25 easy steps to getting a temporary residency permit in
South Africa: Life Partner Permit
Sorry for the long delay - I've been busy starting a business. I'll write more about that later. For now to catch you up on the long awaited Visit To Home Affairs... Du Du Duhhhhh.
What can I say about Home Affairs? People warned me it would be an experience to remember and they did not disappoint.
What can I say about Home Affairs? People warned me it would be an experience to remember and they did not disappoint.
You go to Home Affairs to deal with ‘affairs’ of the ‘Home’
country, in this case South Africa.
If you need a Drivers License, Work Permit, Marriage / Divorce
Certificate, or as in my case a Life Partner Permit (which allows me to live here and work here if I have the proper documents / job offer...), you need to spend some
time at Home Affairs. Now in most
countries you would go to these official offices and pick up the relevant
forms, gather your paperwork and stand in line or take a number. Once your number is called you submit
said documents to the official looking person sitting behind the counter. That person might not always be
friendly, but they usually know their stuff.
T.I.A. (This Is Africa) is a saying that a lot of people use
when dealing with things that just don’t seem to work properly. Like going to
Home Affairs. For a government
organization it’s about as unorganized and confused as you can get. Actually I can’t say it’s unorganized
as there IS a weird, mixed up, chaotic organization to it all, you just have to
figure it out for yourself, each painful step of the way.
Here, I will outline the process as experienced by me, as a
record for those who need to go through it, for family and friends interested
in the small, hilarious differences between our respective countries, but
mostly it’s for my own reference for the next time I have to go (joy!).
Hopefully it will make it an easier process for anyone who has to go through it
as well.
25 Simple Steps To Getting Your Life Partner Permit
1.
Go to nearest Home Affairs Branch and look for
the information counter to get any relevant forms and find out pertinent
information. It's important to note that you might not be looking for a regular Government Office Building. It could be a convenience store, residential building, or farm.
2.
Find the information desk is vacant (doesn’t
look like anyone has sat in that seat for a few years) and wait for half an
hour before someone takes pity on you and directs you to jump the queue (scary
when you’ve lived in London where people lose their lives for that) and get the
information you need. Also the
slots that contain the forms you need is empty, not a scrap of paper left.
3.
Jump the queue after half an hour of pondering
which one of the 50 people in front of you is the likeliest to cause you bodily
harm (it’s always the ones you don’t suspect so I kept my eye on the old lady
with the twin babies strapped to her back).
4.
Ask the person behind the counter all your
questions, or try to over the other people yelling questions, one of which
seems to have taken issue with the fact that they’ve lost her passport.
5.
Leave only knowing that this branch doesn’t deal
with the permit you need and you need to go to Johannesburg Central (a
particularly dodgy part of town that most people would rather avoid) or
Pretoria (town about 1hr out of JoBurg).
6.
Make a few calls to the Home Affairs Helpline
who tell you that you can’t submit at Pretoria like you were told, but you can
submit the paperwork at a different office in Germiston. They are helpful in
telling you exactly what you need, but can’t offer specific guidance on the
forms. For that you have to call
the Germiston Office, so they give you their number.
FYI-What
you need to submit a Life Partner Permit:
-Application Form
-Affidavit Confirming
Life Partnership (must be notarized)
-Letter confirming the SA Citizen
will support the applicant -both financially and emotionally (also notarized)
-3 Months of Bank
Statements from the SA Citizen
-Medical certificate signed by a Dr.
and not older than 3 months, stating the applicant is in good health and not
crazy
-Radiology Report not older than 3
months, stating the applicant doesn’t have Tuberculosis
-Police Clearance from your home
country stating you aren’t a criminal
-Proof of
co-habitation before coming to SA
-Proof of mutual support before
coming to SA (ie bank transfers, payments etc)
7.
Try without luck to get through to the Germiston
office for 5 days, calling every 30 mins
8.
Finally decide to take your paperwork to the Germiston
office and find out if you have everything in order when you submit
9.
Arrive to a relatively calm office with a
variety of queues and no signage directing which one you need to be in.
10. Friendly
man tells you that you will need passport photos and he can do these for you
outside for cheap ('Sharp Sharp!'). Go with the man
to a small tent outside where he does your passport photos while you wait – so
handy!
