I cannot say for sure when the first notification letter arrived, but I am certain it was before July 2009. I would use the date June 15th as a guess, the actually letter was dated May 20th. We made photocopies of the forms and filled in a draft each, we later discovered the forms were online and my hubby decided to type out our details. After several amendments we sent off the final copy by recorded mail on July 5th, keeping copies for our records.
We heard nothing for 2 months and decided to call KCC (by this time the contact telephone number for the "agency" was unreachable - we entered the lottery via an agency). The KCC confirmed they had received our forms successfully and that “Africa was not current yet”, this meant nothing to us whatsoever at the time, but we got the impression we have to be patient.
In the meantime we got our documents together for the interview (police certificates UK and Ghana especially). But by the end of 2009 when we have not heard anything, we concluded our application had been unsuccessfully and reluctantly gave up.
Lo and behold, sometime in May this year, we received the second notification letter dated May 13th, giving us an interview date of July 14th and instructions on getting the medical examination done. It was quite a relief and I began researching the DV lottery further and quite by accident I stumbled upon this forum and what an eye opener it has been! If I had known about this website earlier, I would not have been on this emotional rollercoaster for the best part of a year (stressed, disappointed, nervousness, panic, excitement, ...)! My hubby had a pre-booked holiday to Ghana and we only managed to book a medical appointment 9 days before our interview. I was concerned the dates were too close together, but I needn’t have worried as the appointment went smoothly and were done in about 2 hours.
I read most of the pages of the forum and gave my hubby the relevant information, I began to make photocopies of our documents, the ones requested for and any supporting documents I could find.
We received a final letter advising the processing fee had been increased to 819.00 USD.
On the day of the interview (July 14th), we arrived at the Embassy at around 7.45 am, there were only about 10 people waiting in line ahead of us, (we left our mobile phones at home). There was a little glitch at the gates were the security officer claimed he could not allow me in, the letter was only addressed to my husband. A consular officer (I guess) also at the gate had to write my name out on the letter before the security guard would let us through their airport-style security.
At 8.30am precisely the consular officers started calling out numbers, we were called shortly after 9am to window 13. The lady asked for our documents (passports, birth certificates, marriage certificates, police certificates, affidavit of support, etc). She asked my hubby to pay the fee as window 12 and bring her back the receipt. This done, she asked for his degree certificate and when presented also requested for his transcripts. We had not brought that along, she then asked for a letter from work. The letter was just a confirmation that he worked for the company and had been doing so in x capacity for x number of years. I do not think that satisfied her. She explained we may have to submit the transcript later. We were given a pink slip to fill in to have our passports returned by courier.
She also asked when we intended to migrate, we explained that we were expecting and did not think we would until the baby had had her first set of vaccinations. She asked why we did not have her in the States instead; I said something about my husband not being there for the birth. (It was mid July and I am due end of August I did not think there was enough time for us both to wrap up here and move). She decided to find out from her supervisors what the remedy would be, she came back to inform us we would either have to get the baby her own passport or have her included in one of ours, plus to take along with us the long-form birth certificate and everything would be sorted at the POE. Our time at window 13 took no more than 30 minutes, she asked us to return to our seats to be called back.
There was about a 30 minutes wait, my hubby and I were quite confident would we get the visas at this point and the decision would have been made there and then if we had the transcripts. We were called to window 14 this time, a gentleman asked us to swear and took our finger prints, I realised very quickly he was more interested in my hubby than I so I decided to keep quiet and let him answer the questions. The officer was asked:
Were he worked/how longed he had worked there/what he worked as/how long he had been in the country/how soon we would migrate to the US?
The only question I was asked was why I had a Ghanaian police certificate if I am British and I explained I had lived there from the age of 6 to 17.
Finally, he confirmed we were missing a document (the transcript) and that he was going to give us a blue slip to arrange with the courier company to have it delivered, we would get our passports back in 5 working days.
I asked if that was the end of the interview, he said yes. I asked him if when the transcripts are presented we would have the visas, (he wouldn’t give a straight answer to that), he said they would have to see it to make a decision. My hubby and I both knew where the transcripts were so I took that as a yes!
All in all we were out of the Embassy by 10.30am.
The courier company were a pain to deal with; they finally picked up the transcripts on Friday 16th that was the 2nd attempt and delivered our passports with the visas on Friday 23rd, again that was a 2nd attempt.
As I have mentioned in a previous post, my husband ripped open his brown envelope in the excitement before noticing the note stating NOT to do so.
We spent the best part of Saturday morning trying to call the Embassy and find out what to do. The simple answer was to seal the envelope and arrange with the courier company to pick up the envelope ONLY to return to the Embassy to have it officially resealed. The envelope would be returned in 5 working days, we are expecting the resealed envelope on Tuesday August 3rd.
Hi kor,
Congratulations and thank you for sharing your expirence with us. Welcome to america.