This Geek

I spent about an hour at Home Affairs this morning. Yes, amazingly enough, they are open on Saturday mornings. I was there just before they opened, so fortunately there was few people and the queues were short.

In the end, the whole process has cost me R675 - around $90. That’s for 1 adult passport (mine), 2x child passports, 5 unabridged birth certificates, and 1 “computer printed abridged” certificate.

You have to love the time frames too. Passports take 4-6 weeks or 6-8 weeks, depending on who you talk to. The unabridged birth certificates take 12 weeks! Unbelievable. I can get the birth certificates near the beginning of May — if I’m lucky. On the other hand, the abridged certificate was printed right then and there, and I walked out with it.