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[personal profile] freckles_and_doubt
So, my unfortunate father is sitting immured in the wilds of rural southern France1 without a passport. He's eligible for South African citizenship, and has applied for ID and a passport. This took place at the end of May last year. The process is supposed to take two months. The South African embassy in Paris has a "don't call us, we'll call you" policy even in the face of a 7-month delay. So I undertook to try and apply gunpowder and ginger and other galvanants to the process from this end.

I've tried the local Home Affairs number in Cape Town every day this week, at a tasteful array of times: it simply rings endlessly until it cuts out. The government website has a great deal of cheery information about ID and passports, and a whole bunch of contact numbers for the Pretoria head office. I've rung them all. Half of them give the long beep signal which means they no longer exist; the other half simply ring endlessly until they cut out (see above).

Either (a) everyone with any actual ability to answer a phone is still on holiday, or (b) it's a particularly nasty and baroque plot to ensure that the only way of doing anything is to actually physically go to a home affairs office. There they will force you to queue for anything up to six hours for the privilege of being passed from desk to desk staffed with minions with a fine grasp of the nuances of ignorant incompetence. Eventually you will reach an inner sanctum where your brain, cleverly reduced to liquid form by the waiting process, will be sucked out through your ears and used to feed the incomprehensible alien overlord who staffs and runs the rat-maze simulation which is our government bureaucracy. The jelly-form alien parasite with which they replace the lost grey matter will send your empty, mind-wiped shell shuffling zombie-like back into the world, unable to protest at the horror of it all. You'll never find out what happened to the application. My best guess is alien toilet paper.

The current plan is to call the Ghostbusters2 and kick the doors down at 8am sharp on Monday morning. With rocket launchers. I ain't taking no lip from alien overfiends.

1 Tormented by wine, duck, pâté, scenery, la belle langue and the complete inability to visit family. It is a significant point in favour of my family life that he doesn't consider all of the above to be cause for rejoicing. Reason #1784562 why I really want a proper job that will pay me enough to actually travel.
2 Or possibly the dreaded stv, whose uncanny resemblance to Simon Pegg has to make him good for both zombie butt-kicking and a certain amount of expertise with alien overlords.

Date: Saturday, 13 January 2007 02:36 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
I'm anticipating similar excitemn aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffgggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggga() 0BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBVBBBBBBBBBBBVBBBBBBBBBVBBVVVBVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVBVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVBBBBVVEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

[Er, the above brought to you by Jemima's sudden need for attention. I could delete, but it looked kinda cute. Have rearranged lap and both laptops (feline and technological). Resume transmission.]

...similar excitement here. My passport expires in August. I want - nay, need - to visit Venice in May. Italian consulate makes sniffy noises about granting visas to persons whose passports expire within 3 months of travel. I have just discovered that SA consulate claims passport renewal takes 4 months. And of course, getting the Schengen visa takes about 2 months. So to travel to Italy in May, apparently I should have started proceedings in, ooh, October 2006. Because my passport expires in August 2007. *head asplode*

This is all part of the great cosmic plot to prevent me getting to Venice before it sinks. I've tried twice before, and both times been prevented by, guess what? Visa issues. I am Cursed.

scroob the sulky

PS Er, commiserations to your esteemed father, and that.

Date: Saturday, 13 January 2007 02:47 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] extemporanea.livejournal.com
I am honoured by Jemima's attention to my humble blog. Very validating. Although somewhat difficult to decode.

Yup. Mug's game, passport stuff from a different continent. Guaranteed to bring one's grey hairs in sorrow to the grave. Although I should imagine that you're OK on the sinking-Venice front for at least another year, bar sudden climactic global warming trigger events.

Also, are you not eligible for a UK passport yet?

Date: Saturday, 13 January 2007 02:49 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] origamitiger.livejournal.com
I put my Visa into the home office in June. Still nothing. Brilliant. They have both our Passports, it is more than frustrating.

Date: Saturday, 13 January 2007 02:53 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] extemporanea.livejournal.com
On the other hand, perhaps it's a subtle blow struck by rabid eco-fiends to cut down on unnecessary and emission-creating air travel by confining as many people as possible to their countries of origin. Greenpeace in the cracks of the world bureaucracy! like woodworm!

Date: Saturday, 13 January 2007 04:09 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] strawberryfrog.livejournal.com
Yeah, the British Home office is not much better - it's widely known that they are not overly blessed with competence.

Date: Saturday, 13 January 2007 03:45 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
Ooh, the strange case of the disappearing comment... sorry if this appears twice. I think I'm eligible later this year, but not being *enormously* keen on swearing allegiance to Liz and that, I'll stick it out for another year and then get me a shiny red Swiss passport instead. Much better.

Jem is slowly edging the laptop off my lap entirely. She doesn't like to share. At this rate I'll soon be typing with my torso in an interesting corkscrew posture, which may or may not do anything to ease my lingering yoga ouchiness.

Home Affairs

Date: Monday, 15 January 2007 12:12 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
Oh dear, my sympathies for the horrible situation you find yourself in. I've recently had to endure similar frustration while applying for a full birth certificate (no, not the abridged version, but the full, impossible to get version that eventually took 6 months to arrive). There seem to be a number of approaches which seem to work. Phone at 8am only when staff are awake and before they become vindictive and slam the phone down without even checking to see what you want. This sometimes works in that the phone actually rings, actually gets answered and you get a real person on the other end of the line. Once you have a live individual who is vaguely interested speak to them in Afrikaans (oops, hmm you may need to take a few months to learn the language) or in English, but be sure to disguise all frustration and desire to scream. Speak in a slightly desperate tone and repeatedly assure them that their help would change your life for the better. Everyone hates home affairs and I think the officials have become as nasty as we expect them to be. I've found that the grateful calm approach gets the best results. Once you put the phone down feel free to scream, kick the door or drown your sorrows in Tanqueray Gin. PS, the Wynberg office also seems a bit more helpful than the one in Barrack street, City Centre

don't phone govt departments...

Date: Monday, 15 January 2007 12:15 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tngr-spacecadet.livejournal.com
after endless ringing, over a period of some weeks, i once got through to an office of the dept of labour in pretoria. it is clearly against policy to take phone calls as the receptionist flatly refused to transfer my call, but insisted on giving me the direct number of the person i needed to speak to.

i made sure that i had written the number down correctly, however it turned out to belong to a gentleman who works at the department of justice.

i never did get through to the dept of labour and had to serve a subpoena and ask a Pretoria law firm to send an articled clerk along to demand the documents i needed before i received any co-operation whatsoever.

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