maid's passport collection turned nightmare

yesterday, i spent an entire day at the indonesia embassy. it was damn chaotic inside there, with probably a thousand people squeezed in one pathetic zinc roof by the left side of the Indonesia Embassy building. No, not in the main building, it is for the rich and famous ambassador and the officials i reckon. All those indon immigrants or cheap labour worker gets the zinc roof. yes, you read me right. is this not a discrimination against their own people? how sad.

i brought my maid to renew her passport way back in october before raya, even back then, the crowd wasn't this crazy. so i was really surprised to see such a huge crowd. the first thought was "oh shit, are they havin a demonstration here?" you know how people nowadays love riot. so cheapskate i think. i'm sure there are better ways to voice up. anyway, everyone was at the embassy to collect their passport at 2pm. as per instructed. phew..

the place was horrible the first time i went, second time was far worse. give you pictures, hope you get what i mean. litters everywhere, with cracked tiles and leakin pipelines, a record-breakin smelly loo, and hundreds of unhappy faces. i risked my life takin these photos. took it without the flashlight, cos the first few i took with flash earned me some scary stares. so i better snap without.

we waited and waited. but those buggers queued up so ever religiously though announcement were made repeatedly that names will be called for passport collection. but hey, all ears turned deaf. for hours, they squeezed to get to the front of the queue, which is utterly pointless and most annoyin because those who were called can hardly get to the front. what a fuckin waste of time. my maid said "these people are fuckin no brainers". not me.

shern wasn't at all happy surrounded by such smelly, sweaty and gudang garam ciggarette puffin heroes. my mistake, i brought him along. i'm also quite surprised no one actually faint. big bonus. shern was so cranky he wants to be carried tight. at 5pm, when the crowd showed no sign of slowin down, i called hubs to come get shern home. and he came. thank God.

the embassy was supposed to close at 5pm, but with probably another 300 souls in there with no passport, i'm sorry but please light the midnight oil. else, i guarantee these people will tear the place down. i talked to many, some came from as far as perak and penang. no one's happy to leave without a passport. period.

the sky turned dark, some dozed off waitin. no lights. what you see is what we got. dim lights from the counter. let's save electricity i can hardly see faces. at 7pm, my maid's name was called. thank God. we left with many still waitin. what a chaotic day.

note: it is not my intention to discriminate indonesia embassy or its people. but i personally think there are many areas that can be improved. i'm sorry if i have offended anyone, anyhow.