up Aliyah's passport from the US consulate on January 23rd, she opted to leave Aliyah with Chabia at the GWA creche (for the very first time) so that she could actually take advantage of the miniscule waiting room and avoid any backseat feeding/blowout issues altogether. She also left everything food/liquid/electronic-related at home in order to avoid security obstacles; and she relied on public transportation in order to avoid Casablanca's parking issues. As a result of this lesson learned, Nicole was able to make her way in and out of the US consulate building in less than 30 minutes.
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| Aliyah is clearly not as excited as we are about her passport |
Passport in hand, we can finally book our trip to Belgium/Netherlands in February :)
The American Birth Certificate
After all the unavoidable work we did to avert court and obtain Aliyah's initial birth certificate, we were faced with the reality that it was Moroccan. Moroccan birth certificates are not necessarily deemed credible by the American government; therefore, it was imperative that we get an American certificate of birth abroad as well. Luckily, we were able to apply for this piece of documentation at the same time that we applied for Aliyah's passport.... so that long, frustrating experience at the US consulate resulted in Nicole being able to pick up an American birth certificate on January 23rd alongside the passport.
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| American Birth Certificate |
For the record, we find it to be especially ironic that the application for this American birth certificate required the submission of the original Moroccan birth certificate, in spite of its supposed illegitimacy
After 2.5 long months of working toward gathering all of these documentations, one would think that we would finally be done....but we're not. We still do not have Aliyah's social security card. To obtain her social security card while living in Morocco, we were told that we would need to schedule another consulate appointment at a later date and fill out the required application. Since there are no social security offices in Morocco, our paperwork would subsequently be mailed to Paris, France. We would have to wait up to 6 months for them to process our application and mail the social security card back to the US consulate in Morocco.
We have opted not to take this route. Instead, we plan to apply for her social security card when we're home this summer in America...where this sort of process is bound to be less complicated. We hope.
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