Today we made the trip up to Pretoria again to get my curiculli from Pretoria Technikon and my and Mel’s Birth Certificates.

Before leaving we gave Home Affairs a call to see if our certificates were ready. The bloke that answered was so deurmekaar that the one minute the stuff was ready, then it wasn’t, then we needed to bring some or other form with, then it was ready, etc. that we just decided to go there.

At Home Affairs we managed to get Mel’s certificate, but not mine. Now as we had applied all at the same time it didn’t quite make sense that mine would not also be ready. But as usual you get this blank stare when asking for any kind of progress report or route to take to find out. We decided to leave it at that and call them on our way to the Technikon. Needless to say they didn’t even bother to answer the phone.

On to the Tech – my goodies were ready, but half in Afrikaans. Fat help then as I am trying my best to avoid the extra, unnecessary expense of IELTS. Now I will have to get these pages translated and hope that the letter from Vaal Triangle Technikon confirming that our classes were in English will be enough proof.

We decide to have lunch before heading home. From my airforce days I remember that Sunnyside has lots of places to eat so we head off in that direction. Seeing a Wimpy and KFC we reckon that the Kingsley Centre will do the trick. As we walk toward the Wimpy we spot a Maxi’s just inside. Now we love the Maxi’s at the East Rand Mall so Maxi’s wins the battle of the growling stomachs against the lure of Wimpy and the smell of fresh KFC.

Our waitress arrives to take our order and the conversation goes something like this :
“a Farmhouse Breakfast please….”
“Eh..a what?”
“a Farmhouse Breakfast” (Seeing the blank expression on her face I open the menu and show her the item on the menu, wondering how on earth a waitress cannot know what a farmhouse breakfast is)
“The eggs must be sunny side on top please”
“Okay”
“and I’ll have a Maxi Burger, a Strawberry milkshake and Fruit Cocktail”
“Okay”

Ten minutes later
“Sorry we don’t have Fruit Cocktail”
“Okay make it a orange juice”
That arrives

Thirty minutes later…I get a Cheese burger, Mel gets her breakfast with eggs you can bounce off a wall and no butter for the toast. I decide the cheese burger is fine for me, but the eggs are no good. I call the waitress over…

“We asked for the eggs to be sunny side on top”
“Eh what is that?” – Should have known better when she didn’t even know what a farmhouse breakfast was
“We wanted soft eggs”
“So must I take it back?”
Nou raak Pa moerig en Ma is al lankal moerig
“Yes” we snap at her in frustration, Mel makes a mental note to halve her tip.
When the eggs come back they are fine so she asks for her butter.

Five Minutes later it finally arrives. Mel deducts the remaining half of her tip off the remaining amount giving the waitress a grand total of zero.

We ask for the bill which takes another ten minutes to arrive. We decide to pay at the till otherwise we are gonna start getting some serious parking tickets if we have wait any longer.

At the till the service is just as pathetic so Mel, who by this time is bedonerd verby asks to see the manager.

Along toddles Agnes who has clearly been working in the kitchen all day as she is covered in splatters of oil, wearing a hair protector and overall, etc.

“You service here is ridiculously slow”
“Eh….” and she smiles at us clearly not knowing what to say or do.
Disgusted we just walk away…..Kingsley Maxi’s is definately on our eating out blacklist.

Back to our paperwork trail…

All we now need in Pretoria is my birth certificate so we decide to go back to Home Affairs to try and find someone more intelligent who can help us. Last time we were there they had botched up Mel’s birth certificate and a Mr Myoyo had helped us so we decide to go and knock on his door again.

In his office he gets me to fill in the form again, phones the guys at Head Office that do the actual processing of the forms. Gives theim the details over the phone. Mr Myoyo checks his system until it updates (about 1 minute). He hits print and voila I have my birth certificate, all in 5 minutes!!!!!

Now why the hell can’t it happen so fast all the time???

If you need help at Home Affairs in Pretoria, Mr Myoyo is your man, what a cool, helpful guy, without any under the table stuff.

At last we can head off home with all our paperwork in hand. Hopefully that was our last trip to Pretoria before we leave.