I never thought this would happen to me and so when I was taken to customs at the airport and the worker there told me with little importance to the matter, the words “we’ll have to deport you”, I was shocked and broke down in tears.
So let’s backtrack. I began this blog at the beginning of my year abroad from University. The plan was always to stay in Colombia for 3 months whilst volunteering as a teacher, then travel for 2 months and continue to my next placement. I had prepared my visa back in London, a month before travelling to be sure nothing goes wrong – or so I thought.
So I went on, volunteered, lived my experiences, gave my knowledge to children from low-income salaries, learned about Colombian culture and enjoyed my year abroad. I had honestly thought that I was well-prepared for living abroad; I had missed one very important thing.
My assumption was, that when my visa expired, my Swiss passport would automatically give me the right to stay another 3 months in the country as a tourist, not needing a visa (which you don’t, for the time of 90 days). But what I hadn’t realized, was that my visa wasn’t dated from the time of my placement; the embassy put the dates of 3 months from the date it was issued, so 1 month before my trip, my visa was already running.
I was at migrations, trying to explain to them, that I had the wrong dates on my visa, showed them confirmation of my placement between the university and the organization, explained that I had a Swiss passport and that I was there as a volunteer, with no intention to do any harm or stay in the country; they were so cold, even when I cried, they showed no importance to a young lady that made a bureaucratic mistake. So I was deported for up to 5 years; banned from Colombia. Now, thinking back at it, everything happened for a reason, I got a story to tell and I learned from it. And the time that I did spend there, was well spent; which you’ll see in my following and previous posts.
Moral of the story: don’t take bureaucracy lightly, especially when it comes to migration and visas. If something does happen; don’t worry, life goes on, you’ll learn from your mistakes.