19th Dec 2007
On Monday, we left 5.30am and drove down to Blantyre with a mission: Get my Temporary Employment Permit (TEP), get me Malawian drivers license, pick up my freight from the airport. Easy right? Huh.
Ben dropped William (Malawian) and I at the Malawi Road Transport (MRT) building and went off to immigration to queue to enquire regarding the status of my TEP.
I queued, got a form, filled it out, queued again…and got told I needed a photocopy of my passport and Aussie drivers license. The MRT photocopier was broken. They didn’t know where the nearest photocopying place was. Ben had the car. We walked. The fourth photocopying shop we went to had a working photocopier. Back to the MRT. Back in the queue. ‘We cannot process this without a TEP’. Same story with the freight. Meanwhile, Ben is standing at a counter, watching the immigration officer un-exuberantly and down right slowly sift through a huge pile of brown envelopes. That ones not it. Nope, neither is that one. Come back this afternoon. The whole day followed in a similar fashion. Ben had a huge ‘to do’ list, and not one of the items listed got ticked off. I wrote ‘lunch’ on the list and put a tick next to it to make him feel better.
Tuesday followed in a similar fashion- except that I got told that the TEP wasn’t in the pile- it had gone upstairs, and the mann upstairs was away and they didn’t know when he would be back. Maybe next week. It was then that we appealed to Rev Fraser to intercede on our behalf. He walked into the immigration office at 2.30pm, and came out with my TEP, and a stamp in my passport at 3.30pm. That guy has friends in high places! So Ben and William dropped me at the guesthouse and returned to Mangochi, with the promise to send Asedi in the troupe carrier in the morning for the freight.
As Ben unlocked the house he showed me how to padlock and chain the cage like structure around the front verandah, showed me the 2 panic buttons- one in the hall, one in the master bedroom and of course the pepper spay. Nothing like an orientation to make you feel at home. After they left it started raining and the power went off for a few hours. I spent the evening reading magazines by romantic candlelight- refusing to feel spooked.
On Monday, we left 5.30am and drove down to Blantyre with a mission: Get my Temporary Employment Permit (TEP), get me Malawian drivers license, pick up my freight from the airport. Easy right? Huh.
Ben dropped William (Malawian) and I at the Malawi Road Transport (MRT) building and went off to immigration to queue to enquire regarding the status of my TEP.
I queued, got a form, filled it out, queued again…and got told I needed a photocopy of my passport and Aussie drivers license. The MRT photocopier was broken. They didn’t know where the nearest photocopying place was. Ben had the car. We walked. The fourth photocopying shop we went to had a working photocopier. Back to the MRT. Back in the queue. ‘We cannot process this without a TEP’. Same story with the freight. Meanwhile, Ben is standing at a counter, watching the immigration officer un-exuberantly and down right slowly sift through a huge pile of brown envelopes. That ones not it. Nope, neither is that one. Come back this afternoon. The whole day followed in a similar fashion. Ben had a huge ‘to do’ list, and not one of the items listed got ticked off. I wrote ‘lunch’ on the list and put a tick next to it to make him feel better.
Tuesday followed in a similar fashion- except that I got told that the TEP wasn’t in the pile- it had gone upstairs, and the mann upstairs was away and they didn’t know when he would be back. Maybe next week. It was then that we appealed to Rev Fraser to intercede on our behalf. He walked into the immigration office at 2.30pm, and came out with my TEP, and a stamp in my passport at 3.30pm. That guy has friends in high places! So Ben and William dropped me at the guesthouse and returned to Mangochi, with the promise to send Asedi in the troupe carrier in the morning for the freight.
As Ben unlocked the house he showed me how to padlock and chain the cage like structure around the front verandah, showed me the 2 panic buttons- one in the hall, one in the master bedroom and of course the pepper spay. Nothing like an orientation to make you feel at home. After they left it started raining and the power went off for a few hours. I spent the evening reading magazines by romantic candlelight- refusing to feel spooked.
Wednesday the miracles continued. I got my drivers license in a record 2 hours – beating the existing record by an hour. The process is almost funny- requiring 4 visits to the cashier, 4 signatures, a few stops at counters for people to shuffle your papers and tell you the next counter to go to, and of course the mugshot and fingerprinting of EVERY finger. Each counter required re-joining a queue. Thankfully I kept getting intercepted by a helpful man who didn’t seem to like the length of the process and was perfectly happy to bypass the paper shufflers and provide signatures as required. I could have kissed him. Meanwhile my freight was cleared without inspection (?!!), Asedi and I had chicken and chips for lunch (again), picked up the cleared freight at 2ish and headed home ecstatic. He got into my MP3 player and discovered that he really likes Moby and the White Stripes while I put my newly acquired drivers license to the test and dodged goats, trucks, people, drunk staggerers, chickens…
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