hi everyone,
i have wonderful news to share. my husband had his interview this morning and at the end they told him at the end that he would have his visa in a few weeks!!
for NoonaAmeen: as i said in my other post, the embassy only called less than 24 hours before the interview, but that is because someone else had cancelled so they had a slot available at the last minute. so of course we said yes because we've been prepared for months for this moment.
we were told his interview would be at 8:30 and although his name was the first called to go into the waiting area, he was not interviewed until 12pm!!! he had arrived early and barely slept the night before so he was totally exhausted. there were only two other spouses being interviewed and the rest of the people there were for other types of services. the two others were women and in both cases they were sent away to get more documents and told that their files would be reviewed again when they were complete, in fact, he felt like one was going to be refused from the way she talked about it, so as you can imagine, he was feeling pretty stressed by the time his chance came hours later.
he was interviewed by two women- one moroccan, one canadian and he found them both very friendly, warm and easy to talk to. the questions that i have posted below will sound like an interrogation, but it was very comfortable and relaxed in tone for the most part and he found it to be a very positive experience.
he wanted me to say this to everyone:
"NOTE: If you are for real, then it's sure and certain you will succeed. There is truly no need to worry and stress over the questions as we did, and to analyze each possibility. So please everyone, relax, don't worry, it is only the questions you have heard about over and over on this forum.
Be yourself, speak from the heart, don't try to strategize too much because you don't need to."
questions he was asked:
do you know why you are here?
when was the first contact with your wife?
how did you meet her?
who made the first contact?
what is your wife's name?
what do you call her? (I think this was because in all our emails he calls me val but my full name is valerie)
how old is your wife?
(they asked him my age, then tried to correct him, but he stood his ground and they said "yes but she will be that age in a few months", which is not really true, my birthday's not until the fall. i found that interesting)
when is her birthdate?
where does your wife work?
what does she do there?
she's lived in different countries, what has she done there?
do you know your wife's family members?
what contact have you had with them?
have you travelled together?
where did you travel together?
did you have a honeymoon?
your wife is divorced, right?
it hasn't been very long since you met each other, but you decided she would come and visit you very soon after you first met online (4 months). why so fast? how did that happen?
what happened when she visited the first time?
why were you so rushed to be married? how do you explain that?
your wife is older than you, can you explain that?
(this led into a bit more of a discussion about our age difference and whether we had discussed how it could affect us etc., it was the most nerve-racking part of the interview because it took on a more serious tone but my husband was strong and spoke from the heart with conviction and they accepted his response- this was clearly the biggest concern)
what do your family members do for work (brother, sister, parents)?
what do you do for work?
noticing our receipts for sending money back & forth:
does your wife send you money because you need it?
did you send her money for the same reason?
do you have family in canada?
are you still in contact with them?
They also looked at some of the photos and asked a few questions about who was in them and where they were taken.
There was some confusion over some of the information we had provided so he had to go over that in some detail and clarify it (some dates were confusing in his forms apparently). Also, they needed him to get our original Arabic marriage certificate certified again in the government office so they would have an updated version for the file.
Bottom line, and all that really matters to us is that they said he had succeeded and was accepted and they would be in touch to let us know when he can pick up the visa within a few weeks. He has the feeling it will be the end of the month.
Again, he said to tell all of you it is much more calm and easy going than you are expecting so don't worry so much!!!!!!!!
We wanted to take the time to post all of these questions so we could help other people the same way we've been helped, so thanks to you all and best of luck to you all as well. I'll let you know the next steps.
For now, I need to go get some sleep because I've been up since 5am and only slept 4 hours last night!!! : )
Val