A Warmed Heart

We never anticipated having a child. In all honesty she has been the happiest “accident” we’ve ever had. There is nothing, NOTHING, on this earth that makes my heart melt like the satisfied sigh, the stifled giggle or the admiring eyes of my daughter when she watches me do something and has the impulse to copy the action.

When she was still growing and getting ready to join us out here, the decision was firmly made that she’d get her Belgian citizenship as she’s entitled. At that stage we weren’t planning this departure from the country, but when we decided upon it, it would be far easier to accomplish if she was a Belgian already.

At the hospital we’d filled out a full description of who she was, when she arrived and who’d been responsible for this new “people”. A short while later we received an official document that declared in an unassuming way that she’d been noted, slotted into the system and given a number. The paper also declared who the mommy was but I was nowhere to be seen on this paper.

Upon enquiry at the Belgian Consulate I found out that they required an ‘unabridged birth certificate’ as this would state me as the father and as I’m the Belgian here we need that, a translated transcript of this certificate by one of their approved translators and an ‘apostile’. From there these documents are sent to Belgium for processing. All this has to happen before she’s two years old. We jumped on it immediately and I’m glad we did because it wasn’t that easy.

We filed the application, paid our seventy South African Rands to the government and waited the obligatory three weeks we were told it takes. Week three came and went and we enquired on the progress and were curtly told “When you get the SMS that it’s here at our offices, you can come pick it up.”

Week four and five floated by without any notification and I began to get agitated. We got hold of a telephone number for a hotline and spoke to a lovely lady there who escalated our request. After a further three weeks we finally got a response from her that the document was in for transcription. Great, so another three weeks hence we should have it. I didn’t trust this and phoned again after one and a half weeks to check on the progress.

I was told that my expectation of three weeks from the initial phone call was ludicrous! The document was indeed in for transcription, but that merely meant that it was in the queue (a pile on some arbitrary desk somewhere is what I read into it) for them to draw the original hospital records from the vault and enter in the data on their system to enable them to print the official government document. What to do? Do I lose the little patience I have and the request for the transcript ‘disappears’? Do I wait patiently in the hopes that one day a clerk somewhere decides to do a day’s work and hopefully my application is among those done?

I’ve had acquaintances tell me that they filed for an unabridged birth certificate more than three years ago and they’re still waiting.

Thankfully I had a backup plan.

There are government departments that the general public use where you pay the regular tariff. This tariff entitles you to not much more than a raffle ticket. You may get nothing – ever, you may get a consolation prize like my friend’s little brother – an Identity Document with the right name but wrong ID number and wrong photo. The best prize is the first prize – a correct, complete document within the allotted time.

Then there are the government departments that are ‘semi-private’ where the wealthier go and where the price of an unabridged birth certificate jumps from 70 South African Rand to 1000 South African Rand. The documents are genuine, produced from the same government departments, but the difference is the price. I’m certain that a large percentage of that money goes to ‘lubrication’ for the wheels. As much as it goes against my principles, I needed the practical, I needed that document and I paid the piper.

The piper sent in the guy that beats the drums, the large whip brandishing slave driver and a bucket of lube and within two weeks of drumming, whipping and lubricating (sounds kinky) within the chaos of desks and paper piles that I’m sure are government departments, I had the document.

I won’t waste much more of your time because the Belgian side of this is boring. We handed in the documents requested from us to the Consulate, one and a half weeks later I was contacted via e-mail to make an appointment to sign my consent that my little girl becomes a Belgian which I cordially did. We both went because this was quite an occasion for us and the Consulate General himself did the honours of reading the docket to us and made sure we understood. He also advised that my wife get the free visa entitled to her as soon as possible and simply renews it. It was four weeks from first handing in the documents to my little girl being a Belgian and obtaining a passport!

Sorry government of this country. You have failed the millions who pay your salaries and who trusted you to make things better.

Belgium, you have my trust and loyalty. Belgium, you will have the pleasure of hearing my daughter’s satisfied sighs and stifled giggles. You will have her loving eyes watch you and you will show her beautiful things.

This experience once again affirmed our decision to flee. I’d rather have my talents and skills used in a country that will care for its people than where I am now.