The last place I would wish for anyone to have to spend their day is waiting in a line at the immigration office. I have heard horror stories from these places. It is more like an amoeba than a line of people waiting to see the next available officer. In fact, the immigration and refugee office here has a daily sea of people that flow past the immediate grounds and into the park across the street. Being aware of this I have been working diligently (and nervously) to gather the stack of documents necessary to extend my visa. I wanted to be absolutely certain that I would only have to wait in the line once. Last week Thursday I even took a special trip down to the visa renewal office at the Home Affairs building to scope out the whole scene and gauge the amount of patience I was going to need to be prepared with.
Last night I felt this urgency within me informing me that I needed to go to Home Affairs today. I was a little anxious because I didn’t quite have all the documentation that could possibly be requested. Like most things, it is taking much longer than expected to obtain a South African health insurance plan that will cover me next year. I have attempted to meet with the representative on campus a half dozen times without success. But at the urging of something from within me, I gathered the completed but unprocessed application for South African medical insurance along with the copy of my current health insurance, and took the risk to get this done. I arrived at the office at 7:35AM, 15 minutes past the time I was recommended to pitch up (yet to be expected, as I am typically late wherever I go) To my great surprise and astonishment, there was only three people in the waiting area. Taking a seat on the bench to the right I prayed that I chose the right bench to sit on as there was no resemblance of a line. And the ambiguity of this ‘line’ only intensified as more people poured in behind me. By the time I left the office an hour and a half later, there was no place to sit and definitely no semblance of a line.
After an hour of waiting I was in a small, dank room talking with an officer. He picked through my application with a fine tooth comb. My anxiety rose with every question he asked anticipating rejection of my application… not the right forms, not enough forms, signature isn’t identical on every document- I sat waiting for him to tell me to come back another day and do this all over again. However, to my surprise and delight, he stapled it together and placed my application in the bin to be processed and then informed me to pick up my extended visa in two weeks. :) I wanted to kiss him on the cheek and dance all the way out the door. Things usually never work out like they are “supposed” to around here, you know, the way I think they should or in the time I want things to be done. My friend Matt refers to this a ‘mazanzi style’, and it continuously forces me to take a big chill pill and to rejoice in the little things.
