Renewing Your Zimbabwean Passport From The UK part 2 - Getting Your Passport From Zim

A continuation from my initial post : Renewing Zimbabwe Passport from the UK
Anyway, this picks up from where that left off, I shall share my exact experience...

• I was lucky enough to have my friend's mum travelling home from UK so I gave her all my docs, - the app form and certified copies of my ID, old passport, affidavit allowing my relative to process my app & collect passport & the last document was a UK visa.  This helped me save on DHL costs.

• So my friend's mummy, let's call her MaiS, graciously delivered the package to my cousin Mr N, who does not have the same surname as myself, Miss C, as I am a Bulawayo girl & most of my paternal relations reside in Blues & work Mon-Fri, anyway the plan was for my cousin Mr N to get an affidavit from a relation of mine a former Miss C who had recently married.  Let me tell you now & save you the hassle, it won't work for someone who does not have your same surname to do your passport app - it can also work if they have your mother's maiden surname.  Unless under special mitigating circumstances but I'm unable to advise on how that's done...as I said before I am just sharing my own experience.

• Anyway, luckily cousin Mr N knew of a cousin of mine Mr C, same surname who was now working in Harare (can I get a Hallelujah!) so that solved the 1 problem.

• The fee for a 24 hour app is USD318.  I sent USD300 so I think Mr N and Mr C went for the non-24 hour option so my passport took 6 working days to be completed processing.
• USD253 for 7 days & if you are DHL-ing back to the UK it costs USD40 as at September 2012.

• Next, another favour I needed, I don't live in London so I asked my friend S to take my old passport to the Zim embassy & get a cancellation, this she said took all of 10 minutes @ Zimbabwe House in London & she was able to get to work on time, so this may work for you too especially if you work in Central London, you can save yourself your leave days.

• I scanned & emailed the copies of my passport cancellation page & the letter from Zimbabwe House, to cousins Mr N and Mr C and they took the scanned copies to the passport office to collect my new passport.

• The turnover of the passport forms arriving in Zim & getting the passport is fairly quick, to be prudent I would say less than 2 weeks.  

• Bare in mind, the people in Zim doing your passport for you will have to take time off work, possibly the whole day to spend in queues.

• I was fortunate enough to have a friend returning to UK from Zim around the time my passport was out, so he brought it back for me, saving another DHL cost.

• This passport stuff has left me owing many people many favours, but I am so grateful for all the help & support I was given.  No one was obliged to help, but fortunately they did help me & saved me money (DHL costs), took their time (queueing!  every Zimbabwean knows how painful Zim queues can be) & just the added inconvenience helping me out (when my passport got to UK - a passport relay ensued before I actually got my hands on my passport, so and so went to this tube station to get the passport from someone who got it from birmingham, big sigh!)

• All I can say now is Woooosaaa & Thank God for great family & friends & Good Luck with your Zim passport renewal, to be prudent put aside GBP400 for the entire process.

Peace.Love.&.Happiness

A Boat On The Moon... the best I've written methinks

Take me to that place

The place that overlooks a world I cannot see

A world that I know

A world I once inhabited

But a world I wish to forget

For that world engulfed my senses

I could not eat, I could not sleep, hear,

Smell the sweet scent of November rain on dry sand

Nor could I caress the fabric of the softest silk

For I could not feel

Both the physical and the aphysical

I wanted to escape

So I chose not to see this world

No, I was not in love

I just needed to go to that place

To the boat on the moon

The moon and its transparency

Lets me see through its blue glaze

It shines upon me, hypnotic

Showing a spectrum of indifference

Somewhere to take me to the destination of my dreams

I know once I am on that boat

I will be so close to Utopia

I may sound suicidal

But the paradise I speak of is

Not that of the Heavens

It is a paradise I myself envisioned

Outlined with silver linings

It is a state of mind

And it is my state of mind

That will manifest into my destiny

I know once I am there

I will once again

Dive into the ocean of my senses

As cool as a soft breeze across my cheek

But at the same time as warm as the comfort in my heart,

My body begins to surface

It is carried by the water

And I begin floating, Slowly floating away…

In my boat on the moon

My book - Exodus

To fulfill my desires & to satisfy a burning passion, I must finish writing Exodus, I promise this to myself for myself.

Peace.Love&Happiness

kubulabula xichangana

I absolutely love this girl maya wegerif & I think every confused westerner needs to see this about how & why Africans sound the way we sound when we speak english... & I'm biased because she is shangaan :-) check it out