Till Friday 22 May 2009 - A stressful start to the week is expected with the dreaded visit to the Home Affairs office in Paarl to extend my visa. After triple checking my paperwork, we set off early, making a quick detour in Worcester to the Medicentre to pick up my chest X-ray and radiological report. My experience of organisation in South Africa being near non existent, my heart is in my mouth as I enter through the glass doors, what if the report aren't here, what if they haven't been completed, and more importantly what if I have tuberculosis??? With far too much ease, the nurse asks my name and pulls out my reports, easy peasy, I see trouble ahead!
With documents clutched to my chest, I enter the Home Affairs office, which is a hive of activity with a long line standing for the information desk and then a great number of people waiting in uncomfortable plastic chairs. I join the line for the information desk and told to stand at the immigration desk.
There are two men behind the counter dealing with enquiries, one stern, fairly mean looking, the other appearing quite laid back. I start to pray and will the person in front to finish quick quick, so I will get the laid back one! But no, I have to get the stern one, I start to explain why I am here, as he demands to look at my paperwork. One by one he scrutinises each document I put in front of him, the application form I have completed is the wrong one, the letter provided by GVI doesn't confirm the exact minute (OK slight exaggeration - date) that I finish my internship, my Criminal Records Bureau check is a photocopy and not the original, I may have written it myself, and the peace de la resistance I need to pay a R9,000 deposit (approximately 700 pounds).
Although I can feel my heart rate increasing, racing out of my chest, I find calmness from somewhere and quickly complete the correct form, arrange for Bulelwa to fax a letter from the Park confirming my leaving date, and stand my ground as I explain to Jerry (we are on first name terms by this point) that the original CRB check is with their South African Embassy in London and that R9,000 is to be paid if I did not have the funds to buy a return air ticket, and as I clearly had proof of a return flight I would not be paying the deposit.
By this time, Jerry has started to mellow, asking where I'm from, do I have children, do I like soccer, that he wants to me to be in the country for 2010 and the World Cup. That he wants me to be illegal, so he can arrest me (what?!?) I take the opportunity to flirt a little, hell anything to get my visa, well almost anything! After asking several times, Jerry assures me my application is good - I must call him in a couple of weeks to check my visa has been approved. So then I am on my merry way, but not before trying to comfort another English lady behind me starting the same ordeal, she is visibly shaking.
Outside the office, Ben has kindly arranged for his sister, Ellen, who lives in Paarl, to pick me up and take me to the local shopping mall for a spot of retail therapy, whilst he finishes his meeting in Cape Town and collects me on the way home. Seriously travelling anywhere in South Africa can be a logistical nightmare.
The next couple of days are spent distributing letters to the schools participating in World Environment Week and to local firms requesting prizes for the event, writing articles about the visit to Table Mountain, together with the organisation of the next quarterly SPAF meeting, can you believe three months have passed already!
Thursday night, a welcome reprieve from SPAF minutes, I am invited by Ben to join him for a sundowner at the Hermitage. Scrambling over the dry river bed, we find ourselves perched on a rock, next to a dark pool of tranquil water, shallow waterfalls trickling into it. The pool nestled deep in the kloof, its stillness and beauty magnified by the dense lush ferns surrounding its banks. It is simply breathtaking.
Ben produces a small picnic, a bottle of wine and two wine glasses each quirkily stored in a woollen sock for protection (gosh, I do hope they were clean!). So as the sun disappears, we eat and chat, the wine going down far too well.
Soon it is dark, on first glance there is not a star in the sky, but then as you see a tiny sparkle and the others miraculously appear one by one. It is a beautiful clear night, which could possibly have been the most romantic of my life, had it been shared with the one I love. Be it may, Ben and I are friends, and that is the way it will stay, although I have never known anyone make quite such an effort for me, which in a way makes me extremely sad. Why have I not experienced this before?
Had there been any romance, it would have quickly filtered into hysteria, for it is now pitch black and we need to negotiate the route back. Add to the mix the vino I have just drunk and the fact I am a light weight and therefore a bit tiddly and it is a recipe for disaster. Giggling all the way back, I lose my balance fall backwards scraping my elbow and bruising my rear. Hell, I haven't had a scabby elbow since I was about eight!
Friday - I hit the headlines in the Langeberg Bulletin (local rag) - no not with my antics from the night before, but articles written, one about the New Faces of Bontebok in which Aldo, Elton and myself are featured, and then the other in my fair hand on our World Environment Week project 'Clean up and Create'.
