Today I finally received the letter of invitation from my school. A non-tourist planning to work in Kazakhstan needs to have a letter of invitation before applying for a work visa. You have to submit a lot of paperwork before you can get this letter of invitation. For me, the main hold up was my masters diploma which needed an apostille before the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kazakhstan would grant me a letter of invitation.
Now I am just waiting for my cover letter from my school which I will get Monday morning. By Monday afternoon, I will FedEx my entire work visa application and documents to the US. I am using Travisa to process my visa for me with the Kazakhstan Consulate in New York City. This saves me the headache of waiting 5+ working days in Bangkok or Singapore to process my visa. I am expecting it to take roughly 10 days to get my work visa once I FedEx everything to the US. Everything will be expedited for me since I need to be in Almaty by the end of October.
Finally I am counting my days here in Saigon, Vietnam, until I finally leave for Kazakhstan. I will start packing next week. 🙂