The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2010

32 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 1 0 was at the market to coach us for the upcoming interview. The man told us to call him Jean-Luc. He was in his mid-20s, overwhelmingly confi- dent, and grew testy when Joyce asked him questions. “Look, it’s easy,” he insisted. “You’ll go to the embassy, get your fingerprints taken, and have one of the yovo” (a term, usually pejorative, commonly used to refer to foreign- ers in Togo) “consular officers ask you about your marriage. Both Philip and Kevin played the lottery as single guys, so you need to prove that your relationship is legitimate, and not just contracted to get a green card.” He seemed to find this predicament funny. After a mo- ment, he stood up and unfurled a long sheet of paper with handwritten questions scrawled on it. “Joyce, where was Philip born? Where was his mater- nal grandmother buried? What items were exchanged for your dowry? Where did you get your wedding ring?” She stared at him, openmouthed. Jean-Luc laughed again. “These are questions the yovos are going to ask you, and you need to be prepared.” He turned and looked at me, where I was staring at the floor nervously. He made me very uncomfortable, and I could tell he didn’t really think much of me. “Your sister needs to look older,” he told Joyce, “or this isn’t going to work.” He left after 20 minutes for his next “immigration con- sultation.” Following Jean-Luc’s advice, we went to a local photographer who took informal pictures of us as couples in front of the Palm Beach Hotel. Next we went to a local Catholic church, where we took turns posing in the same wedding gown, squinting into the sun. I grew to like Kevin. I found out early on that he was Auntie’s neighbor’s grandson, and from the same village where we were born. He had studied psychology and worked as an intern at an international relief agency in Lomé the previous summer. He had a cousin in Nebraska who had promised to find him work at a local meat factory. He started picking me up at school, which made my friends whisper. On the day of the interview there were throngs of other hopefuls inside the waiting room of the U.S. embassy. My stomach hurt because I’d been too nervous to eat anything the night before. But I didn’t want to let my sister down. Kevin and I sat together limply in plastic chairs lined up in front of the interview windows. When his name was called, Kevin went up to the cashier window and paid in Ameri- can dollars. I knew that my aunt had given him the cash the day before andwas overwhelmed almost to tears by the amount that he counted care- fully, then handed over—more than 1,500 American dollars. I bounced Bana on my knee miserably. Bringing the baby along had been a last-minute decision. The visa fixer had been so unimpressed with my performance respond- ing to questions about Kevin and his family that he sug- gested we pass off Bana as our child. Horrified, I had rejected the idea; but, ultimately, Joyce had convinced me that it would help. Jean-Luc was able to procure a fake birth certificate and passport for Bana the night before the interview. We decided not to tell Mother. Bana howled and wept. The baby had not napped all morning, and I certainly couldn’t nurse him. Kevin tried to hold the baby at one point, and he screamed so loud that the other women waiting with us turned and glared at me ferociously. They knew he wasn’t mine. I stared glumly at my passport. My picture smiled back at me stiffly, and there was a new name and birth date. My birthplace was listed as Accra, not Kumasi. Joyce and Philip came in about 15 minutes later. They paid, deposited their paperwork, and then sat one row ahead of us. I could see that Joyce was shaking. Philip was called first. He walked coolly up to the win- dow and started talking with the American officer behind the glass, a short woman with brown hair and glasses. We could only hear his part of the conversation. “Awute, Philip. 27 years old. Graduate student.” The woman listened at- tentively and then skimmed his paperwork, frowning in concentration. She asked him something else, and Philip laughed lightly. “Oh, that’s my wife. We were married two months ago. Our parents only agreed to our wedding recently, so that’s why I didn’t list her on the original petition.” He pushed their carefully choreographed wedding album under the consular windowsill; however, the woman only opened it to the first page, frowned more deeply, and pushed it back. F O C U S Kevin tried to hold the baby at one point, and he screamed so loud that the other women waiting with us turned and glared at me ferociously.