Email from a friend's husband. We all went through this process. He tells it best.....
Yesterday was a waiting day, which means that I am interacting with the bureaucracy, in some way. Yesterday was the biometric capture for my ID Card.
In a place without street addresses, it's not intuitive where Mussafah Service Point 1 is. I have a map which shows it as being in 12th Street, and their website shows it as being in 17th Street.
Between the two locations is a 3-4 km gap.
Ringing the enquiries number, I am told that it is next to the BMW showroom. The BMW showroom is not on 12th Street, nor is it on 17th Street.
Remembering that Ruth went to Mussafah to get her ID card done, I email her. She responds that she couldn't find the place at Mussafah, and went instead to some other Service Point, at the Exhibition Centre.
That Service Point is now closed. But Ruth is sympathetic (yeah right!)
So, with no wish to spend a day driving round Mussafah looking for Service Point 1, I decide to take a cab. I walk down to the nearby expat compound, Mangrove Village, and collar a cab there. In response to "Mussafah. ID Card. 2 o'clock.", the driver says OK, and off we go.
He drives with a great deal of character, tinged with malice, and we duly arrive at Service Point 1.
It is not in 12th Street, it is not in 17th Street, and it is not next to the BMW showroom. As you might expect, it's in 15th Street, behind the Mercedes showroom.
As usual, there are a whole bunch of people milling about, and the choir of babel is in full swing. Every nationality you can think of, excluding perhaps Tongans and Easter Islanders. Or perhaps I'm just not looking hard enough.
But, oddly, there are a few distinct queues. Unused to such order, I stride purposefully to the door at the head of the queue, and shout "Two o'clock ! Queue ?" at the security guards. Whilst they're distracted by me, two guys slip into the building. One guard sighs resignedly, and goes inside to retrieve them.
The other points at one of the queues. I join it, establish that nobody near me speaks English, so pull out my copy of Stella Gibbons' "Cold Comfort Farm" and start with the introduction.
My appointment is at 2, and at about ten past, the security guards come and check our mobile phones. You get txted an appointment time, and they're making sure that nobody's trying to sneak in early, or sneak in late, or both. I have printed the txt message. My guard is confused by this and waves me in.
Once inside, it's to the reception desk, where my appointment form is barcoded, stamped with "duplicate" and has "2:00" scribbled on it. Then time to follow everyone else upstairs, where we get a little ticket with a number on it. Mine is #235. The board shows that #555 is currently being processed. I sit down, show my ticket to the guy next to me, say "235. You ? ". He shows me a ticket that says #058, and explains that when they get to 600, it will click back to 0. So I'm on time, and about 270th in the queue.
There are 22 booths for biometric capture, and I time the nearest one. It takes about 5 minutes, so a quick calculation indicates that I should be out of here by 5 mins times 270 divided by 22.... um no, actually, because there are only 5 booths in use.
Hopefully, it's prayer time, and the biometric capture people will be coming back soon.
Nope, it's not prayer time, and the guy next to me explains he's been here about 4 hours. My brain does some sluggish, inaccurate mental arithmetic, and decides that I'll be outta here about 6:30.
Out comes my copy of Stella Gibbons' "Cold Comfort Farm", and i continue - very slowly and deliberately - with the introduction.
This goes on for hours, but slow reading helps. Sort of a "chew each mouthful 32 times" sort of slow reading.
I fall in with a group of young Bangladeshi shop assistants, and we talk about work, where we come from, and, on hearing that I am from New Zealand, they guide me through the merits and deficiencies of every player who's been in the Black Caps for the past 5 years.
They all want to know about New Zealand, they all want to go and work there, but as they haven't a hope in hell of getting there other than tourists, I forbear, contenting myself with lurid descriptions of Wellington Southerlies, volcanoes, earthquakes and the other natural wonders which New Zealand has to offer.
After a while, conversation dries up, and we go our separate ways. I repeat the performance with a couple of Filipino drivers, comparing the merits of our various volcanoes. Mount Pinatubo wins.
More of the same follows, this time with two Sikhs.
I decide that my sluggish, inaccurate mental arithmetic is well within the margin of error, as I finish at 6:46.
And there are still about 70 pages of Stella Gibbons' "Cold Comfort Farm" left unread.
