The first time I applied for a US visa I was refused. It was one learning experience yet also an unforgettable and a humbling one. While most of my companions that fateful morning were already imagining the scent of Washington apples, I quietly sat in one corner trying to figure out why the consul did not even give me a chance to talk when it was my turn to be interviewed.
Down but not out, I returned the following week to the embassy and joined the long morning queue to the consul’s window. This time, the woman at the counter simply opened the last page of my passport where stamped a date indicating the day the embassy received my application the previous week. “I’m sorry,” she calmly said as she handed me a piece of mimeographed paper explaining why I was denied a visa.
