This is Africa!

Today I had particular exposure to – this is Africa…. I went to pick up my work permit.  I thought the hard part had been done with the application, and I had confirmed before I went that it had been approved.   How wrong I was!

First, I was directed to Room 117, where amazingly there was no queue, they confirmed the work permit was ready and then sent me to Room 101.  Room 101 was piled high with stacks and stacks of yellow folders on the floor on the desks.  It was so full that at first I couldn’t work out if anyone was actually in the room, following a tentative hello from myself someone popped up from amongst the stacks.  Apparently I had to give him my receipt and my passport and then go and wait in the queue for Room 103 to pay my fees, he would find me in that queue to return my receipt.  So back down the narrow, dark and busy corridor to the queue for Room 103, I was feeling a bit heartened, so far it hadn’t taken too long and the queue for Room 103 had been much longer when I’d come to apply for the work permit. 

Eventually I got to the front of that queue, paid for my permit and was directed to Room 119….. Excellent, I thought, when I saw there no queue. Except it turned out that the door was locked which meant that no one was in, still I was hopeful they had just gone out and would be back shortly, I had seen lots of people heading in and out of their offices locking the doors behind them.  So I waited, watching a lady walk up the corridor carrying my file including my passport, try the door and then walk off again, saying that I should wait … This carried on for a long time, in fact, until it was lunch time.  I had to do something, so I headed down to the far end of the corridor to the man in the room of files and explained my problem, he took me to Room 107, to see the lady who had been walking up and down the corridor.  It turns out that the one person who can sign work permits was in a meeting (and then probably going for lunch).  Did I have any options I asked, well I could wait, or I could leave everything and come back after 2pm, at which point hopefully the person who could sign the permit would be back.  Having already been waiting in the dark narrow corridor for an hour and a quarter I didn’t really fancy waiting out lunch time as well.  So I headed back to the office really hoping that my passport would stay safe and get back to me.  About an hour and a half later I headed back to Room 119… oh dear a queue, luckily my man from the filing room was just coming out and let me know that I didn’t need to queue here as the permit had already been signed, so I could just go to Room 107 to pick it up.  Yipee!  So after visiting 5 rooms, a lot of queuing in a dark corridor I now have my work permit!