Sorry to hear as well, even though we've never met either!
Question or two though if I may:
1. Why not stick it out and see what happens, beyond the 'carrot & stick thingy'?
2. When they denied your application, did they indicate you're not allowed to come back?
Sounds like you have a lot invested in here over that time...
Either way, best luck in the decisions and travels!
Ah Drak.. 12 years is a lifetime!! and I have been sticking it out really for the last 2 or three of them
they did not deny me the application for residency.. just that it all seemed so ridiculous.. I had started the process three times and each time
the government changed the regulations in the middle of my application and so I had to start over again. More lawyer fees. More trips to immigration
In the end.. really.. I simply lost respect for the process.. I mean this is a country that changed its constitution from about Thursday to Monday so why was I going through
all these hoops to be "legal" -- I have a lease on an apartment, health insurance, three bank accounts.. the only thing that I am missing is a driver's license.
But.. in the end.. I am not Dominican.
I think it is perhaps a lot easier for a man to settle down here -- If I were a man, I think it would be easy for me to fall for a Dominican woman.. they are lovely..
Alas.. not so easy for an American woman.. and a feminist.. .. to fall for a Dominican man.. (and I am STILL, alas, a failed lesbian, despite all my intellectual longings to become one)
There is simply a disconnect..
And really - honestly.. most Dominican men want the gringa to get the visa to get out of here, right?
Not that I am looking for a man.. I am actually NOT looking for a man
but life as a single female here.. alas.. well.. not so easy.. really.. not
It was fine when I was working, reporting.. but in the end I ran out of feel good stories.. and the only really juicy story is the one on drugs or sugar cane and either one will get you in
a lot of trouble here..
so..
and, of course, I still have folks back in the USA....