World class immigration services

We didn’t actually set off at 5 as we had planned; we had to mill and for a while first and then look for all the things we had forgotten, and get  ourselves organized, and then check if we’d actually packed all the things we needed, and lock the house, and then go back in the house for pillows and blankets, and then set off.  We still left in time to see the sun rise: a perfect orange ball.

We started north on the Capetown to Cairo highway.  It  was proposed in the 1860s to tie all of the British colonies together but large parts of it were never completed. The British Empire collapsed faster than the road could be built.  The first guy who tried to complete the drive was killed in 1913 by a leopard in Rhodesia, so he didn’t make it all the way.  Now you can apparently make it all the way with a four wheel drive, as parts of the road, especially across the desert, are still very poor. According to Google it takes 188 hours to drive.  From Pretoria to Bulawayo is just over 800 km, so I feel like I’ve had a brief introduction to it.

We stopped along the way for a picnic breakfast and a stretch.  Just before we got to the South Africa – Zimbabwe border I noticed a lot of car dealerships.  Apparently they sell o used cars from Japan, but the powerful lobby of car manufacturers in South Africa have made it so you’re not allowed to drive them in South Africa.  After you buy the car, it is trucked to the border, and there is an office there to get licence plates and buy insurance.  The cars can’t even be towed, they have to be carried, so there is a whole other industry  of trucks to carry the cars a distance of less than 5 km.  One of the main advantages of travelling with friends from other  countries is that they don’t mind all my questions, or mind explaining things to me.

When we arrived at the border, my heart sank.  The line up was over 1 km…I got in line with the other two women while Ray went to get the documentation for the car.  Then he said that we should follow him, but Helena decided to stay in the line while we went to see what was going on, so we wouldn’t lose our place in the line.  Ray is a tall and imposing man, and somehow he found another place for us to get to a desk, and sent me back to collect Helena, who was already melting in the sun.  We walked back to the front of the line, and somehow into the middle of a line and out the other side.  Helena was worried about losing me (not likely due to my colour, but perhaps possible that I could get left behind due to my Canadian inability to push through lines).  She kept calling me, and finally a young woman turned to me and asked, “Are you Margaret?”; when I said that I was she just put her had on my back and pushed me firmly up ahead.

We ended up in a room and by some kind of clustering (I couldn’t describe it as a line up) we got to the desk and got our passports stamped.  When it was my turn Ray stood beside me to make sure no one would push in front of me.  As we went back out to get the car, I realized that I had only seen part of the line outside– it actually curled all the way around the building before it entered.  When we got the car, we still had a couple more checks of our passports and documents.  Throughout all of the offices, the South African immigration auth aorities had posted their mission statement, “To provide world class immigration services.”

All of this was just to leave South Africa. Next step, entering Zimbabwe.  I was the only one who needed a visa, so I had to go in that line by myself.  It was much more like a line up and less like a crowd.  The procedure was a little odd, however, and it explained why at any one time there appeared to be three people being served.  The first time you go to the counter, the officer gives you a form to fill in, and tells you not to go back in the line, but to come back to the counter.  Back with my form, I am standing there with another person who is just getting their form.  The officer takes my form, and tells me it is $75 USD, even though their website says 50.  I had just checked the night before,  to make sure that I had enough cash.  When I mentioned it, she said that had just raised it, and the web site would get updated…She took my money and gave it to another guy and told me to stand at the side.  From there I could watch the other guy:  he filled in a form with a carbon copy, with all of my passport information on it – all of the information that I had just written on the form that I completed, plus the serial numbers of the $20 bills that I had paid.  Then he wrote all of the same information in a ledger, and went to the safe to get my change.

When this was all done, he told me to back to the counter to get my visa.  So I was getting my visa, the person who had filled his form was paying and someone else was getting their form.  Thus, three people being served at the same time at the same counter.  The first officer then filled in the visa, with a carbon copy, with some of the same information as  the ledger, the receipt form, and my original form, and stuck it in my passport.  Once everything was thoroughly stamped, I was free to go. I wonder if they’ve ever considered using the computers that are sitting on every desk?

Back at the truck, we just had one  more step to go.  The customs officials looked at our declaration forms, looked in the back of the truck, and let us go.  Perhaps the sight of three sweating women made him cautious.  Other vehicles had to unpack all over the parking lot.  Many of them were very full, as vendors go to South Africa to buy goods to sell in Zimbabwe.  Perhaps the most surprising thing to me were the many four foot long bags of Cheezies…The best sign I saw in this customs process was one over a counter that said TIP PROCESSING.  I have no idea what that means.

Formalities completed, we set off again northwards. Surprisingly, the whole thing only took us about two hours, but without Ray, I would still be in the first line to leave South Africa.

We had an uneventful trip the rest of the way.  Zimbabwe is much poorer than South Africa, and we saw many donkeys and donkey carts beside the road.  One of the carts was pulled by four donkeys, and appeared to be made out of an old car chassis. The young boy driving it was standing up, and seemed to be having fun racing along beside the road.

We drove into Bulawayo just as the sun set – the same orange ball that we had seen rise in the morning.  Stiff and tired, we ate and fell into bed.