I arrived on the road which contains
the office which issues birth certificates at about 8am, after
dropping Kira & Isaiah at school. I was not sure of the exact
building and office to go to. As soon as I got out of my car, I was
accosted by one of the many “fixit” guys who hang around trying
to find people to help. They know all the offices and requirements on
the road and can save a lot of confusion.
Mr Fixit didn't know everything
I had brought along all the paperwork I
could possibly need, and first he took me off to the translation
office to get an official certified translation of our passports.
Then we went to the birth certificate office and was told that we
needed a translation of our wedding certificate so we had to go back
to the translation office and wait for them to translate it. When we
got back to the birth certificate office, a queue had now built up
but thankfully it had a post-office style ticket numbering system.
Many establishments in Jordan have started using this kind of
queueing system, since Jordanian queueing skills are no match for the
British.
When my number came up I handed in all
the paperwork, but was told that one of the forms needed a stamp from
the hospital. “Ethan was born at home!” I told them, but they
insisted that I go to our local hospital and get our doctor to stamp
it.
Foreign Concept
I drove over to the hospital and they
refused to stamp the form, but our doctor made a phone call to
someone at the birth certificate office to explain the fully story of
our home birth, which is a very foreign concept in Jordan. I returned
to the birth certificate office and asked to speak to the man who our
doctor had called. He promised me that there was no problem and told
me to sit and wait for about an hour. 3 hours later, the birth
certificate was ready, just in time for me to go back to pick up Kira
and Isaiah from school at 2pm. On the birth certificate it simply
states the name “Ethan” since the tradition here is to follow
your first name with your father's name then grandfather's name and
then family name. We had decided to follow this tradition for Ethan
so he is called Ethan Paul John Miles, but it doesn't quite work on
the local birth certificate since Paul's middle names are not his
father's or grandfather's names! Thankfully when we apply for the
British birth certificate and passport they write the name as we
state it on the application form.
