Marabastad Home Affairs

Anytime you mention the word “Marabastad” around here, you get wide eyes and something to the degree of, “that place is crazy, dangerous…don’t go there, etc.”  So, I have enjoyed the reactions from people when I tell them that I have been to Marabastad for 3 days in a row now.  

The story starts back in December when a whole list of my belongings were stolen out of a holiday rental near Durban, including credit cards, driver’s license, passport, and visa.  And of course, I would have rather handed them a thousand U.S. dollars than for them to take all of my personal IDs, etc.  And now, 5 months later, I am still in the thick of replacing my South African Volunteer Visa. 

After many calls to the Washington DC South African Embassy and the SA Home Affairs offices and searching on the internet, I realized that I was getting no one that could tell me what to do.  Upon the advice of the locals, I decided to go to a home affairs office located in Centurion, about 30 minutes away to avoid Marabastad.  But when I arrived, they said they did not have the forms and I would have to go to downtown Pretoria. 

So, when I heard that one of our Zimbabwean friends needed to go to Home Affairs to apply for an extension on their asylum, I thought it would be a good time to accompany him to solve my own issues. 

Usually, when you hear people talk about how crazy/bad a place is, when you actually go there, you find it is not that big of a deal.  Well, this is not one of those times.  Nathan and I were quite shocked at what we saw.  We arrived at 5:30am and started scoping out the place. Since there is safety in numbers, Nathan and I went with two of our Zimbabwean friends (Nicky & President), and they were able to educate us on the process.   People were everywhere, many of which had slept there overnight to get in line first.  President decided to take a shot at getting in line, but came back from the chaos 15 minutes later and decided to take a risk with us.  That is, since we were white Americans, their thought was that we could get them in with us. Nicky & President explained the corruption that existed in detail…because both of them had been subject to it personally.  Thugs from the street, make the refugees pay them money to get in “their line”.  Then, when the time comes to go inside, the thugs go to the hired security guards and offer them a cut of the bribes they have raised.  The ones that pay the most are the ones that have a better chance of getting in.  However, Nicky himself was left to no other option the last time he tried to get his asylum extension and paid R90 only to not get turned away, yet the thug escaped to the streets with his money.

After the gate opened, we got in line with the mob and Nate & Nicky pushed their way forward to a security guard.  And sure enough, he pulled Nate in away from the craziness and allowed him to explain our situation.  The security guard then looked at me and spoke through the noise ”protect your pockets”, and motioned for me to come through.  However injust that it was, I have never been so grateful to be a white American.  He took me inside and led me to his superior who could answer my questions.  After explaining the situation, he told me that I was supposed to be at the OTHER Home Affairs office at 173 Pretorius Street.  Oh me.  At that moment, I turned my attention to advocating for our friend, President.  This guy said that he could not help, so when I returned outside, I asked the same security guard that took me in.  He told us to come back before 6am the next morning and he would see what he could do. 

Nathan and I returned the next morning at 5:30am, walked up to the same security guard, introduced President to him, and he shoved him in a line, three people back.  Then, we waited for over an hour just to see if he would actually get in.  Nathan is busy documenting the story of President, as a Zimbabwean refugee…So, stay tuned to find out the rest of the story on Mamelodi Stories.  To give you a teaser, see the slideshow for a taste of our experience.