Maybe illegal immigrants are not such a bad thing after all...
THE Home Affairs building in central Johannesburg has a bunch of illegal immigrants who sleep overnight at the front door in order to be first in line to be processed the following morning.
They have a problem when they get in -- no application forms are left. The government printers are out of stock.
But the reason that there are no forms is that a couple of enterprising new businessmen have helped themselves to the entire stock. They now stand outside Home Affairs and sell these.
Sort of like those "Get out of Jail, Free" cards in Monopoly which tell you in the fine print that "this card may be kept until needed or sold".
They don't need much to become permanent residents -- just an affidavit that they have been in the country five years.
Our business team will prepare such affidavits to order -- asking price, R300.
I met one such immigrant; a Francophone Zairean who taught himself English and was now working as a waiter at a family restaurant in Rosebank, Johannesburg.
He provided the best service I have seen in this country in a long time, leading me to consider that we could make this country much more attractive to tourists by replacing all our own waiters.
This was shortly after my brother's birthday which we decided to celebrate over dinner. My brother was abstaining from meat for the day as a penance for his lurid lifestyle. So we headed off to this new "upmarket" Indian restaurant.
They had promised food by chefs from India, live music, great ambience, and that perfect selection of vegetarian food that comes only with Indian cooking.
"I'm going to have some dhal and roti to start, and then we're going to split the mixed grill for two people after that," I said to the waitress.
She stood there looking sheepish.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"Well," she shuffled her feet, "most people have the mixed grill as a starter and the dhal as their main course."
"So?"
"If I go into the kitchen and tell the chefs that I want the dhal first and the mixed grill afterwards, they'll laugh at me..." Shuffle, shuffle.
Sigh... "Woman, sit down. I'm going to give you some history. Not so long ago in the dark ages, people in Europe noticed that their food was always cold by the time they finished eating because of those miserable European winters.
"And then someone hit upon a bright idea. Why don't we have the soup first, then the fish, then the meat, then the pudding? That way the food will not get cold before we've eaten.
"Now what's the weather like in India?"
Hot?
"Damn right it's hot! So there isn't a history of serving food in courses. Now then, how long does dhal take to cook?"
A few hours?
"Yes! And how long does meat take to grill in a tandoor?"
About 10 minutes.
"Right! So if you went into a home in India which owned a tandoor, your hosts would probably invite you to nibble on some roti and dhal which had been simmered and prepared during the morning while they popped some meat into the tandoor for you.
"Now if those chefs of yours have a problem with that, shoot them."
She fled for cover. The chefs apparently survived since the food was quite good.
Not so the wine waiter who took an extraordinarily long time delivering the first round of drinks which included a Campari and tonic. He finally returned to inform us that there was no cappucino.
"Nobody ordered a cappucino. That should have been a Campari."
They didn't have any of that either.
"They do," I insisted. I scribbled on a paper napkin. "Take this to the bartender."
He arrived soon after with Campari in hand looking quite sheepish. (Must be a job requirement.)
As the evening wore on, he got progressively pickled between rounds, while the Scotch with soda appeared to be shrinking with each new order. He finally vanished altogether.
Unlike our recently-arrived Zairean who walked us to the door with a smile and extra balloons for Aura.
There's a moral there somewhere.