Paperwork at the end of the trip

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The end-of-my-Fulbright paperwork was much easier than the paperwork beforehand.  Here is what it looked like.

STEP

When I prepared to head to Panama, I enrolled in STEP (the State Department "Smart Traveler Enrollment Program").  Because of this, I got occasional helpful emails about consular visits to Panama, upcoming protests (to avoid), etc.  So one indication of the trip winding down was an email that reminded me, 

"Your Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP) subscription
 to Panama, U.S. Embassy Panama City will expire in 30 days.
  Click here to extend this subscription by one year."

I think enrolling in STEP probably took 5 minutes; super easy.  Un-enrolling was easier yet: I just deleted two emails like the above one.

Immigration Card

Another good-bye moment was giving my cedula (ID card) back.  The work to get that ID card in the first place was fierce.  It included a bunch of FBI paperwork and getting apostilles (documented in this post from September), and a rather bureaucratically intense appointment at the immigration building (documented in this post from November), and then yet another round of bureaucracy at the immigration building (see this post in December).  After all that work, I showed that ID to Panamanian authorities at the airport when I traveled to the math meetings in the US and to Chile, and once or twice it got me discounts for Panama retirees--which I got, too, because the card noted I was a temporary resident.  

As I said, getting the card was a LOT of work; giving it back was just as easy as handing it over to a friend at the embassy while we were out on a weekend adventure.

Embassy Debriefing

The Embassy asked me to come to a final debriefing, which was a friendly and informal set of questions. What was my experience like? Did I have suggestions for how they could help support me better?  

Funny story about that final debriefing.  One of the things I mentioned was how hard it was to connect with faculty from Panamanian math departments. I told them that the university web pages don't list faculty names or contact info; that when I did finally get contact info, I would write multiple times and people wouldn't respond; that even when they did respond (like one guy at a place called UTP--this is relevant to what follows) saying they'd soon get in touch to invite me, then I never heard a word again.  

Then, two guys from UTP joined us to ask me questions.  They are hoping to develop a PhD program, and they would really like to develop relationships with U.S.-based mathematicians who might help supervise or read over doctoral dissertations.  Over and over they said that they really wanted to figure out how to get in contact, and that they wanted to develop relationships with mathematicians.  Did I have suggestions? I pointed them to the three organizations below, but also mentioned that I'd tried to get in touch with their school multiple times this past year, and that I'd have been happy to work with them while I was still in Panama.  sigh.

At my debriefing.

 Final report?

I've been sending monthly reports of my activities to the Embassy, and so I sent one last report, closing things out.  

As for sending a report to the IIE folks in the State Department, the IIE portal (where I applied for the Fulbright award), mostly has places to upload application forms.  But it does say 

Using IIE Participant Portal after your grant:
  • Download Fulbright Certificate of Completion, upon successful completion of grant and submission of final survey.
I am just not sure how/when I'll get the survey, or if I'm supposed to hunt it down myself.  After I figure this out, I'll update this section for completeness.  


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