74) Immigration
An important thing we had to sort out as soon as possible was our immigration. We knew that because Jonny’s parents and grandparents were all South African born he had a right to South African citizenship by decent and we assumed that being the wife and children of a citizen we were also entitled, but it needed to be confirmed.
As soon as we could we all trouped off to Pretoria to the “Ministry of Internal Affairs” the government department that dealt with such things. It turned out to be a real saga, so much so that we ended up calling it the “Ministry of Infernal Affairs”. I don’t remember the whole sequence of the saga, but at that time seemed that the department was hell bent on making it as hard as possible for people to enter and live in the country. We would stand in long queues waiting to be attended to but at least we were English speaking (with a small understanding of Afrikaans) so understood what was being said (if not why it was being said) but there were people in those queues were obviously non English speakers, Greeks, Italians, Indians, Chinese, people from northern Europe and South America who would have spoken no Afrikaans at all and only a smattering of English we felt very sorry for them.
On one of our many visits we joined the queue that we were directed to and waited patiently for our turn. When we got to the counter we were told “You’re in the wrong queue, go to counter 14”. You feel like giving them a piece of your mind but there is nothing to be gained by it so you meekly hold in your frustration and move to counter 14. We got to the front of the queue at counter 14 and the woman there just turned away from her desk and went and started talking to three other government employees who were standing in the office. It was so obviously a private conversation, not even an important business discussion. Eventually one of the women looked our way and, I suppose saw the steam coming out of our ears, she said to the others in Afrikaans, not realising that Jonny understood her, “Maybe we had better attend to these people”. The woman from counter 14 came back to her desk and we told her what we wanted. She told us once again “You are in the wrong queue go to desk 16” by this time we were all getting ready to explode but when we saw that there was no one waiting at desk 16 we thought that at least we won’t have to wait long so move to desk 16. There was no one attending that desk so we stood for a while. Then the lady who had been at desk 14 and who not five minutes before had told us we were in the wrong queue moved up two places and came to deal with us. We just could not believe it, she looked at us as if she had never seen us before in her whole life and asked us what we wanted. Jonny told her that we wanted to see a particular person, a man that he had dealt with before and who had been helpful and had told Jonny to come and see him when all of the family was in South Africa so that he could sort out our status. The lady from counter 14/16 said “I’m sorry you can’t see him without an appointment”. Jonny tried to explain that the gentleman in question had told him just to call in and see him when he was ready. By this time Jonny had had enough and he was letting everyone in the place know that he was cross. The security guards moved from their positions around the room and came to stand close to us waiting to see how far things would progress. But the tyrant would not budge, she knew she had us over a barrel and she was enjoying every moment of her delicious power. Jonny calmed down enough to say, “Well can we make an appointment then?” Our tormenter, who I am sure was laughing on the inside said without a hint of a smile on her face, “I am afraid I can not make an appointment for you, you will have to ring his office and they will make an appointment for you” We tried everything we could short of lying on the ground, kicking our feet and screaming out loud but to no avail. We just had to go home again and phone the office to make an appointment.
Phoning to make an appointment seems like an easy thing to do, Not so! I feel tempted to tell you that I spent every waking moment for the next two weeks on the phone because that’s what it seemed like at the time but I suppose that would be an exaggeration but it did take a great deal of my time in the coming weeks. A call from Witbank to Pretoria was a metered call and if you had to “hold on” it cost you money. They didn’t have those recorded messages then and so you had a real live person ignoring you and forgetting all about you as you sat for ages with the receiver glued to your ear and waited. I was transferred from one office to another and told I don’t know how many times to, “Hold the line”. After doing this and then being given some excuse at the end of my ordeal. I tried a new tactic. If I was told to “hold the line” I put the phone down and waited a few minutes and rang again, after doing this a number of times the man who was on the main switchboard began to recognise my voice. He asked me why I had rung so many times when he had put me through to the relevant office goodness only knows how many times over the last couple of days. I told him that I was getting nowhere and before I had managed to get to the office of the gentleman I wanted to make an appointment with I had been passed from pillar to post and kept waiting for ages and it was costing me a fortune. He suggested that maybe we should just come into the office and ask to see the gentleman. I told him about our friend from counter 14/16 and he had a good laugh. My new friend took pity on me and told me that he would sort it out. He would get in touch with the office concerned and when he had the gentleman’s secretary on the line he would call me back and I could then talk directly to her without having to “Hold on” for ages. What a great guy, I wonder what happened to him. I am sure that he must have been thrown out of the “Department of Infernal Affairs” for having a heart, I don’t think hearts where allowed in that department.
He rang me back to tell me that our gentleman was no longer with Infernal Affairs (they must have detected the suspicion of a heart and got rid of him before it grew into a full blown real live beating heart). My friendly telephonist had found out who had taken his place and connected me to her secretary so that I could make an appointment to see her. I suppose that was why I had had so much of a problem. I was trying to make an appointment with someone who was no longer there and no one knew that he was no longer there and it would appear no one knew who was taking his place until my friend started doing some digging and discovered the problem.
