Save the Drama for Your Momma (or your daddy)

When we moved to South Africa I thought the hard part would be the move and then once we were living here everything would be smooth sailing. But in 2015 two things happened that were challenging and made us feel like getting settled here was going to take longer than expected. The first thing was the drama with our house and potentially having to move and second was the ongoing saga of having to re-apply for our visas. Here is an update on both situations. 

"No, I am your father" - Darth Vader

Let's have a little refresher. "Previously on Tales of the Visa Reapplication..."

The visas that Mr. Deep and I currently have are less than a year old. Unfortunately about six months after we arrived in South Africa, we learned that we needed to reapply for new visas due to a slight name change at Mr. Deep's company. Having to reapply would have in itself, been a total pain but the real pain for me came when due to my inadequate fingerprint quality (it's a condition that I suffer from.) I had to fly back to the US to have my fingerprints taken electronically so that I could submit them as part of an FBI background check which is needed for the visa application. The situation was outlined in this post. 

After my quick trip half way around the world and back, we got the fingerprints, the FBI background checks, the chest x-rays, the updated documents and letters from Mr. Deep's company and everything else required under the sun put together. At the end of October we visited Home Affairs to submit our applications for new visas. To facilitate the application at Home Affairs, we had a local expert from an attorneys office who met us there the day we had the appointment to submit our applications. Even with his help we spent over four hours at Home Affairs that day while our "handler" visited all of the different counters on our behalf shuffled around the paperwork and called us to come up to the counter to sign various documents in the presence of the Home Affairs staff when needed. At the end of the four hours we were told it would take 3-4 months to process everything and then we would receive our new visas. 

Then the day before we were scheduled to leave for the USA for our Thanksgiving holiday we received word that the visas were ready and we were told to send our passports to the lawyer to have the new visas attached. Of course we couldn't oblige because we needed our passports to be able to fly so we advised the experts that we'd send them along when we got back. 

Now, do you want the good news or the bad news? 

The good news is Mr. Deep's visa is a-ok and he will be getting his passport back shortly with his shiny new visa affixed. Once he receives it he can resume having a jolly good time working in South Africa and flashing his visa to anyone and everyone at any opportunity just to prove that he is official. 

The bad news is that my visa is going to take a little bit longer because an error was made. Here is a snippet from the email Mr. Deep received regarding the error. "However, there is bad news in that the South African Dept of Home Affairs have messed up your wife's passport endorsement. They have stated in the visa that it is 'dependent on father' rather than husband. This has been flagged to them and they have requested the passport back to rectify. They should issue the correctly worded visa next week."

Mr. Deep wonders if it might be easier (and faster) if he and I get divorced and then he adopts me as his daughter so that the visa will be accurate.

"I feel we are all islands - in a common sea" - Anne Morrow Lindbergh

The house drama has ended as the house has been sold. But there was one last thing that happened with the previous owner/landlord that I never wrote about and like the visa situation it is so ridiculous that it needs to be shared publicly. 

A day or so before the closing on the house both the new owner and the previous owner came over to take a look around and to discuss a few items that, according to the previous owner, were not included with the sale. Even though I had inquired as to what exact items were not included I was never told, so as they were looking around I too was learning what was considered extra. The purpose of all of this was that the previous owner wanted the new owner to buy these items from her or, the previous owner was going to remove these items from the house. 

It turns out that the main items that were not included in the sale were pots. As in about 15 large pots with plants in them. These pots were outside in the garden and on top of the third floor roof deck. While it makes sense to me that potted plants would not be included in the sale of a home, there is something called an "aggravation dollar" which is a phrase that I learned from a very smart boss I once had. The aggravation dollar means that sometimes it is not worth it to worry about such matters because you will end up paying with your time and aggravation. 

All of the pots were quite large and heavy. In order to move them the previous owner would have to find at least two strong guys to carry them for her and would have also needed some kind of truck to fit them all. Even with a bakkie (pick up truck) or an SUV, I still think several trips would be needed to collect all the pots. The new owner said she wanted a few of the pots but not all and while I liked the pots I certainly wasn't going to buy them being that at some point we will be leaving South Africa and we will not want to be lugging around a bunch of pots. So the previous owner said she would come and collect the pots that were not going to be purchased by the new owner.

