No matter where you live in the USA, you can get the form online to send in the mail with your passport photos and a check or money order for $110. This will get you a new passport good for 10 years. It is also possible to do the process at many post offices and passport centers nationwide. Official information, forms, and instructions can be easily found online. If you live overseas you can renew your passport at the nearest US embassy or consulate.
There is absolutely nothing online about getting a Chadian passport. Heaven forbid that they let any top secret government information get out there. The following information is not official, but it’s what I gathered through our recent experience of getting JP a new passport.
If you live in another country, too bad. You must get your passport renewed in person in Chad, in the capital city N’Djamena, at one specific government building. If you live in Chad but you are 10 hours away from the capital, too bad. You have to come to the capital and wait there to get a passport. No, they don’t know how long you’ll have to wait. It could be a few weeks. Too bad for you. The passport only lasts for 5 years, so you have to deal with this process every 5 years.
You go to the official place. To get into the walled-in yard you have to make it past the unfriendly guards first. You must give a convincing reason why they should let you in. Once you’re in there you get confused because there are several buildings and no signs to help you know where to go. There are a lot of people sitting around and seemingly doing nothing though, (except one guy selling mobile phone credit, I wonder if he gave a bribe to be allowed to come in the gate?) so you just ask a few of them which building you should go in. You go in the building that a random stranger said to go in. There are about 30 chairs in an open waiting room, and at least half of them are occupied. There isn’t a reception desk or window, and there are no brochures, forms, signs or instructions posted anywhere. So you sit down. After a while a man comes out from behind a closed door and somehow notices that new people are sitting there. (or maybe he noticed that there was a white person?) He asked what we wanted. JP explained that his passport was expiring and he wanted to find out what to do to get a new one. The man said that first JP needed to go to a certain bank downtown to deposit the passport fee ($160) in the government account at that specific bank. Then he can bring the deposit receipt back with him and continue the process. He would also need to bring passport photos and photocopies of 3 Chadian’s ID cards that will show that at least 3 Chadians think he should be allowed to get a new passport. (or something like that. Not quite sure. I found that part really weird, especially since it wasn’t to get a first-time passport, but to renew.)
And by the way, I think its crazy that the passport in Chad is more expensive than the USA passport, and when you consider that its only good for 5 years that makes it two times way more expensive! The GDP per capita in Chad is less than $1000 per year and they charge $160 for a 5 year passport?! That would be like a USA passport costing $8000 compared to the USA GDP. (I calculated this off of current GDP data on the WorldBank.org website.)
So we left the official building empty handed. No list of instructions or forms to fill out.
JP went to 3 different banks to find an ATM machine that worked. He got the money to pay and then went to the right bank to pay at. It was getting close to noon on a Friday (Muslim’s mosque time, like Sunday morning for Christians) and there was already a line. The teller closed the window and JP had to leave and wait for Monday morning to go downtown again to that bank.
Skip ahead a few days: After getting the receipt for the money paid, he brought it with his pictures and photocopies and filled out the application at the government building. He was told that they didn’t know how long it would take for the passport to be ready, but he could come back to check and pick it up in a few weeks. No phone number to call and check if it is ready or anything like that, he would have to go downtown again to check.
Well, eventually he did get his new passport, thank God. And in only 5 years he gets to do this all over again!
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