The One with the Visa

Having received my acceptance letter in March and my financial aid confirmation in April, I moved quickly to apply for my Canadian Student Visa. I filed it on the 21st April after navigating all the website instructions and dealt with 2 different document checklists. And so began 3 months of waiting. With an average processing time of 14 weeks on one website and 8 weeks on another I was cutting it very thin to get my visa and buy my flight tickets.

Six weeks later I finally received a form to enable me to have the medical checkup required. I had already handed over around R820 for my Visa only to be charged R900+ for a 15 minute checkup, R300+ for blood tests and R250 for an X-Ray. The medical results had to be sent to Kenya for review with an estimated 4-6 weeks turn around time. On the 21st July I picked up my passport with the beautiful shiny visa exactly 3 months to the day after having handed in my application.