My dilemma in Getting divorced in South Africa from Holland

Wow I know every South-African will tell you loads of stories when it comes to our home-affairs, the place that we suppose to go and get our important state documents.

Well I had a very nasty experience recently, and thought I might share so all those people also left out by the system, know they are not alone.

Ok so this should have been the worlds easiest divorce, as me and my x is still very good friends, and have clear put goals as to what we want as a divorced couple.

Not that easy, after our first little dilemma with Home affairs a while ago we decided it might be more easy to get divorced in Holland, so all we needed to do that was get a unabridged-marriage-certificate. So 3 months ago I applied for this at Home-affairs in Nelspruit, they said it takes 2-3 months for it to happen so I waited.

Last week Thursday I called and was very happy to hear that my unabridged-marriage-certificate was read to be collected.

So yesterday I went with great smile on my face to simply pick up the document, and that should have been that right? Wrong this is Africa here patience is not only needed its enforced.

After the long queue of people, I had very un-friendly greeting, and the lady behind the counter took my details and proceeded to print. Oops she came back to me and said I would have to wait as she made a mistake and printed the document wrong . Ok not to bad just half 10-15min wait, because she could not get the printer paper straight, its ok human error I thought.

Well then after a while a guy came to help me and asked for my details again, now he printed the document and handed it to me. Wow this was not to bad I thought only one hold up J. Wrong, as I look at the paper to see if they spelled everything write, I see the biggest mistake of all I now have a Unabridged-BIRTH-certificate! This was terrible I ran back inside, but the lady’s lack of helping me was terrible, she said “ no I did apply for this “ , well lets just say its day number 2 after the wrong documents incident, and I still have no clue as to how or where or anything or how I could et my  unabridged-marriage-certificate, I have spoken to nearly everybody in the Department, and still they keep saying they will get back to me ?

Waiting….