Embassy and Passports Do Not Make for a Good Day!

Today I was ready to pack my bags and go home! Talk about feeling frustrated. Why is it that every country you go to (when entering through Immigration with your Passport) find this unstoppable urge to use a clean page for their stamp and then another one for their visa!!!! As a result the passport that I now have, has too few pages in it. When we arrived they put a

temporary visa plus the normal stamps of entry into my passport (taking up 2 pages)a day later our passports were collected again for another more "permanent" visa... (it was supposed to be for a year), but guess what..... it was only, for a month.

The passports now had to go back once more,Patrick, the guy who is doing this for us, told
me ‘Mama you do not have enough pages for this’ so that is the reason why I am trying to obtain a new passport. The South African Embassy here has been awful.

I have been to them 4 times and every time (according to them)I have had something missing. or I had not completed all the forms.
I had to prove my citizenship, apply for an Identity Document, Apply for a new Passport, and bring copies of my existing Passport, Identity Document, and Citizenship Document.


Second time with everything in order I go back and the man who does finger prints was not there BUT..let me check your papers , oops! You forgot to fill in all the details of your parents…!!!! Where they where born,when, Identity numbers etc. which I do not have !


Third time every thing is filled out but the fingerprint man is still missing in action and so I cannot leave my application once again.
SO....
I take time and go back this morning only to be told that I filled the papers in with the wrong
blue and not black…colour OK.. I redo them…"oops something is not right! "You have crossed something out ,that is not allowed, I start again…oops! this "You have gone over the R in your surname that is not allowed…".That is when I just got so frustrated and burst into tears!!!!!

I am now convinced that these people were looking for a bribe, and without it they where
going to give me a hard time. I told the fingerprint man (Who magically appeared- Like the Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland) that I was not happy with
the way I was been treated and that I would report their behaviour…as I was about to fill in my forth application of the day….

He then proceeded to tell me he was in charge and no you do not have to redo that just scratch it out like this…with a stroke of the pen and write next to it!!!! I said the Madam in the
front said it was not allowed, he told me forget about her she is in training…and he knew what was allowed and not……and had been doing this job for many years!!!


I COULD HAVE SCREAMED! This was NOT funny! There I am standing - tears running down my face, runny nose (no tissues) and all of this happening in front of a room of around 30 people.

I was ashamed to be South African and to be treated like this in a foreign country by my own embassy….…..Shame on you SA Embassy for not been more helpful to YOUR citizens in a foreign country. I am sure many of the people sitting there are subjected to this type of behaviour and abuse - having no choice but to pay something (someone) under the table to be served!!!

Well I will have no part in any form of corruption….Happy to have got that all off my chest, time to move on!

Moral of the story , is to go prepared with enough blank pages in your passport and everything else to do with your Travel Document in order well before you leave home !
Hope the weekend is allot better!