On being illegal

It has finally happened. I am in South Africa illegaly. Although I can't quite comprehend how this came to be, I do blame the Department of Home Affairs entirely for this.

My visa was due to expire on 12th April 2012. In order to renew a volunteer visa one actually has to apply and re-submit all the documents which were required for the original visa. Imagine my dismay when I had to scramble for background checks, birth certificates, and x-rays for this application. Since all visa applications are processed in Pretoria one might assume that there are strict requirements for the application process. This is not so. Every regional Department of Home Affairs office can request any number of those mentioned documents but apparently does not have to request all of them if they feel they are unnecessary. Phalaborwa, in the heart of Limpopo Province required less paperwork than Nelspruit so I drove all the way up there to make my application on March 19th.
With great posters advertising for new streamlining in their office I was advised that my visa should come through within 30 days. Obviously, this was not so. After 35 days I checked only to be advised that they couldn't find my application. Then I called the national hotline which told me there was a backlog at the Pretoria office and that it would take "indefinitely" to process this application. Obviously one can not leave the country with a pending application so all the trips planned to Namibia and Swaziland had to be postponed "indefinitely".
Yesterday I received a phone call from the Phalaborwa office telling me that my passport had expired on 31st March and that they therefore could not process my application.  I tried to explain to the lady that my passport is still valid until Feb 2018 but she insisted that no copy was good enough, I would have to drive all the way up there (approx. 4 hrs). Checking through my passport I found my visa for Mozambique had expired on 31st March and it was stuck just opposite my old South African visa. So a fruitless phone call later trying to explain the situation saw me hiring a car and driving up to Phalaborwa today. Obviously, the lady was on holiday and nobody knew what I was talking about. At least they did make a photocopy of the correct pages of my passport.