SASSA MAKES ALMAL SUFFER

IT WAS a Friday morning, half the world was still asleep, but I was armed with coffee in hand and on my way to pick up a relative for our South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) mission.

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CHAOS: Long queues stretch at Sassa offices

We got there before sunrise about three hours before they opened and the queue was already beginning to worm.

We were met by a friendly figure who told everyone exactly where to line up - she didn’t wear official “Sassa” clothes, so I’m guessing she wasn’t really an employee.

Nonetheless, the experience up to that point was fairly pleasant - I had prepared for utter chaos.

Next up, we had a neatly-dressed foreigner with his impressively-pressed white denim shorts, clean-as-a-whistle white takkies, socks you could see just came out of the washing machine and neatly ironed t-shirt whipping out his Bible.

I was impressed by the way this man dressed - he ironed die laaste ding and made me feel self conscious about having just taken out the first thing I could find in my closet.

Anyway, he blessed us with The Word and then took out the NikNaks and sweets he sold to make ends meet. I reiterate, I was really impressed with this guy. Just watching him and the sunrise coming up at the same time made this visit worth it for me... at least up to that point.

I had brought along a James Patterson thriller to keep me busy while we were going to wait in line. And finally after three hours, it was time for the offices to open.

I expected us to be taken through the front door, but ha-ah, we were backdoor ouens and went through what looked like a smokkie gate, where the security guard instructed us to sit on plastic seats outside before we were allowed to enter.