It's Monday now, and I'm supposed to fly this Friday. I had a call from the Embassy on Saturday - I nearly fell off my chair to find a government related business actually open and advertising it on a Saturday, but anyway - and spoke to a woman by the name of Teresa, who said there was one form missing from my application. She said I could pop in whenever it was convenient (but obviously the earlier the better) and fill it out without making an appointment or bundu-bashing my way through any other lines of red tape.
So I did that this morning, and she confirmed that everything is now correct and good to go - we are just waiting on Home Affairs in SA to confirm I am who I say I am, and once they do, my certificate will be issued. She seemed quite confident that I will have it before Friday, provided HA doesn't make one of their legendary fuck-ups and accuse me of being an identity thief or worse.
As for my plans once I get to the other side; things are a little more complicated than they were last week. I am now going to have to apply through the official emergency channels, which means I will have to stay in SA for 3 weeks as opposed to 2, assuming they accept my case as an emergency. If they don't, I will be stuck there for 6 weeks. Shoes' cousin's contact for a passport in 2 weeks fell through. I therefore have to factor the cost of a flight change into my plans as well as a week's extra leave, which means I will be unable to go to my cousin's wedding at the end of this year.
I guess at the end of the day, this was never going to happen without cost, both financial and otherwise.
To be honest, even though I'm a bit panicky about our skyrocketing debt and am already regretting not seeing my first cousin get married, I want to go home so much that everything else seems trivial in comparison.
Finally though, it seems like I will probably be flying on Friday, rather than possibly with a healthy dose of longing. I'm not breaking out the champagne just yet - I'm going to wait until I have that Golden Ticket (aka Emergency Travel Certificate) in my hand, and then down a whole bottle! 4 days of anticipation to go, 4 nights of restless sleep and disturbing dreams. 3 weeks of putting myself back together at the end? I hope so.
So I did that this morning, and she confirmed that everything is now correct and good to go - we are just waiting on Home Affairs in SA to confirm I am who I say I am, and once they do, my certificate will be issued. She seemed quite confident that I will have it before Friday, provided HA doesn't make one of their legendary fuck-ups and accuse me of being an identity thief or worse.
As for my plans once I get to the other side; things are a little more complicated than they were last week. I am now going to have to apply through the official emergency channels, which means I will have to stay in SA for 3 weeks as opposed to 2, assuming they accept my case as an emergency. If they don't, I will be stuck there for 6 weeks. Shoes' cousin's contact for a passport in 2 weeks fell through. I therefore have to factor the cost of a flight change into my plans as well as a week's extra leave, which means I will be unable to go to my cousin's wedding at the end of this year.
I guess at the end of the day, this was never going to happen without cost, both financial and otherwise.
To be honest, even though I'm a bit panicky about our skyrocketing debt and am already regretting not seeing my first cousin get married, I want to go home so much that everything else seems trivial in comparison.
Finally though, it seems like I will probably be flying on Friday, rather than possibly with a healthy dose of longing. I'm not breaking out the champagne just yet - I'm going to wait until I have that Golden Ticket (aka Emergency Travel Certificate) in my hand, and then down a whole bottle! 4 days of anticipation to go, 4 nights of restless sleep and disturbing dreams. 3 weeks of putting myself back together at the end? I hope so.
2 comments:
good! i don't think anything will go wrong, but holding thumbs just in case!!!
'I can't wait until Friday! Fingers crossed it will all be ok. I'll congratulate you properly on Friday xx
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