Drove down to Portland today to visit Elisa
and Solomon.
Waited for traffic to clear through
Seattle, then made it there by lunch. Had a nice time. Had some
good food. Talked and talked and talked.
Jesse came with us. We walked the
dogs together. She was in this picture too but wasn’t tall enough to make
the frame. She and Solomon bonded immediately, and he is now her new best
friend.
It’s quite a journey Solomon is on.
It took over two years to get his travel visa to come from Ghana to Portland so
they could get married. (They thought about getting married first, before
he got his visa, but that would have slowed down the process even more.)
Elisa can travel freely, so she was able to fly over and spend some time with
him while they waited for the visa. Now that he has his travel visa
though, he can be here, but he’s not allowed to work. He can live here
and enjoy it, but he can’t settle in and get a job, he can just visit.
Ironically, with a travel visa he’s not allowed to travel either. If he
leaves the country, he loses his status and can’t come back without starting
the process all over. Well, now that he’s been here over a year, he just
got his work permit, and has been able to get on as a host at Red Robin.
Now life in America is opening up more for him and while he works at Red Robin
he can consider what other work opportunities might open up for him. He
has some experience in sales and he knows a lot of tech stuff. The next
step, after some time at this level, he can get his permanent residency
card. A few more years after that he can apply for citizenship.
What a process, but he’s determined enough to do it. Both of them are
determined enough. It’s a joint effort and it’s so nice to watch them
work their way through all this together.
Elisa still works for Wells Fargo where she
has for at least eight years. After Solomon got here, they moved to a
larger apartment, but only a block away from the last apartment so it wasn’t
hard to find them. Visiting, walking, eating, talking, it didn’t take
long to run out of time. Judy and I left Portland before dark and drove
partway back north to stop for the night to camp at Paradise Point State Park
in Washington.
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