Admin terrifies me. Not that I’m disorganised. Actually, I can be very organised. And logical. I’m quite logical about organising things. Which may be the problem. I sometimes think that logic is an alien concept to administrative bureaucracy. At every step, they have another, different form that has to be filled in. Sometimes it is a form that asks for exactly the same information as the last form. Sometimes it is mostly identical information except for that one obscure question that you never thought anyone would ask and that you can see no reason for them to ask and that you never actually bothered to find out. And they can never tell you WHY they need the information. Or why the last form you filled out can’t suffice for this step, too.

And just when you think you have it all sorted out, they announce that they’ve changed some of the regulations and you have to go back to the beginning. Or some muppet forgot to tell you that you needed to have photos. Or to fill out the form in triplicate. Or to stand on your head and click you heels together three times while singing Sarie Marais and smiling at the imaginary baby.

The worst part, the most terrifying part of administrative bureaucracy is that they have complete power over you. They can do whatever they want. On a whim, because he/she woke up in a bad mood, it is fully within the power of an admin person to lose/reject/terminate a crucial application or piece of paper with absolutely no explanation. And there is nothing you can do. You will be sent right back to the beginning of the queue. Months of admin and waiting and fighting with various government departments will dissolve into nothing – like a disprin ad – and you will have no choice but to start all over again. It’s like bad teachers and lecturers who spend all their time bemoaning the performance of their classes when the actual problem is that they don’t bother to set clear question papers.

And it’s not as if you can phone them and yell at them. There would be nothing quite as satisfying as going up to or calling an admin person who is messing you around or delaying you and yelling at them. But that would be counterproductive. Because upsetting them will simply make things take longer or get lost altogether. Assuming you could even get them on the phone. Answering phones (at any time in any manner, never mind  promptly and professionally) seems to be a section that was skipped in most admin people’s training. Especially if they work for government.

My admin journey seems now to be safely out of the hands of the South African bureaucracy, which I fervently hope is a good thing. A few things I’ve learned in the 5-month long process of obtaining all the documents required to apply for a visa:

1. Don’t, whatever you do, live in a small town on the other side of the country from the departments you need to fight with

2. The post office is actually a lot more efficient and effective than you’ve been told. Couriers not so much. Postnet is amazing!

3. The DFA will send back your documents and do what you ask but are incapable of answering their phones or email, so you’ll get your docs, you just won’t be able to track their progress

4. Never, ever, ever try and get admin out of any South African department in the same month that there is at least one public holiday ever week (April) and a national election. Just don’t. It will make you sad.

This afternoon, I am sending off all of the paperwork to another country, hopeful that I’ve filled out all the forms correctly, that there is nothing missing, that they will be a little quicker than my own country’s bureaucrats and that no-one loses, refuses or rejects any of the crucial bits of paper it’s taken 5 months to collect.