I'm finally a resident with Residence.

The process for obtaining a residence visa here goes like this: unless a person is on their father or husband's visa (doesn't work the opposite way) they must be sponsored by their employer. The employer fills in all the paper work and submits it to the Immigration and Labour Departments here in Dubai who issue the residence visa.

This all went fine but its at this point my passport was stamped with a 'visa category in transition' stamp which meant that from that time until residence was actually issued, usually about 6 weeks, I couldn't leave the country as I was basically visa-less. If I left the country, the process would have to start again. Not that I actually wanted to go anywhere at that point but it was slightly irking that I couldn't go anywhere. But first before the paperwork could go to the government, I had to have my NZ University Entrance certificate attested. What a performance for a piece of paper that proves that when I was 17 I could draw a red-hot map of the Waipa River and write several rivetting paragraphs on the Unification of Yugoslavia (now totally useless knowledge.) First Raewyn had to take the original UE certificate and a photocopy to a Notary Public in New Lynn to be notarised. THEN she had to send it to Internal Affairs in Wellington to have the notary's signature attested. THEN Internal Affairs sent it to Foreign Affairs who attested the signature of the Internal Affairs official. THEN it was posted to me here in Dubai where I had to take it to the NZ Consulate to have the signature of the Foreign Affairs official who attested the signature of the Internal Affairs person, who attested the signature of the notary, attested. By the time I got the certificate back it seemed to have been signed, witnessed, notarised, attested or authorised by just about every Kiwi on the planet.
Next step, The Medical. Over to the Ladies Section of Rashid Hospital to have a blood test (AIDS) and then a chest x-ray (TB). Then there was the contract from the Labour Dept to be organised. I thought I had everything ready and went over today to submit it all to the Immigration Dept only to find that the person who was supposed to collect the results from the hospital had not done so. Into the office car and over to the hospital with the lady paralegal from work who's a local. We didn't have the official receipt to collect the results so, as we went into the hospital office, she told me "Just stand there and look silly (can do) and whatever you understand, don't say anything." She then spun a great story to the office guys about how I'd put the receipt through the washing machine ("Look at this woman, she's blonde, what did you expect, you shouldn't have given her the receipt in the first place"). Worked a treat, got the results and went straight back to Immigration and the residence visa was issued in about 5 minutes.

I've rung John the travel agent in Melbourne to get on the first flight back to Oz to go to see my folks asap.