So Mia’s passport is ready for collection & I am going to pick it up tomorrow.... very excited to have it. The process was FAIRLY painless & pretty quick in the end.....
Marc & I took Mia about a month ago..... We both had to be there. (Or u just have to get written consent from the absent parent) but even if we didn’t both need to be there we had to both go.... One was manning the queue while the other chased Mia around the dirty, home affairs office with lots of strange people & even more children....
But – before I get into that, let me start at the beginning......Once our trip was confirmed, we needed to get all our travel documentation to the RMS St Helena & so I went onto the home affair website which was very helpful actually....but I ended up calling the actual office & found out exactly what I needed:
ONE –Childs Birth Certificate, which of course wasn’t in the safe where I put it so we only took along a coloured copy of it.... thank goodness that was enough. (I wouldn’t recommend it though. I think we were just lucky they didn’t check it thoroughly) And I subsequently found the certificate – someone manage to let it fall out of the safe when moving his photographic gear around.... I’m not going to mention any name of course ;-) heehee.
TWO – Both parent’s green bar-coded ID books. I made sure we also took along both our passports & photocopies of it all....I didn’t want to take any chances on not having everything required & having to do this again.
THREE – You’ll need two coloured passport pictures..... If only it was as easy as the 6 little word sentence. Try getting a toddler to sit still, on a bar chair while some stranger tries to take a picture...Tries being the operative word – She had to try & sit there for the whole 25 minutes it took the useless chick to hit the bloody button.... oh & of course she had to look into the camera, not smile, have her eyes wide open & u can imagine how pleased her photographer father was with the woman at the pharmacy when she missed the shot for the 7th time! Yip-7.....and now Mia really didn’t want to sit still on this silly chair anymore..... it got to the point where we really thought we weren’t actually going to be able to do this.... Marc was about to grab the camera from her & do it himself (I just wanted to hit her over the head with it) when she finally got it......
Luckily... it turned out very sweet....and the half smile was accepted :-)
Then we were off to find the Department of home affairs...... we psyched ourselves up & prepared for a good 3 hour stint.... but when we drove in & saw the queue of people make 2 loops out the door & resemble something closer to the 2010 World Cup final main entrance at soccer city we looked at each other, took a deep breath and got out the car.....As we approached the back of the ‘convoy’....someone told us that this was the queue for immigrants waiting for work permits..... Shooooo! *BIG exhale* Awesome news! Not for them of course J
Soooo...Marc & I completely relieved & re-inspired walk into the actual room...... Once again we were a little overwhelmed....it was busier than expected....Look, I’ll admit our expectations were a little high - maybe living down on the tip of the African continent we have gotten too used to a maximum of 3 people at any check-out counter at any given time..... But once we found the information desk, they gave us the forms, pointed us in the right direction & we were on our way.... Mia was very good actually – fascinated with all the different people I think.....Honestly, I was too J Fascinated, not good ;-)
Our queue was the shortest of them all, thank goodness. (I would really try not to lose ones ID book, if you can help it....... that queue resembled the soccer city one just a little.J)
Poor Marc ran around after Mia who was using the queue chain dividers, ladies handbags & pretty much anything in her way as a mini obstacle course.....who needs amusement parks J I’ll be honest – I did try to object when the shoes came off & she went sliding around the grimy floor but it was nothing a good goldilocks scrub & some jik couldn’t sort out ;-) Kidding... a few washes in the bath sorted it all out. So while the father daughter team of Bow were doing laps, I was trying, very carefully NOT to mess up the application form.... I do think they put some of sections in just to confuse you..... I really didn’t want to be sent back to the information desk.... It felt like Matric finals all over again ;-)
The whole process took about an hour & a half & they did want to see Mia..... if only for a second. (Which made me feel a whole lot better for having to take her out of school & drag her along) Once everything was checked & confirmed we were sent over to the payment desk – no queues....Yay.
FOUR - It cost R145 & it takes 4 – 6 weeks to receive. They do say you should apply 8 weeks before travel in order to make sure you get your papers in time.
We went in on the 30 September 2010 & got the sms today saying its ready....so 3 weeks to the day...not bad, not bad at all....
xxGen
She looks too cute!!!
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