South African Home Affairs - a breeze! What?

Yes, we finally scheduled an afternoon to go through to Home Affairs to apply for two passports. We were dreading the queues and the bad service. We should already have gone last year, but there are
always ALWAYS a better thing to do than going to your local Home Affairs!

We decided on the Roodepoort offices as most people said the service there is the best.

We were pleasantly surprised:

- We did not have to fill in any forms. Everything is electronic. (A BIG bonus to me, as I HATE filling in forms.)

- We were immediately put into an electronic queue after we paid the said amount (R400 *ouch!!*= 35.38 US dollar) for the passports. That helps considerably as you don't have to figure out in which queue you need to be.

- The photos were taken on site. (Little Miss and I rocked up with a whole set of awful "passport photos" for ourselves). You don't have to fight all the budding photographers outside the door, or pay for your own set of photos any more!

- We could wait for our turn sitting down, and helping Little Miss with her homework.

- The fingerprints were taken electronically, and we did not have to content with getting black ink off our fingers any more!

- It took us just a little over an hour to get it done, and they said we will only have to wait for four weeks for our passport documents. (*Holding thumbs*)

Instruction by Little Miss to take photos of her hairstyle while waiting
(We had time for this...)

- We got an sms notification immediately that we have applied for the passports.

- The service was good, although there could have been more friendly faces. (But I don't blame the Home Affairs officials for looking like Dread at the end of the day working there...)


- Final note: So glad both parents went together, as the passport for the little ones requires both parents' fingerprints!


My brother in San Antonio, we are seeing you in middle 2015!
Little Miss and I will be going over the oceans for the first time in our lives! (The Student has been to France and England, and Hubby has been to a couple of places as well!)