After the events of September 11, 2001, security became the primary value for Americans. Therefore, checks here are conducted very strictly. We enter with only our documents, leaving everything else behind. You are not even allowed to take a mobile phone. From the moment you cross the threshold of the embassy, the laws of the Republic of Kazakhstan cease to apply, and the laws of the United States of America prevail. As soon as I passed the checkpoint and headed to the inner courtyard, my recent shivering, trembling, and anxiety about the visa instantly subsided, and I began to feel comfortable. It was as if the cold disappeared the moment I entered the embassy courtyard. What a miracle! I don't know why, but I felt so safe. I felt like a person who had managed to get into the house while escaping from a 'Baskerville' hound chasing them. You remember Arthur Conan Doyle's 'Sherlock Holmes', right...? There was a monster dog there...

With a high spirit, I reached for the door of the building where the interview was taking place. The atmosphere of comfort and order in the courtyard was also evident inside the building. A polite officer guarding the door was giving instructions to the students entering. As soon as I came in, he nodded to me in greeting and pointed to the window on the right. After getting some necessary papers there, I moved to the next window to submit my fingerprints. When everything was finished, I sat down in the waiting room. Most of the people sitting inside were familiar faces, our own guys and girls from Aktobe. There were also unfamiliar students among them. Students were coming out one after another after answering. It seems no one has failed yet. When I looked to my right, Symbat Bakytova, who came with us, was sitting with sparks in her eyes. There was no sign of anxiety on her face. So calm, so majestic! Just one look at her face and her eyes start speaking: 'Is this even a difficulty? We will pass now. It's just the English we speak every day...'. I felt like I understood this from her eyes. Yes, I saw sparks of immense calmness, lofty confidence, and kind hope in her eyes. Her eyes seemed to be saying to me, 'Are you scared? Then why did you come? Wouldn't it be better to stay home quietly?'. The calm girl's words were also weighty:

• Hello, Symbat!

• Hello. How are you?

• Good. How are you? Are you ready?

• Yes, good. And you?

• We are ready, - I replied briefly. 'Yes, really, what am I afraid of? I have no way to retreat. I couldn't go last year. This is my last chance. If I don't go this year, I will graduate next year. Then I will never be able to go. Whatever happens, I must pass today!' - while I was struggling with my own thoughts, the turn reached Symbat. As soon as she heard her name, she stood up and, maintaining her composure, reached the window that called her. Although the room was quiet, due to my hearing impairment, I could not hear clearly what they were asking. In less than a minute, the agile girl returned in a cheerful mood. Who could have any criticism for an 'extra-agile' girl who was answering instantly, snatching the words from the consul's mouth...? She came, answered briskly, and left. If you understood the question, there is no need to think. Give the appropriate answer quickly and get rid of it. If you keep thinking and dragging out the time, the consul's questions will only increase.

Symbat showed the best example of a person who deserves to get a visa. Maximum answer, minimum time! Yes, by the way, she was one of the 15 Aktobe students who applied with us last year (2013) but could not go...

Yes, I say last year, last year we applied for documents as a group at the Aktobe Educational Advising Center. We postponed our train tickets to Astana for the interview twice, and on the third time, we finally gave them up. We couldn't understand what was happening. Our thoughts were running in all directions. That period coincided with the time when the Tsarnaev brothers organized the bombing in Boston. Rumors like 'Work and Travel was closed after the bombing' or 'They don't accept Kazakhstanis for it' started to spread. They wouldn't tell us anything. The center with a comfortable office in the city did all the work itself. We only signed the papers they told us to sign and paid the money they told us to pay. They did the rest themselves. They kept us hopeful until June 1st. Then we received letters written with apologies using all sorts of petty words... I don't know how it affected others, but that letter caused me disgust. I didn't think the Russian language could be so disgusting.

For me, who had announced to everyone that I was going to America and had even passed all my exams in advance, this felt like a bolt from the blue. One of the two people I knew who met me asked the question: 'Didn't you say you were going to America?'. In such cases, I didn't know how to justify myself. 'They didn't let us get a visa', 'The center deceived us', 'There was a misunderstanding' — any of these 'truths instead of lies' were illogical. It's hard to even construct them. You tell the full details to every person who asks until your throat is red, it's good if they believe it. Although they pretend to believe your words on the outside, 80-90 percent of them have distrust, doubt, suspicion, and gloating inside. The hardest part is that you cannot convince others of what is an undoubted truth for you. Even worse is that people who heard the truth from your own mouth add their own words and turn the truth inside out. In the circle of people who know me, rumors were floating around that I 'failed the visa', 'How could he go to America?'. How would those poor people know that I stumbled before reaching the visa...? Maybe it was the same with other students who couldn't go with me...? I say 'stumbled', but what was my fault here? Isn't this the fault of the center that couldn't take us...?

Guys and girls are being called one after another to the windows standing in a row. Everyone is returning cheerful, it seems there are no 'denials' for anyone yet. Yes, and let there not be!

At that time, I didn't even know that there was an excellent agency called InterExchange. When I found out that the Aktobe Educational Advising Center would fail like this and that there was an agency called InterExchange, I would have submitted my documents there without hesitation... Well! Let it be. What's done is done. Maybe America wasn't meant to be. Now the issue is, how do we get our money back? I read in the press and heard from the grapevine about the cases of fraudulent agencies that deceived students and parents by promising to take them to America. Nevertheless, after several group complaint letters written by us, the Aktobe Educational Advising Center and the organizations above it (it must have been a travel agency called 'Prosto-Tour' located in the Russian city of Penza, if I'm not mistaken), after 6-7 months of piled-up promises and inappropriate excuses, finally returned the money we paid! And my state, when I was left with nothing and my 'American Dream' was lying at home, I wouldn't wish it on anyone!

Only when we submitted our documents to the best agency in Kazakhstan, InterExchange, the next year and ran for all the papers ourselves, did I understand why we couldn't go last year. There is no extraordinary reason for this. As I understand it, they couldn't find us a 'Job offer'. They kept changing our jobs and dragging it out! What is the point of sending us to the consulate for a visa interview if we don't have a ready job in America? But this is my personal opinion. I don't know what other truth there is here, maybe I will never know. My own truth is dear to me!

In the waiting room, the ranks of guys and girls who came at the same time as me thinned out, and unfamiliar students began to fill their places.

• 'Oralbek Otegulov'! It seems my turn has come too...