The joy of queues, lessons of being a 'non-native'

Easily the longest queue of my life was getting that new driver’s licence card in 2003 in Randburg (how may SA readers out there have stories about that long drama?). I was a mere nine hours in that queue, nothing compared to some. Yet all us South Africans endlessly joked, made friendships, exchanged phone numbers and had a virtual party. I remember having to excuse myself from my newly made buddies to go to the loo, asking them to keep my place. When I came back they all looked at me solemnly. “Sorry, pal, you have lost your place,” one of them said. “What do you mean?” I replied. “That oke over there,” several of them pointed to some official checking on the queue, “came round and gave us all a queue number for security reasons. In case of riots (which was believable, that happened). We tried to get you one, but he refused. Said you had to be here, otherwise … sorry, Rod, you have to go to the back of the queue”. Incredulous, jaw dropping, I turned around for confirmation to other people in the queue I hadn’t even met. They all gravely nodded, arms folded, some looking at me in pity. Cursing, I started walking back down the queue and just then they all began cackling and tittering. “Got you Rod,” one guy said, bending over and slapping a thigh amid chortles. “Had you totally convinced!” “You buggers,” I muttered. The grin of abashed relief on my face wrapped around my head at least twice while about a dozen people around me chuckled.

Today, around us on Queen Street, Auckland, the Kiwis are rowdy and relaxed, laughing and window shopping. They remind me of carefree children tumbling about in a schoolyard. In my mind they are all wearing superman capes, invincible and relaxed in their knowledge that they belong to a country.

Marion and I enter the medical centre nearby to get my chest X-rays, a requisite to extend my visa. The mood change is immediate. The cheeriest people by far are the receptionists where I fill in the forms, pay the fee and go and wait. People are quiet, which is, well, normal in my experience for a medical waiting room. The sombreness must be just my imagination.

While waiting for the X-ray report, we go into Esquires, one of the popular coffee shops almost next door. Immediately people are chirpier, lounging about, and we relax too. I wonder how many thousands of people in the world go through this simple routine of justifying their presence in another country every day. In my mind’s eye I look at my superhero cape: about the size of a bib, barely covering the collar of my shirt. The guys around me have capes flowing to their feet. I look at the gift of learning: how much I have taken for granted and learnt to appreciate in now more than five years of us having to validate our legal presence on foreign soil.

We go back to the clinic and I collect my X-ray report: my chest and lungs have a clean bill of health. We bustle past people down to the local immigrations office to drop off my forms for an extended stay whilst we wait for our permanent residence to come through, an application fraught with the joys of paperwork. Again the Kiwis remind me of marvellous childhood superheroes: the Justice League of America, the Avengers, the Fantastic Four and the X-men soar, teleport (bamf!), run up walls or through them. They appear indestructible, revelling in a freedom they do not even know they possess. Fish discover water last. You just dunno what ya got until ya ain’t got it, honey.

In the Immigrations Office the atmosphere immediately changes again. Everyone is solemn, standing in queues, nervously checking through sheaves of documents. Marion and I suddenly also have nothing to laugh about. It’s then I remember that long, but fun driver’s licence queue in Randburg in 2003. Oh, our billowing, priceless, rainbow-hued capes that day: so invisible. Either we didn’t even know we had them or were careless with such a costly gift.

This reminds me of a short poem I once wrote whilst living in England and wandering around the UK:

Foreigner Traveling by Coach

The deep fields green the windows.
Eyes mist with sheep and hills.
The meadows, deafened in their sleep,
Become the silence in palms offering
A basket of emerald and chestnut which falls
From fingers down the slopes of hedges and trees
Swinging past the rain-beaten windows
Which hum to themselves. The images beyond them,
Melted by rain on glass and then gone,
Pass through the foreigner motionless in a window seat.
The countries outside the windows were legends lit
In fairytales read aloud in his childhood:
Chimneystacks and barrows, tinkling vales and chines.
Later he read the stories silently; the histories
Of bloodshed and betrayal, loyalties and hangings,
All in the name of ‘God’ or of this ‘sceptered isle’.
Today, that’s all here, but still beyond the reach of touch.
The windowed landscapes are buckets tossing out their images
Onto the road behind, draining the foreigner
Of everything except for that which he’s never known:
His life, always elsewhere, in another country, helplessly felt,
Helplessly seen; a heaviness pouring through him
Until there’s nothing … other than the wish to be here, now.