We eventually got an appointment with the lady who had replaced the missing Immigration officer. We went once again to Pretoria to meet with her and she was friendly enough. She looked through our papers and agreed that there would be no problem verifying Jonny’s citizenship. During the interview I said something that she was not happy about. I don’t remember what it was but she turned to me and with smiling lips but cold eyes she said something to the effect that I was not a citizen yet and there would be no problem “sending you back from whence you came”. The boys thought that was a great joke and are still threatening to send me back “from whence I came”.
She issued us all with temporary visas, valid for six months, and we went home happy. A few weeks later we received a certificate of citizenship for Jonny in the post and not long after that we received certificates for the boys too. We cynically said that they were very quick to give citizenship to the boys as they were coming up to the age when they could be called up to serve in the South African army. But we had known that when we decided to come and live in South Africa so we did not have any grounds for complaint, we just filed the certificates away and settled down to become a South African family. About seven or eight months later I got a very worried call from my father-in-law. He told me that the immigration department had just contacted him; they were looking for me and were threatening to deport me. (Send me back from whence I came?) I was stunned, I had heard nothing from them and if they had a problem with me they had my address and telephone number on file they knew exactly where to find me. My father-in-law was very disturbed by the call and I said that I would sort it out straight away. I rang the department and was told that they were looking for me because I had not renewed my temporary visa. I explained that since that visa was issued my husband had had his citizenship verified and had been informed that he no longer needed to renew his temporary visa. As his wife I assumed that this applied to me too, after all I was married to a South African citizen. I was told that in no way did this apply to me and that I would still have to apply for permanent residence. I asked them why they had not just rung me and told me that and why they had got in touch with my father-in-law instead of my husband or me but they could not answer that. I suppose it was another case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing and as they were the ones in control I thought it wise just to tell them I was very upset about it and leave it at that. It took another trip to Pretoria and more queuing to sort it all out, I was issued with permanent residence but would have to wait, I think, four years before I was eligible to become a citizen (at my age I was obviously not going to be needed in the army). I was rather peeved with them and did not apply for South African citizenship until many years later when we bought a house there and I thought I would like to have a vote.
Not long after all this we read in the newspaper that there had been many complaints about the staff in the Department of Internal Affairs and that the government was doing its best to rectify matters there. They seemed to have done a good job too as I later heard people say that they had been very impressed with the service that they had received, but to me it will always be the Department of Infernal Affairs, straight from hell.
As soon as we could we all trouped off to Pretoria to the “Ministry of Internal Affairs” the government department that dealt with such things. It turned out to be a real saga, so much so that we ended up calling it the “Ministry of Infernal Affairs”. I don’t remember the whole sequence of the saga, but at that time seemed that the department was hell bent on making it as hard as possible for people to enter and live in the country. We would stand in long queues waiting to be attended to but at least we were English speaking (with a small understanding of Afrikaans) so understood what was being said (if not why it was being said) but there were people in those queues were obviously non English speakers, Greeks, Italians, Indians, Chinese, people from northern Europe and South America who would have spoken no Afrikaans at all and only a smattering of English we felt very sorry for them.
On one of our many visits we joined the queue that we were directed to and waited patiently for our turn. When we got to the counter we were told “You’re in the wrong queue, go to counter 14”. You feel like giving them a piece of your mind but there is nothing to be gained by it so you meekly hold in your frustration and move to counter 14. We got to the front of the queue at counter 14 and the woman there just turned away from her desk and went and started talking to three other government employees who were standing in the office. It was so obviously a private conversation, not even an important business discussion. Eventually one of the women looked our way and, I suppose saw the steam coming out of our ears, she said to the others in Afrikaans, not realising that Jonny understood her, “Maybe we had better attend to these people”. The woman from counter 14 came back to her desk and we told her what we wanted. She told us once again “You are in the wrong queue go to desk 16” by this time we were all getting ready to explode but when we saw that there was no one waiting at desk 16 we thought that at least we won’t have to wait long so move to desk 16. There was no one attending that desk so we stood for a while. Then the lady who had been at desk 14 and who not five minutes before had told us we were in the wrong queue moved up two places and came to deal with us. We just could not believe it, she looked at us as if she had never seen us before in her whole life and asked us what we wanted. Jonny told her that we wanted to see a particular person, a man that he had dealt with before and who had been helpful and had told Jonny to come and see him when all of the family was in South Africa so that he could sort out our status. The lady from counter 14/16 said “I’m sorry you can’t see him without an appointment”. Jonny tried to explain that the gentleman in question had told him just to call in and see him when he was ready. By this time Jonny had had enough and he was letting everyone in the place know that he was cross. The security guards moved from their positions around the room and came to stand close to us waiting to see how far things would progress. But the tyrant would not budge, she knew she had us over a barrel and she was enjoying every moment of her delicious power. Jonny calmed down enough to say, “Well can we make an appointment then?” Our tormenter, who I am sure was laughing on the inside said without a hint of a smile on her face, “I am afraid I can not make an appointment for you, you will have to ring his office and they will make an appointment for you” We tried everything we could short of lying on the ground, kicking our feet and screaming out loud but to no avail. We just had to go home again and phone the office to make an appointment.
