Wordless Wednesday #296 - Goodbye, San Antonio

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!)

Photo report of a weekend in the mountains

The view kept changing

Hiking...

Cayley Lodge in the central Drakensberg

Miniature golf with my brother visiting from America

Rain curtain

Fun on the trampoline

I can still carry the load on a hike!

The toddler’s first meeting with her uncle

We saw my brother two years ago, just before the toddler was born. He has never met the toddler. He is now living in London and we keep in contact through IM mostly. Our family lives on different continents, with my sister and her husband also being far away in London.


It is not and never will be same to have your family staying so far from you. Although we have all the electronic means to be in contact constantly, it does not equate to the real thing. To be in each other’s company still is something that I think we value not enough. Until we have to talk across thousands of kilometres...

My brother was worried that the toddler would be shy of him, or that she would not respond to him. She does not know him at all.

But luckily his fears were unfounded. Mieka liked him immediately and enjoyed his company. We had such a great weekend with my brother.

Mieka says his name Wynand, pronounced as “Mytand”. Translated from Afrikaans it means ‘my tooth”. We have been asking her countless times to say it. Because it is so very funny!

We have seen before that she likes certain people and responds to them with a very easy acceptance. Maybe it is true that the little ones have an inherent ability to detect the true nature of a person? What do you think?

In any case, the toddler enjoyed his company and we had a lovely time. We had lunch again today at Silverstar Casino with the music water fountain show. In December last year Mieka was crying when the musical water fountain played. Today she was also frightened, but at the end of our visit she was enjoying it!