Prorrogação

Prorrogação (prolongation) is my new favourite word. I’ve been waiting for the migration office to return my passport with the prorrogação of the short-term work visa that allowed me to gain entry to Mozambique. I was supposed to have received a text message by now to state that it was ready to collect.

Maria João, a counterpart here who has been helping me, asked whether I had heard anything, and I said no. She said they must have forgotten to send the message, explaining that ‘you live in Mozambique now’. I hesitated to get into immigration politics with her, but I believe it’s more torturous elsewhere, namely for dozens and dozens of nationalities to complete the process for the UK.

A quick phone call later and someone appeared thirty minutes later with the passport, with a visa valid until September 2022. It felt excellent, as I’ve now got more security to live here than I’ve had since this whole life stage began three years ago. The visa states it’s valid from 10 September, which is eight days from now. Let’s not split hairs about what I’m supposed to do in the meantime.

Meanwhile, Dominga, my landlady’s sister, said she wanted to make me pudim, which in the UK we would know as crème caramel. I now have a large volume of it in the fridge, and I’m resisting the urge to polish it off too fast.