After we were done looking at pots we were standing around near the kitchen area and the previous owner casually announced that the "chopping block" also was not included in the sale. Both the new owner and I were shocked. First, chopping block is not an accurate name for this piece of furniture. While yes, it has a butcher block type top and it is used for chopping food, it really is what would be considered an island as it measures 3 feet high, 5 feet long and 3 feet wide (or as we like to say in South Africa .91 meters high, 1.5 meters long and .91 meters wide.) In addition, this item clearly matches the kitchen cabinets and another non removable island in the next room. 

In America we call this type of behavior on the part of the previous owner "reaching for shit."
Like, let's see if I can get these either the tenants or the new owner to pay to keep the island, (which I'll call a chopping block because then it sounds like less of a big deal.) True it would be nearly impossible for me to move this island, I mean uh er chopping block, as it won't fit through the door of the house without being disassembled and sure it was custom made to fit in and match the kitchen where it resides currently but hey, lets give it a shot. That's the definition of reaching for shit.

As everyone was so surprised to learn this bit of information the fate of the chopping block (aka island) was not finalized on that day.  Later when Mr. Deep and I moved the island (before this incident we didn't even realize this thing was movable - it's that big) was saw there was a hole in the floor for an outlet of some kind thus complicating the situation because if the island was removed, the tile in the floor would also need to be replaced. A few days later the new owner asked the previous owner how much she wanted for the chopping block and was told the original purchase price was R30,000 which equals a lot of money. Also, that was the cost before people spent countless hours chopping on the thing. So the new owner said thanks but no thanks and Mr. Deep and I decided to buy a new more generic island that we could take with us when we leave here. Yes, we were sad to the see the lovely island go but what were we going to do? Just like the pots we can't be bogged down carrying an island around that is never going to match another kitchen of ours again.

Then, similar to some other points in time during the course of the housing drama, the new owner consulted a lawyer about the situation and told the previous owner, sorry but my lawyer says no way...the chopping block must stay. 

And so the previous owner went off into the lovely South African sunset and was never heard from again. All of the pots and the chopping block/island remain in place for the Deep family to continue to enjoy and chop on. Unless I get deported. Then, Mr. Deep will have to enjoy these items for both of us.

large pot with pen for scale.

Smaller pot which is not that small.

"chopping block"

Other furniture that matches the chopping block.

Things that are Dumb

I am a pragmatic person. I like to do things in order and be as efficient as possible. When I have completed a task I prefer not to revisit it. That is why the potential of having to find a new house and move was bugging me so much. Finding a house had already been taken care of and now it was going to have to happen all over again? Didn't people understand that it was crossed it off the list? 

Fortunately, it seems like we are going to be able to stay in our house. We handled the situation in the way that we, as Americans, thought was best. We hired a lawyer.  Right after he got involved everything seemed to change and now it looks like we will be able to stay in this house with the same lease terms under the new owner/landlord. I won't truly believe it until the new lease has been signed (note, Mr. Deep insists we do not need to sign a new lease) but hopefully we dodged a bullet and moving remains off the things to do list.

The universe didn't want us to get too comfortable though because now the project that we have to do over is our visa applications. Yes, the entire visa application process that I wrote about in this post and this one has to be redone. The reason? Mr. Deep's office here in SA has changed it's name slightly and that requires us both to get new visas. 

And that is dumb.

If redoing the chest x-rays (we don't have TB) and the mounds of paperwork was not enough of a pain, it seems that I have a syndrome which makes my visa application even more challenging to complete.  I don't have readable fingerprints. An FBI background check is a requirement for the visa application and to get the background check you have to submit a set of inked fingerprints.

Every every time I get an inked set of fingerprints from the local police station and we submit them to the FBI they get rejected. We have submitted four separate sets of my fingerprints and they all have been rejected. Mr. Deep, who is apparently normal as far as fingerprints go, was approved on the first submission. Each of my rejection notices contain the following statement, 

"your fingerprints have been successfully received by the FBI, but are unable to be processed. There are a small percentage of individuals in which the fingerprint image quality is very low.   
An individual, by the nature of their work or age, may have very thin or worn ridges in the pattern area."

Work or age? Did I type so forcefully over the years at work that my fingerprints rubbed off? Or maybe it was dialing into all of those conference calls that did it? Did I do a lot of work where my hands were soaking in acid for hours on end and I just don't remember it? Did all of my nail biting somehow harm my finger tips? 