11. Find
out later that apparently you do not need passport photos…
12. Wait
in line at the information desk, which thankfully has someone working there,
where various people jump the queue but after 30 minutes you finally get to the
front. The line you are directed
to is actually in another office, luckily just around the corner and upstairs
13. Go
to what appears to be an apartment block… Like where people live… and go up to
the first floor, no try to get up to the first floor because there are people (Queuing?
Loitering? Giving birth?). Stand awkwardly for a bit, then push through until
the resistance from the crowd tells you that you’re finally at the back of the
queue.
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| Home Affairs Germiston - Yes! It's also a residential building! |
15. Realize
that you don’t know the rules of organization and will probably die in the
line.
16. Make
a friend. South Africa is a great place for making friends. If you want anything done you have to make friends! Ours was a tenant of the
building who ‘knew some people’ and said he would find out what we needed to
do. Much better than the ‘friends’ outside who want you to give them your
passport, paperwork, and R1200, so essentially your complete Identity and small
savings account to boot, all wrapped up in a pretty package. They would submit your paperwork for you, promise.
17. Learn
the rules of organization: you have to be outside the office (apartment block)
at roughly 3am, where the security guard would post a paper outside the gate.
You have to write your name on the list, which would then be used when they
opened at 8am to sort out the order of who would be first in the office. Our
friend from the building actually offered to do this for us – nice gesture
considering he didn’t even hint that he wanted money for it. We took his offer
as neither of us could really bear the alternative. Also, Germiston didn’t seem that friendly during the day, so
I can only imagine what it was like at night.
18. Arrive
with time to spare (just in case) for the 8am opening to see a big crowd had
gathered. At the rate it takes
them to process one application, you realize that only about 1/3 of the people
will be seen during the opening hours (8am-3pm), which adds an element of excitement
and desperation to the morning air. Also anger for those who are just now
figuring out there’s a list and they are number 401.
19. Try
to keep it together (and air in your lungs) as the Home Affairs officer comes
down causing an illogical surge of people towards the door. Even though there’s
a list, he would like us to organize ourselves in two lines: Collections and
Submissions. Many people
don’t want to do this so he tells us he will come back at 9am to see if we’ve
sorted ourselves out. He ‘has all day, so (he’s) happy to wait’ (word for word,
no jokes). Many people are waving money at him and someone even waved their baby in his face - not sure if this was to go for a sympathy vote or perhaps a trade? Either way he wasn't budging. No corruption here!
20. Suggest
everyone do what he says which starts an open discussion as a collective group
about the best way to do it. The
simple suggestion that since everyone has written their names beside a number,
we should organize ourselves in that order is a bit too complicated and is met
with blank stares. Someone got all riled up behind me and spit (say it dont spray it!) in my face, so I was convinced I was going to get TB.
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| You've made it inside! But nobody works here! |
21. Eventually get called to the front of the group where we are escorted up to the locked room. There we stand in numerical order (Yay! North American need for order and systems almost satisfied.). The room is interesting, although sparsely decorated. There’s an SA flag, a few portraits of SA Officials, a counter for 2 officers to process paperwork (although only one is in use some of the time), and a few old looking signs. My favorite is the one that’s been printed with a printer from 1982 (with those little tear away guiding strips that you used to make little springy folded paper tubes with - come on, like you don't know what I'm talking about...) that says ‘Our computers are out of service, sorry for the inconvenience.’. Wait a minute - if your computers were broken then how did you.... Never mind. My second favorite is the one basically telling you to ‘make sure you have certified copies of all your paperwork in case it gets lost, and there’s a good possibility it will.’
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23. Leave
feeling like you’ve just run a marathon: exhausted but very pleased with what
you’ve accomplished and full of dread for the Collections journey.
24. Realize
that one of the forms you submitted had a minor error and proceed to worry ‘Will
this affect the outcome?’ and
‘Will I have to do this all over again?’ for the next 9 months it will
take them to give you an answer. Exciting!
25. Wait
A little update since we’ve applied: It’s been a few months
now and WE GOT A TEXT! So the paperwork is somewhere in Pretoria. Will start harassing them weekly now
until we get our answer. Just in time too as my 3 month Common
Wealth visitor 'visa' just lapsed. Until
then, I just keep repeating my mantra: TIA, TIA, TIA…
