I have the tendency of forgetting everything, but this time I really crossed the line. The international-line of forgetfulness. I was meeting my mom in Geneva for the weekend, and since I had a dissertation due on the Monday I got back, a friend had offered to look over it and correct my grammar/writing style atrocities.
Well, I end up going to sleep at three in the morning, right after packing and correcting the paper, and waking up at 4:30 for my 6 o clock train. I get to the station on time, get on the right train; everything seems to be just as a responsible person would have done it. So I close my eyes on voiture 18, place 53 and fall asleep for 3 hours of beautiful sleep. About fifteen minutes before getting to Geneva, I wake up and hear the voice of the girl next to me asking her mom what she was holding in her hands. The mom explains that “La Suize c’est pas chez nous” and so they need identity cards.
Shit, my passport.
Wait, wait, let me paint the picture for you. You know that sound that fingernails make when you scratch them against a blackboard added to the headache from not having a good night’s sleep in a long time? Well, I heard that, along with the voice inside my head telling me I was going to get deported back to… France? US? Colombia???
It was my first time in Switzerland, I hadn’t gotten off the train, and I was already there illegally. I start praying. Kinda like when I cooked for my birthday, but this time it was praying in addition to cold sweat on my forehead and a horrible headache.
So I get off of the train, and as I am passing passport-control, I explain to the officer I left it in Paris.
By now I was thinking- What are passports, seriously? What are these paper things that define “where” we are from and how hard it is for us to get in and out of certain places? What are nationalities and countries, and what in the world are PASSPORTS? How can a piece of paper, that doesn’t even have your criminal record on it, determine anything about your life? And yet it suffices to go through immigration with a Colombian passport in any developed country to realize that it matters a lot. To whom? I’m not sure, but it matters.
I vote we get rid of this bureaucratic idiosyncrasy and if necessary start carrying around our criminal records. That says a lot, not a piece of paper that determines where you were born or where you were naturalized. Ugggh.
Back to the story- the second officer I talked to asked me my nationality, where I lived, why, etc. etc, and told me I could either go back to Paris, and come back to Geneva, this time making sure not to forget the passport, or “take the risk of staying.” So of course, I inquired if by ‘risk’ he meant I would get arrested as soon as I crossed the sliding glass doors into apparent freedom. He explained it was a 200 Euro fine, but that I would not get fined immediately, only if on the day I returned to Paris I was asked for it again and didn’t have it.
So of course, I go the illegal way and take the risk. The train ticket would have cost half of the fine, plus the three hours of travelling that I could be spending with my mommy and the headache again.
My train on the way back was at 5:00 in the morning. Apparently bad people don’t travel that early because there was no passport control in Geneva or Paris. Fiuf.
Now to the fun part- I had an incredible weekend with my mom. Geneva is like camp for adults who want to make the world a better place. You have the building where you cure everyone, Medecins sans Frontiers, the building where you make sure everyone is getting sufficient medication, OMS, the building where you make sure no one fights, ONU, and the building where you make sure workers have fair pays and nice environments. Really, its like the city of the future, for the alleviation of humanity from its own nature. I loved it.
We saw the United Nations of babies in a park- one of them was having a birthday party (probably turning 2 years old), and you could see all of his little friends were all from different continents and their parents had to communicate via a translator, or their fifth language, English or French. Seeying those 2 year olds I understood why 53% of Geneva’s population holds a foreign passport.
Geneva was really amazing. Maybe it’s the fact that I grew up in Colombian hecticness, but I don’t think I could ever live in such a calm place, but it was a great trip.
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