The Wonderful World of Home Affairs

Conventional wisdom states that the British invented the queue. Well, the Durban Home Affairs department have elevated the queue to a whole new art form. Would you believe it - I've now been in SA for a whole year - and that means it's visa renewal time. So off to Home Affairs we went. And then we queued: we queued to collect the forms; then we queued to submit the forms; a week later we queued to submit the passport for stamping; and then we returned at the specified time to collect the passport.....only to find out that the Home Affairs office had closed an hour earlier. Just for a laugh they made us queue outside for another hour before telling us to go home. The next day we again returned at the appointed time. We handed in our names so that they would know which passports to process first. We waited some more. By this time the Blitz spirit had taken over and the atmosphere was remarkably jolly. We waited another hour. The lady came out. Read out a few names. No takers. We handed in our names again. Finally at 5pm (closing time and the equivalent of Home Affairs high noon)the lady appeared again and my name was the first to be read out. In keeping with my newly aquired African Spirit (see earlier blog) I did a victory cheer and dance up the aisle to collect my passport - much to the delight and amusement of my fellow inmates. And the good news? They gave me 2 years before I have to go back and queue some more.