Passport Saga

Passport sagas continue! Yesterday I received an sms from my friend in Lombok to say that there is a little problem with the passport stuff for Oliver. Experience has taught me that in this country that means there is a huge fuck up and no one really knows what to do. Acquiring Oliver’s passport is not going to be as straightforward as the immigration man led me to believe. He seems to be confused because there is mention in one of the documents I supplied of Oliver’s Australian citizenship. Oliver was an Australian citizen for three days. But when the officials at the embassy in Bali discovered that I was not his biological father, this citizenship was revoked. The other problem seems to stem from the fact that Oliver’s mother had a passport with Oliver as an infant in it. This passport has since expired. My elation and over optimism has turned to a dull ache again as I go through yet another ride of officialdom and god knows what with the Indonesian bureaucracy. A few months ago Oliver asked questions about his mother and I told him she was living in Bali and would he like to see her. He did. We met her and he seemed quite unaffected by her. She didn’t exactly gush over him with maternal delight. At that meeting I implored her to help me get him a passport and she refused. As a reason she told me that she intended to marry an Australian man and did not want him to know about Oliver. I don’t care anymore what she wants or thinks. She cannot deny Oliver’s existence. I don’t care if she never sees him or doesn’t want anything to do with him but she is his mother and nothing will change that. She needs to take some responsibility for his future in this matter and I will force her to if I have to. She is the only one who can make this happen.