To the naked eye all appears normal

Which leads me to more things that are dumb. First, I have been in South Africa since shortly after my first FBI background check less than a year ago, so it would have been tough for me to commit a felony in the U.S. while living here. Second, it's dumb that we are still relying on ink fingerprinting (hey 1920 called and they want their technology back) when we have other methods such as electronic fingerprinting that could be used as common course of action. It's like when you go to vote and a 90 year old woman has to look in a book, IN A BOOK, to confirm if you are actually a registered voter. How have we not progressed past checking things in books and inking people's hands when we can send the Hubble or whatever that craft was called into space to send down photos of starlight that was generated 30 years ago? In proof-reading this post Mr. Deep says the starlight was generated more than 30 million years ago. OK, great, whatever that proves my point all the more.

Electronic scanning of fingerprints does exist. That is what I had to do the first time when we were still in the U.S., and my fingerprints were rejected and I first became aware of my print deficiency. At that time, a guy from an accredited company came to our house, hooked me up to a machine and scanned each fingerprint until it was legible and then submitted all of my prints to the FBI for approval.  Within 48 hours the background check was complete. So it can be done. But, the only companies that the FBI will accept scanned fingerprints from are located in the U.S. And that's - you guessed it - dumb! We did inquire to see if this prior set of scanned fingerprints could be used to conduct this latest background check but the fingerprint scans apparently are destroyed after they are submitted. 

So I have to make a trip to the U.S. on Monday. It's a 15 hour flight each way and I have to go by myself. It's going to cost Mr. Deep's company thousands of dollars in airfare and I do mean thousands because I'm going to sit in the very front of the plane if you know what I mean.  All this for a ten minute fingerprinting procedure. We are returning to the U.S. for Thanksgiving in less than two months but these fingerprints need to be done now. 

Of course it will be nice to be able to see my parents and a few of my friends. I should not complain about a free trip home (but I will anyway.) I wonder how many Starbucks coffees I sip down in the few days that I am back in the U.S.?  I can get a new iPhone while I am there since mine is old and looks like a brick. I can eat pizza by the slice every day and I can eat Mexican food. I can wander around Target aimlessly. When I talk people won't hear an accent. I will sound normal. When I order water can pronounce it wawdder instead of saying waw-teh. It will be fun.  But it's still dumb.

Negative Nellie Gets a Piece of Candy

Remember when I wrote about the house we are living in going up for sale? And I told you that we wouldn't need to move? Well unfortunately it's looking like we might have to. And that really sucks.

It seems that a potential buyer has made an offer with the caveat that we move out of the house by March 31, 2016. Technically, the our lease should super cede the sale but it sounds like if this sale doesn't go through then the bank will repossess the house and the bank can then force us to move out. Sounds like fun right? 

So for now the ball is in our court. We can tell the prospective owners to go pound sand (that's a nice way of putting it) and see what happens. Or, we can negotiate a scenario where we agree to move out. Are we better off moving out now or rolling the dice and seeing what happens in the future? That is the question. A question we will have to ask a lawyer, a lawyer that we don't have yet.

In the meantime, I found it humorous that our landlord had the cajones to even ask us if we'd be willing to move? Does she think that we are just so nice that we would be happy to uproot everything just to make her life easier? I almost want to send her the reply below, but of course I won't.


Dear ,
Thanks so much for your email on Saturday morning inquiring as to whether or not we'd be willing to move out of the house by the end of March. We enjoy getting emails on Saturday that allow us to spend the weekend in deep contemplation and thought about important matters concerning our lives and our future. 

We discussed the situation we have come to the conclusion that it would be our pleasure to accommodate the request of the potential new owner, we are here to help!

After some introspection, we remembered that we love spending time going around with a realtor to look at houses. We are giddy with excitement as we imagine viewing a lot of homes that smell heavily of cigarette smoke and pet waste. We have to remember to ask our realtor to show us homes that have kitchens and bathrooms that haven't been updated since 1987. We both graduated high school in the 80's and we like a home that reminds us of this renowned period in decorating history. 

