Getting a work visa here is not a simple process. It involves lots of paperwork, numerous visits to various agencies, several copies of the temporary visa sent out by the company … and lots and lots of passport-size mugs.

In this case, we were taking one of the several steps between us and permanent resident status — getting a blood test. Mostly to test for HIV, apparently. Though all sorts of issues can be diagnosed in a blood test.

It was another exposure to the bureaucracy here, on The Other Side of the World.

The place goes by a name along the lines of “testing and diagnostic center.” It is near Khalifa Hospital, part of a sprawling batch of medical buildings in the center of Abu Dhabi City.

We took the cab down there, got out, broke a sweat before we reached the front door, and went in to a big, two-story building that hummed with activity … but controlled activity. We could feel it even from the outside. Lots of people coming and going.

Inside, three people (who appeared to be Emiratis) sat at a desk under a sign that read “answer desk.” So we went up there, told them what we wanted, and they knew at once, because it probably is just about all they do … and they checked for a copy of the temporary work visa (got it) and a note from the company (got it) and at least some other scrap of paper (got it, too).

We had been advised by coworkers to pay extra for “fast track,” and we asked for it — even though it cost us an extra 100 dirhams ($27). Leah was sent upstairs, where the women’s testing goes on, and I was sent next door into a large, Department of Motor Vehicles-style waiting room.

At least 20 clerks were sitting behind a long, U-shaped counter divided into cubbies … with one chair in front of each cubby. Above each of them were red lights in a black background, with each desk identified and a second number beneath it describing who was being served. A mechanical voice also intoned, in English, whenever a new number was up. “Now serving … number seven-ninety-nine at window number six …”

I had just sat down in this big room, trying to remember what number the woman at the front desk had announced to me, before I went in …

Intelligibility is a big issue here. We all think we speak some English, but all of us have accents, and some of those accents are pretty much mutually incomprehensible. I thought she had said something in the 600s. All the lights showed numbers in the high 700s. I thought maybe they would come back to me, because I had “fast track.” So, I was sitting there perhaps 60 seconds when a fortyish man in a lab coat came by, stopped next to me and said, “You have fast track?” (Clearly, most Westerners must spring for it.) And I said, “yes,” and he said, impatiently, “then what are you waiting for? Go!”

Sure. OK. I got up, clutching my papers, and headed toward the desks, and he said, “No, over there” … to the left. At Window 6. (Maybe that was what the girl up front had said? Window 6? Sixth window?) So I sat down, while others waited, and first a 30ish woman (whose hands, just about the only part of her visible, were covered with elaborate henna/temporary tattoos) handled my stuff, and asked for 350 dirhams (250 for the test, 100 for it to be expedited, about $80, total), which I gave her … and asked me to look at a camera recessed in a wall, and she took my picture. But then some adult male came up to her, back there in the work area, and they chatted a bit … and she left and he took over.Was she on break? Did she not speak English?

He asked me to took at the camera, and my picture was taken again. He stamped some papers. He took one of them. He gave me a bunch of peel-off stickers, for the tests to come. And he pointed me back across the room, for my next part of the journey.

I went around a corner, and entered a hallway that was packed with men. Almost all of them (30, out of 32?) were of south Asian origin. Here to get visas so they can work in the construction industry, mostly. Either way, we all needed to go through this process.

By now, I realized that the “priority service” stamp was on the back of one of the sheets of paper I was carrying — but that sheet somehow had ended up second-to-the-bottom. So when the uniformed guard directed me into a six-man-deep line leading up to a curtained alcove … I maneuvered my papers around, and showed the guard the priority stamp, and suddenly he seemed pleased to see me, and directed me to move immediately to the front of the line, jumping the five guys from south Asia, who I was sure were all glaring at me.

Luckily, the examination room opened up almost immediately. Two guys in lab coats sat there. One behind a desk. Another, wearing a mask, in the corner. “You are new to Abu Dhabi?” “Yes. I am.”

“Hold out your hands.” I’d seen the previous guy do this, so I was ready. “Turn them over, please.”

I don’t know what looking at someone’s hands from five feet off will tell a doctor, but they were looking.

Then then asked me to pull up my shirt. Front … then turn … and let’s see your back. I had seen the previous guy do this, as well. What were they checking for? Bullet wounds? Suppurating sores? Apparently, I didn’t have what they were looking for, and they took most of my papers and gave me a card and sent me further up the hall.

As I hit the hall, the same security guy hurried up to me and led me directly into a phlebotomist’s chair. There, a bored-looking woman of about 35 was sitting behind a tray that held several dozen vials of blood … and she took my card, and said nothing whatever … and I put my left arm on the resting place on that side of the chair … and eventually she tied up a tourniquet above my elbow, and banged around a bit for a vein, found one said something I believe was “push your fingers” … and drew the blood. I considered asking her “how many of these do you do in a day?” but speaking, here, to non-Western women you don’t know … not always a good idea. So I didn’t.

Still wan’t done. Though I was moving fast. The guys who had been in the hallway when I got there all were still there.

Around another corner, again with the security guard as guide, and to the X-ray room. For a chest X-ray. OK. The previous occupant was just coming out, buttoning his shirt.

Another Asian doctor (and all the doctors/techs appeared to be of Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi origin) was in there.

He took my remaining paperwork, asked me to take off my sweater and shirt and went back to get ready. He came out and directed me up against a square bit of plastic, chest-high, or it was once he raised it a few inches … and he clipped some sort of heavy (lead?) girdle around my hips, a girdle that descended well below my waist) … and went around the corner … and I heard the hum of an X-ray machine. It put me in mind of the dentist.

He came out, said “you’re done,” pulled the girdle off me, and I got ready to put my shirt and sweater back on even as the next guy was coming in.

One minute later, I was outside. And done. The whole process — in the door, documents stamped, into the waiting room, by the woman with henna, have my photo taken, jump the queue for the hand-check, jump the queue for the blood draw, jump the queue for the chest X-ray … had taken me 15 minutes. It was remarkably fast, really.

How long it would have taken if I hadn’t forked over the extra $27, I don’t know. Longer. Clearly.

The $27, that’s a lot of money for guys commonly referred to, here, as “laborours” (English spelling). I edited a story a couple of weeks ago, about a guy who makes 1,200 dirhams a month who won the phone company (non) lottery, and if that means he makes 250 dirhams a week … well, 100 extra dirhams is a lot of money. So those guys were waiting their turn, and putting up with fat cats who had the extra $27 jumping in front of them … and well, the whole thing made me a little uneasy.

It wasn’t like the DMV, where you can phone ahead and make a reservation and cut your time. This was about just buying your way to the front of the line, which doesn’t often happen in public-agency settings in the States. I suppose that’s the way of the world, but I still can see all those skinny little guys looking at me as the security guard moved me to the front of every line, and it didn’t seem right … but it also cut my time in there from, what, maybe an hour … to 15 minutes.

So, as bureaucracies go, it was generally painless.

Leah’s process took a bit longer. The chest X-ray  we assume is for  TB,  and some of the local women didn’t seem to relish the prospect, from what she said. Things moved a bit slower up there. Still, she needed only about 25 minutes, from soup to nuts.

However, there are more tests. A general health test … and a finger-printing session next Monday at the police station. At the least.

So, so far … lots of bureaucracies. Lots of them. But fairly well-run. So there is that. And we are about halfway through the process of being here for the interim … officially.

And, again, I am reminded that most of the expats here … the vast majority … are from south Asia. And they are men, most of them not old, but not teenagers, either.

We Westerners are a fraction of the total. Though one that might, usually, be getting salaries significant enough to pay the $27 for priority service.