Wednesday, December 08, 2010

US Consulate Town Hall meeting

Monday I went to a US Consulate Town Hall meeting. Basically it was just a bunch of American citizens (and by American citizens there was only like 10 white people, and the rest were Indian's who either had kids who were citizens or something of that nature).

We started out with a quiz about America. Then we went on to a speech about the Consular services. It was boring, but informative. :-) I met a few new people.

Then there were some questions asked. Many people were curious about Indian visa regulations (about which nobody knew in the US Consulate, except one ACS (american citizen services) officer).

Among the really stupid questions were :

  1. Does the US Consulate pay for the US citizens education in India?
  2. If my minor daughter, who is a US citizen, wants to go to school in the US, can the parents come with?
  3. If the Consulate can help at Calcutta International School (CIS) to get the younger US citizen students to be able to meet with International schools before their senior year?
These questions I found interesting. I mean, seriously, they were dumb, but...people aren't always sure of the answers. :-)

I enjoyed making some new friends, but also was bored out of my mind.

Now, thanks to going out for the day for this meeting, I have a cold and a slight fever. *sigh* such is life I suppose

Will have a few more posts coming up soon about going for Nihari and other adventures around Kolkata. :-)

2 comments:

  1. Is it necessary to point out that most of the attendees were not "white" but "Indians"? For a country where immigration defines citizenship in a real sense, and where the real natives are called "Indians", I think its the ultimate irony of a racist European mindset to make a comment like the one above...

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  2. Well, I pointed it out because it was something that I, personally, was surprised about. I was expecting a meeting full of foreigners as naive as that may be.

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