I should have known. Governments! Why do we have them? I guess you could ask the same of Teachers' Associations and Churches, heck, even parents themselves. All authority!
Okay, I know I was born waaaaay back in '85 or whatever but seriously, my records are not that dusty. Or are they? My Birth Certificate has been lost at least twice - as far as I know. This would be the second time it is being replaced; first time by moi.
I know about misjudging, I've done it a lot, probably still doing it right now. But on Monday, the Birth Certificate people told me to come to-day, to pay for it. In typical government fashion, the guy who was checking to see if it had been dug out of purgatory, said:
"Not yet."
At least he smiled. Shook his head too. And looked directly at me.
"So when do I come for it?"
"Wednesday."
I wince and frown. I know this because he winces and frowns with me... sympathy, I think. Will Wednesday turn into 2pm today if I slide a 'Nyato' under a white sheet of paper? Nah! He looks genuinely sad for me. Wishes things worked better. I have to be somewhere else on Wednesday so I ask:
"Can I come on Thursday?"
"Yes." He even smiles, again! His white teeth tell me one thing, and one thing only: it's going to be a long wait for you Njeri. A looooooooooong wait.
At this rate, I'll be getting my Passport in May! Next year! God forbid.
It's not even a problem though, The last time I got anything on time from the government was when I lost my ID; flushed it down the toilet as I hurried to return to my desk and chat with @Bigboss from Australia. He was probably Indian, but that did not make him (could've been her) any less interesting to converse with. He broke English like it was the law and even had the nerve to tell me that my English was poor.
So engaging was he that it took me a week to figure out what had happened to my ID. When that finally sunk in, I went about getting an Abstract (Affidavit?) from the police and headed back to the Westlands Police Station where I'd applied for my ID the first successful time. This time, I waited in line for 3 minutes, took 10 minutes to fill a form, feigned a smile for a few seconds at a disinterested clerk and was instructed to:
"Come back in two weeks!"
Two weeks later, I returned and lo and behold! my old mug shone under a new laminate! I could, once again by identified using an image printed on paper, encased in plastic. I have never again had the fortune of being respected in that way by any arm of government (this might not be the right way to say this but, hey! Kenyans are champions when it comes to using words and phrases inappropriately so I will be understood).
I guess it's true what I said yesterday then, that no one is that lucky twice. So I will not return on Thursday of next week to see if they've found proof of my birth. As if my being alive isn't proof enough. I'll give them an extra week to search for the damn records, seeing as I was born last century and all. Might as well be Dracula - or Abraham...
So you see, in my deliberate endeavour to find something good about The System, I have once again been shoved into a dungeon of doubt, inefficiency and wasted time.
Who can survive it?
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