Thursday: Bureaucratic tour of Jo'burg and Divas

After talking about the difficulties of negotiating South African Home Affairs department for Zimbabwean refugees 2 days ago, today, I got my own personal experience.

I discovered that Stellenbosch University, where I will be doing my elective, need my visitors permit (stuck into my passport in the airport) to have written ‘medical elective’ on it. I got it done starting at 7am and finished by lunch - a minor miracle I think. However, it did involve driving an hour north of Jo’burg to what was hopefully a quieter Home Affairs office, only to be sent back though rush hour traffic to central Jo’burg office. There, neither counters 6, 8 nor 12; nor room 102 (or did they say I should go to 101) nor 112 on the second floor could help. I was slowly starting to feel like Asterix in ‘the twelve tasks', where the chaotic bureaucracy of Athens proves more challenging for him and Obolix than defeating a ghost army (it involves Asterix running around ALOT and Obolix struggled to carry all the forms they got given). I was finally told to go to the airport?!? They insisted I must go inland! Persistence, or maybe desperation, prevailed and an immigration officer eventually agreed to meet us, laughed at me, and scribbled on my bit of paper.

This evening, I went to see Miriam Makeba in concert. The 75 year old star, famed for being the first South African to speak out against apartheid at the UN, belted out her repertoire in a tent (a very big one) erected for the occasion in downtown Jo’burg . Most of her band seemed related - it included a granddaughter, a great grandson and even a few ex husbands!