Tongaat by moonlight. I’ll try almost anything once, though Tongaat by moonlight under the circumstances I experienced, was challenging.
We’re planning a visit to Mauritius to sample Peter Matkovich’s new course Mont Choisy Le Golf in March, but realised that our passports will be expiring in April.
Rather than face a problem at the airport we bit the bullet and decided to renew.
When I got our original passports at Tongaat Home Affairs office ten years ago, it was a breeze.
Unfortunately, a couple of factors have changed: the population of the North Coast has at least tripled, children entering their matric year must have an identity document to register, plus all people wanting social grants must have the new smartcard ID. Plus a fake story doing the rounds that the deadline for smartcards is March 31. Not true.
So, having heard of long queues, we decide to get there early! Rise and shine at 5am, get there by 6. A complete waste of time, except it was educational.
There were about 250 people ahead of us in the queue and, we discovered at 8am, they only issue 140 tickets for the day.
Which in practice means you have to be no more than about 70th in the queue, because all the people who didn’t complete their registrations the day before get priority.
Our reporter Erica Abrahams decided to try and showed up the next day at 3.20am – way too late. So, I vowed, I will get this passport whatever it takes.
Friday morning, I set the alarm for midnight. Creep out of bed so not to wake Sleeping Beauty and pitch up at Tongaat at 12.30. Not a soul in sight. I plonk myself down at the locked gate in a camper chair and I ain’t moving!
A little while later a guy arrives from Phoenix. His family slept in the back of his panel van while he queued. He’s a sober family man with a machine gun wit.
About 1:15 a guy who has been at the Blue Top and is feeling no pain, lurches down the road, plants himself behind us and announces “I’m shurrd in in line sho I’m no wurried!” He repeats this every couple of minutes and must have said it 3333 times over the next seven hours.
He looks like he’s just gone a few rounds with Mike Tyson, so he’s Boxer. You know when someone’s very drunk they have to point themselves in the direction they want to go, then kind of stagger in a little run? But he’s also a jokey guy, so no harm.
When the first plane takes off from King Shaka airport at 3am, the guys are queueing up the road. By 5 there are 60 in the queue but Boxer isshn’t wurried cos he’sh shurrd in line! Even so, the level of anxiety is quite high. Whenever someone walks up to peer through the gate, everyone tenses up a little in case they’re trying to squeeze in. But not to worry, everything’s cool.
About 7am security roll back the gate and we stream into the grounds, but it’s very orderly. I’m the uncle who’s Number One and that’s okay with everyone. Actually, everyone’s a little hysterical by this point and the jokes are flying.
The family man, the Comedian, nudges me in the ribs and announces: “We’ve got a white man and a black man here – together we’re Michael Jackson!”
Boxer says he’s got a hellavu babelaas so Comedian suggest we have a collection. “Got to get him something cos his medication’s fading!”
Sleeping Beauty joins me at 7:30 and earns a few ribald comments, but I see some other new faces in the queue. These ‘lahnies’ have paid people to queue for them, I’m told at about R400 a pop. It’s okay for the Zimbali crowd, but not us poor cousins from Salt Rock.
They have a curious system at the door. There are three queues: new applications, priority (yesterday) applications and collections. The Priority queue gets ticket 1 to 28, then we get the rest, in this case 30 to whatever. Boxer gets ticket No 36 and everybody chirps him, “What happened, No. 3?” He just shakes his head and grins.
Collections and special cases, like the elderly and sick, go in first. Then the first 10 or so from the Priority queue, then 10 from our queue, then back to the Priority queue and so on.
Once inside, you have to queue to get a sticker on your ID book before queueing for photographs and fingerprints. It took about 90 minutes to get to the photo booth, partly because the computer system kept going offline. I hate computer systems!
Off to the cashier’s window to pay. The place is heaving now, about 200 people scrambling around a space made for half that – old, young, some in wheelchairs, mothers with new-born babies, black, white, Indian.
Entertaining to watch. Blacks are quite stoical, just waiting patiently and quietly. Whites are quick to look grumpy and say things like “No man, it’s not right!” through pursed lips. Indians are in between, complaining loudly one minute then laughing uproariously the next. It’s hard to generalise, but the Indians entertained themselves with a smile throughout.
Finally, at 10:45 we get to the passport desk having paid, got photos and fingerprints and the system is up. Yay! The clerk wants to know if we want smartcard IDs, because they are “free for the over 60s”. Double yay! Then we’re done. Ten hours and mission accomplished.
But seriously, Home Affairs needs to modernise. One photo booth, one cashier and two input clerks for all those people! No wonder they can only process 100 or so a day, computer systems permitting. With all the unemployment, you’d think this must present an opportunity to create a few thousand jobs at the hundreds of Home Affairs offices. I must add, the staff were pleasant and helpful throughout, if also frustrated by the slow system.
As we leave, Boxer is walking around in a bit of a daze, holding his head. “I can’t find my wife,” he bleats. The Comedian chirps, quick as a flash: “She must be offline!”
* * *
President Donald Trump offended African countries by calling them “shithole countries”.
He used the wrong terminology. The correct term is “turd-world countries”.
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