Due to unfortunate circumstances, the holiday lasted longer than planned. Jean Gander made a trip to her home country in Zambia to visit her family. Jean grew up in Zambia and did not expect to be there 15 months after her visit. Due to unfortunate circumstances, she is still in Zambia along with her two kids because of a bureaucratic chaos.
Jean is the daughter of a Zambian woman and a British man and was issued a British Passport when she was studying in the UK in 1992. Seven years after that, she met Frank Neumann who became her husband.
Frank Neumann was involved in a biking accident and was advised by his physiotherapist to join a gym in the local town of Kentish Town.
He said that the pair met when he was exercising at the gym. He declared that meeting Jean was the silver lining in his cloud. Jean was exercising with the running machine when her eyes sat up on the Swiss commodities dealer.
She declared that she saw a tall guy; she is tall herself so she was attracted and a conversation started.
Within a couple of years after that first conversation, the couple got married, moved in together and had kids. They change their residence to Russell Square when Jean took a job offer in Harrods.
In January of last year, Jean paid her family in Zambia a visit and she brought the kids along. During her short stay, disaster struck. She made a decision to stay longer on her trip after she found out that her sister had cancer. Her passport was about to be expired so she went for a renewal.
Jean said her brother told her not to renew her passport there, he had renewed his own in London. He told him that she was not hiding anything and that she had renewed her passport twice before in London and it was not a problem. She figured she would do it there; it was due to be expired in two months.
However for unexplainable reasons, her case was perceived as a stolen passport and not a renewal. In 1967 Jean was born in Zambia, she did not have a birth certificate so she sent a baptism certificate. On this document was her African name, which was Christine Chibwe Chenda. This name had never been a problem when she had renewed her passport in London, but it has now caused a problem in Zambia.
Frank stated that they treated his wife as a fraud. The officials were asking for details such as the school she attended in Zambia, proof that her father was British and lots more. They gave them all the proof but Jean had to reapply in Pretoria which took six months. During that time, she had to put her kids into private schools.
Jean said that the fees for school are bad but will still send them to private school. After applying to the office in Pretoria, the application was rejected on the basis that she was unable to be linked to her parents. Now Jean is stuck in Zambia.
Frank tried to get Frank Dobson, the local MP to help. The MP had sent the Home Office a letter, however they asked for more documents. The British Government was not forthcoming with help for one of its citizen. Frank tried to get his wife a Swiss passport but Jean had to be living with him. Frank is trying to get Jean in the UK on the basis of his European rights to live with his wife. Once this materializes, they will apply again for the British passport.
Jean is frustrated, the kids need their dad and she needs her husband. Jean said that London is her home and not Zambia.
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