Monday, 29 September 2014

Change of dates for part of journey out of London

Dear everyone who is involved in this visit

LAST MINUTE CHANGE OF DATES

First  it is still going to happen but the dates of some parts are changing. The reason is visa craziness and explained below **.

Please don't be too disappointed - the boys will get Eid at home, Adam will see his brother who is going to be released from prison tonight - he was going to miss the celebration - there must be good sides to this story.

Of course we are really very disappointed to change the plans, not to see our friends tomorrow,  to have to reorganise a lot of things and to add a lot of cost to the visit...

BUT THE VISIT IS STILL GOING TO HAPPEN  
AND THE BOYS WILL BE HERE IN BRITAIN  
between Monday 6th and Weds 15th October

New timetable follows.

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Why the change? 

Visa craziness - Having to get  visas in such a difficult way is particularly hard for Palestinians. If you look at the first post in this blog, you can see the situation when we started. We got through that one and were given  an appointment for the boys for fingerprints in Ramallah so they could submit their visa applications.

But it is such a long and complex process. The passports went to Jordan where they are dealt with by the British Embassy in Amman. We expected to have them in time. We asked, if the time was tight, for the visa office in Amman to keep the passports so we could send a courier (as we have done before).

Today we sent someone to the Amman office to collect the passports - and discovered that they were put yesterday in a sealed diplomatic bag to Jerusalem  where they will be delivered tomorrow at the earliest - and apparently no way can they be got or that bag opened before that. 

So the passports can be collected only after the kids' flight has left Amman tomorrow morning at 6...So they cannot get that flight.
  We tried to change the flight from tomorrow to the day after, or the day after... but this is a whole group and there is not enough available room on the planes till Monday at the earliest - therefore we have added on some days at the end.

Partners out of London - this will affect your programme.  We will be in touch with you NOW to confirm all arrangements.


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