The Christmas holiday this year is “in-law year” for all our children so we won’t be seeing them next week. Instead, we will spend a restful week recuperating in a resort on the island of Zanzibar just off the Tanzanian coast.

This will be the first time we have had a “hot” holiday for Christmas, the first time we will have spent Christmas in the southern hemisphere, and may well be the first Christmas season during which we haven’t either been to a carol service or eaten Christmas pudding. I’m not going to tell you which of those last two things I’ll miss the most…

To get to Zanzibar we need a visa to enter Tanzania. To get a visa before we travel we have to go to the Tanzanian embassy. I’ve done that before…

In October 2014 we had a short holiday in the Sadaani National Park for a few days on the Tanzanian coast – I wrote about it here and published a pile of pictures. To get the visa for that trip I downloaded a form from the Tanzanian Embassy website, filled it in, obtained two passport photos, found US $50 each, and had Haile drive me to the embassy one afternoon with our passports. A smiley if astoundingly inefficient lady took our passports, the photos, the US dollars and said “come back tomorrow”. That particular successful afternoon was marred only by Haile’s gearbox seizing solid in the middle of a dual carriageway whilst doing a U-turn (you have to do a lot of U-turns in Addis). We went back the next day (14^th October, and Haile had a different car). After banging on the gate for a while the extremely ancient guard popped his head around the huge reinforced razor-wire-topped metal gate and told me they were closed. I complained that Ms Inefficiency had told me to come back today to get my freshly visa’d passports. “Public holiday” he said, to my puzzlement, “Nyerere Day”. Wikipedia to the rescue, I discovered 14^th October commemorates the death of Julius Nyerere, the first president of Tanzania and “the father of the nation”. Another return trip later that week secured our passports and our visas. Ms Inefficiency, clearly having enjoyed a Tanzanian public holiday whilst Ethiopia continued to work, was unrepentant and rather confused as to why I was just slightly annoyed. Haile thought it was funny. Of course it earned him a few more Birr…

So this year I was determined to get it right first time and only do two trips; after all the Tanzanian Embassy is a very long way from Bingham. So I downloaded the form, read it carefully, assembled the photos, the US $100 and our passports and made sure there were no unexpected Tanzanian public holidays. (It was close – 9^th December is Independence Day in Tanzania celebrating liberation from British rule. Best avoided; particularly by a Brit…) I bang on the same gate; the same gnarled guard lets me in; I go to the same reception area which is completely deserted and I wait. No bell to ring. No cameras visible. Just an office with an open door, a woman’s handbag and a pile of other people’s passports. Momentarily as if by magic the same Ms Inefficiency comes down the huge impressive staircase (this is an embassy after all) accompanied by two men. I doubt she recognises me. Being summoned into the office I proudly present my folder of documents. She pulls the forms out. “This is the wrong form” she announces. Crestfallen and fearing the worst I reply weakly “but I downloaded it…”. Ignoring me she pulls out two forms. “Do this one” she orders, and pointing at a tray of forms on the reception desk, “and two of these. Each.” This isn’t going well. “Six forms?” I ask, askance. She gives me a big smile. “Of course!” I borrow a pen from one of the two men, and get writing. The first form asks for exactly the same information as the downloaded form, just with a slightly different layout. And now I need Chris’s signature. The second form (of which I have to complete four) wants to know where we’re going, what the hotel name is, its email address and phone number, all of which I don’t have. Miserably I hand the forms back to her. “Where’s the invoice? And the flight tickets? And the letter?” she asks, imperiously. “Um, what letter?” I reply, knowing I cannot get all these items until tomorrow. “From your employer” she smiles brightly, pointing at a line on the form that says “MANDATORY”. “I’ll come back tomorrow” I tell her dejectedly and leave, to sound off at Haile on the way home as to how, in a year, two forms could become six, and why on earth they need documentary proof that I am going (a) on a plane, (b) to a hotel, and that (c) I am somehow a genuine person.

By the next morning I had printed out the hotel invoice, itinerary and persuaded the Director of SIM Ethiopia to sign two letters saying we are, well, us. Haile took it to the Embassy to prevent me losing another afternoon from the clinic and Ms Inefficiency promised him she would phone me when the newly visa’d passports are ready to collect. Still waiting. She probably had so much fun on Independence Day she forgot all about me.