In addition we love packing and unpacking boxes filled with all of our belongings. In fact, we were just chatting the other night and saying to each other that life is so boring now that everything is put away. Unpacking is like Christmas morning each time we open a box. We actually searched the garage to see if we could find any boxes that we somehow forgot to unpack, so we could unpack and have some fun, but sadly, there weren't any. It is also one of our great pleasures  to inventory everything that we own and then develop a system to make sure that none of our possessions are lost or damaged. We are getting so excited just thinking about all of this activity that we doubt that we can wait until March to get started.

And finally, I can't wait to personally work with my great partners at Multichoice, DSTV, Telkom, the UIF and the many other utilities and services so we can change over all of our services to our new home.  I've been looking for an excuse to drive over to Randburg and visit Multichoice and now I have one. I like to play a little game when I go to Multichoice and see if I can get the same set of answers and instructions from two different customer service agents. So far it's never happened but now I'll have more chances to try. I've also missed seeing my favorite DSTV technician. I will now have an excuse to invite him over to my new house to help me get my decoders working, it usually takes about five visits from him to get everything sorted but luckily for me he is super patient and is happy to come by at any time as long as I pay him 400 rand per visit. 

While we appreciate that you so generously gave us until Tuesday to make our decision, there really is nothing to consider when the choice is so clear. Let's get out the bubble wrap and the packing tape and light this candle!

Yours Sincerely, 
The Deeps

Ok, I feel better. 

On another note, tomorrow is Spring Day, the unofficial first day of spring in South Africa. Today the Diepsloot Combined School grade three students did some colouring, cutting and pasting to celebrate spring as part of their lesson. While they were told they could take their artwork home, some of the kids gave me their pictures and one little girl gave me a piece of candy. 

He said he didn't want his picture taken but clearly he didn't mind too much.

Cutting out the flowers 

Goofing around

Very thoughtful of her to give me her candy

Annoying

You know how sometimes you go to a funeral and during the eulogy while talking about the deceased someone will say, "and through it all she never complained, never asked why me? Not once." Or similarly they will say, "she never had a bad word to say about anybody."  

Not that I'm planning on dying any time soon but I can tell you that if anyone makes these remarks at my funeral she or he is either mistakenly speaking at the wrong funeral or lying.

While I like to think I'm a "glass half full" kind of gal, I definitely do complain and often the topic of my complaint is other people.

This post is proof.

If you have ever sold a home then you know what a pain it can be. Meeting with realtors (called Estate Agents in this country) making arrangements to be home or not to be home at certain times for showings and open houses (here in SA called show days), making sure the house is always in show condition, and more.

Now you might be wondering why I bring up this topic now when we don't own a home. Well that's the point. We rent a home here in SA and now our landlord needs to sell the home. Yes, the one that we are living in. 

The good news is that thanks to great foresight on the part of our relocation company, our lease was written in such a way that the new owner has to accept us as tenants and has to accept the agreed upon rental fees in our lease until the lease ends in 2018. So we aren't getting kicked out. The bad news is that all the annoying things about selling a home (see paragraph above) is now falling on us to handle. Or to be a bit more specific, falling on me to handle since I have the illustrious title of Senior Vice President of Household Operations. Like any job it's not all glamour.

When you're selling your own house you are motivated to sell. So you have to be out of the house for four hours on Saturday during a show day. No problem! Maybe this is the day a buyer will come and look. In my case, I really don't care if this house sells. My motivation is only to minimize my disruption so I guess if it sells the showings will stop but other than that I could care less. Plus in my humble opinion, but corroborated by Mr. Deep knower of all things financial, the house is priced way too high which means the fun will continue for a while.

And just in case you are thinking that I am overreacting I want to set the record straight as to how much of a pain this actually is.  If you are tapped to speak at my funeral one day, I want to be sure my side of the story is told. "Yes, she sometimes complained but her complaints were always very valid."

Since we found out the house was going on the market we (I) have had to:
1) meet the realtor and show him around
2) welcome the realtor back along with a photographer to take pictures
3) go all around the house to move things back to where they were prior to the photographer unplugging them, moving them, etc. You know from my last post that I don't like things out of order
4) schedule two on show days on two future Sundays when we can't be home
5) be home to meet a guy from the bank so he can measure the house and take his own photos
6) wonder if the guy from the bank is really from the bank or if he is instead a spy planting a bug in our house in the form of a pen or a clock (this is likely an unfounded concern it's just that I've been watching too much of a TV show called The Americans)
7) be home for a showing that then got moved to tomorrow
8) so be home for two showings tomorrow 

Annoying.