Mozambique Impressions

Immigration procedures are such a pleasant way to be introduced to a country - and the Mozambican officials that I had to deal with at the border with Swaziland could almost win the award for the rudest immigration officials I have ever come across.
After standing in a queue with all the other bus passengers for over half an hour, as we were served by a single person, whilst 9 or ten other officials were standing at the neighbouring counter talking aimlessly, when I arrived at the counter I was informed that I had filled out the wrong form and another form was thrown at me and the instructions to fill it in were barked at me. So I diligently applied myself in the usual fashion to completing a form which requested
information which was clearly printed on my passport, and giving further details as to where I lived, where I was going to stay in Mozambique (presuming they let me in). In the space asking how long I was to stay in Mozambique I wrote 60 days just to see if I could lucky.

The form, and my cash then disappeared to a small office at the back of the building and I was told to wait. About ten minutes later somebody appeared from the office with my passport and form in hand, and he proceeded to have a conversation with the serving official, as if I was
not present. "This form is no good, he says he wants two months. This is not possible, he must fill in a new form" I overheard, so I piped up explaining that I could amend the form to make it a month. He then went on about how I hadn't filled in an address for Mozambique, when I told
him I only knew the name and not the address, he nodded his head to signify write it down anyway, and once I had completed the formalities he took the form back and wandered off to hos office.

Whilst I continued waiting some officious worker thought that I should be moved on as waiting in the waiting area presented some sort of existentialist threat to the state of Mozambique. He took a fair bit of persuading to allow me to remain in the waiting area, and despite the fact that by this time I was the only person there, the official who had taken my form and knew what I was doing choose to steadfastly ignore the discussion raging before her and pretend that the flies on the roof where occupying her full attention, rather than intervening to back up my claims.

In a way the immigration game is almost the perfect metaphor for the inanity of bureaucracy, the art of which third world countries seemed to have adopted from their colonisers, then have gone on to perfect. Exactly what a poor third world nation gains from having to print,
collect and store a scrap of paper with the same details contained in my passport, kept in some office on the border is beyond me. (I also observed the immigration official simply copy the details from my passport in to a register he had on his desk, thereby creating another
copy of the essential data about me.) Other than the details on my passport I responded to every other question on the form with a creative answer, my address in Australia was in Darwin, my occupation was a Professional Ignoramus. I didn't even get to spend one night in the
hostel that I wrote on the form as it was full, so that would have provided little use tracking me down. At the end of it all though I did get a fancy sticker visa in my passport, even with a little flashy hologram in the corner, and two stamps over the top of this (with, of course, my details written on to it by the dutiful official as well). It is not as if Mozambique is being flooded with people trying to get in, and the largest group of foreigners to visit (South Africans) don't
need a visa, they just fill in a form and they are in.
So what exactly the point of collecting and rewriting all of this information is beyond me. I am sure that the people employed to collect the information, and the other associated costs could be better spent on providing some of the essentials to those millions in Mozambique who go
without. I suppose how if a State is to be a State it must surround itself in all the trappings of a State, nothing more important than a bureaucracy that does nothing.

So far Mozambique has provided plenty of linguistic fun, it is like speaking Spanish but putting on a funny accent.Surprisingly I can understand most of what people say, relying on my Spanish and the few tricks I learnt when I studied Portuguese in Mexico. All those nasal vowel sounds and the nya that sounded so wrong in Mexico now actually evoke a response from people.