Phoning to make an appointment seems like an easy thing to do, Not so! I feel tempted to tell you that I spent every waking moment for the next two weeks on the phone because that’s what it seemed like at the time but I suppose that would be an exaggeration but it did take a great deal of my time in the coming weeks. A call from Witbank to Pretoria was a metered call and if you had to “hold on” it cost you money. They didn’t have those recorded messages then and so you had a real live person ignoring you and forgetting all about you as you sat for ages with the receiver glued to your ear and waited. I was transferred from one office to another and told I don’t know how many times to, “Hold the line”. After doing this and then being given some excuse at the end of my ordeal. I tried a new tactic. If I was told to “hold the line” I put the phone down and waited a few minutes and rang again, after doing this a number of times the man who was on the main switchboard began to recognise my voice. He asked me why I had rung so many times when he had put me through to the relevant office goodness only knows how many times over the last couple of days. I told him that I was getting nowhere and before I had managed to get to the office of the gentleman I wanted to make an appointment with I had been passed from pillar to post and kept waiting for ages and it was costing me a fortune. He suggested that maybe we should just come into the office and ask to see the gentleman. I told him about our friend from counter 14/16 and he had a good laugh. My new friend took pity on me and told me that he would sort it out. He would get in touch with the office concerned and when he had the gentleman’s secretary on the line he would call me back and I could then talk directly to her without having to “Hold on” for ages. What a great guy, I wonder what happened to him. I am sure that he must have been thrown out of the “Department of Infernal Affairs” for having a heart, I don’t think hearts where allowed in that department.
He rang me back to tell me that our gentleman was no longer with Infernal Affairs (they must have detected the suspicion of a heart and got rid of him before it grew into a full blown real live beating heart). My friendly telephonist had found out who had taken his place and connected me to her secretary so that I could make an appointment to see her. I suppose that was why I had had so much of a problem. I was trying to make an appointment with someone who was no longer there and no one knew that he was no longer there and it would appear no one knew who was taking his place until my friend started doing some digging and discovered the problem.
We eventually got an appointment with the lady who had replaced the missing Immigration officer. We went once again to Pretoria to meet with her and she was friendly enough. She looked through our papers and agreed that there would be no problem verifying Jonny’s citizenship. During the interview I said something that she was not happy about. I don’t remember what it was but she turned to me and with smiling lips but cold eyes she said something to the effect that I was not a citizen yet and there would be no problem “sending you back from whence you came”. The boys thought that was a great joke and are still threatening to send me back “from whence I came”.
She issued us all with temporary visas, valid for six months, and we went home happy. A few weeks later we received a certificate of citizenship for Jonny in the post and not long after that we received certificates for the boys too. We cynically said that they were very quick to give citizenship to the boys as they were coming up to the age when they could be called up to serve in the South African army. But we had known that when we decided to come and live in South Africa so we did not have any grounds for complaint, we just filed the certificates away and settled down to become a South African family. About seven or eight months later I got a very worried call from my father-in-law. He told me that the immigration department had just contacted him; they were looking for me and were threatening to deport me. (Send me back from whence I came?) I was stunned, I had heard nothing from them and if they had a problem with me they had my address and telephone number on file they knew exactly where to find me. My father-in-law was very disturbed by the call and I said that I would sort it out straight away. I rang the department and was told that they were looking for me because I had not renewed my temporary visa. I explained that since that visa was issued my husband had had his citizenship verified and had been informed that he no longer needed to renew his temporary visa. As his wife I assumed that this applied to me too, after all I was married to a South African citizen. I was told that in no way did this apply to me and that I would still have to apply for permanent residence. I asked them why they had not just rung me and told me that and why they had got in touch with my father-in-law instead of my husband or me but they could not answer that. I suppose it was another case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing and as they were the ones in control I thought it wise just to tell them I was very upset about it and leave it at that. It took another trip to Pretoria and more queuing to sort it all out, I was issued with permanent residence but would have to wait, I think, four years before I was eligible to become a citizen (at my age I was obviously not going to be needed in the army). I was rather peeved with them and did not apply for South African citizenship until many years later when we bought a house there and I thought I would like to have a vote.
Not long after all this we read in the newspaper that there had been many complaints about the staff in the Department of Internal Affairs and that the government was doing its best to rectify matters there. They seemed to have done a good job too as I later heard people say that they had been very impressed with the service that they had received, but to me it will always be the Department of Infernal Affairs, straight from hell.
posted by MC at
10:56 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home