Election voting day in South Africa.

A very long afternoon as there were about 400 people ahead of us in the queue.

This was where we wanted to get to, as it was the entrance to the voters hall.

But it was going to be a long wait for us, as there was a bug in the system early morning, and the voting started only at 9am. Some people arrived at 5am in order to skip the crowds, but they were out of luck and still waiting until 9am. In the meantime, the queue started to grow, and I walked the length of it at a distance after I had parked our car. We saw a graph on the PC that showed that it is better to go and vote in the afternoon, as then the morning rush would be over, and that's why we only arrived at the center at 3pm. Little did we know that we would finally vote at 6:30 pm.
But such is life.

There are normally no cars parked in this road, and now there was no parking space for us when we arrived.

So, I dropped my wife at the back of the queue, and I left to find a parking spot.

I circled around the block to enter from the other side, but still no parking, so I went to park at a sports field next to the center.

Walking back across the field to join my wife at the back, I saw a long line of people, and I just knew that we could prepare for a long wait.

Some birds on the field were watching the strange gathering of people and I heard Sammy, the egret below shouting at Eric the pigeon; Hi Eric, how can you eat when so many people are crowding around to come and catch us? :))

Oh yes, that queue was indeed very long.

A bit of a wind sand whirl made for an intriguing photo, as you can see some of the queue behind it.

It was getting late, and the sun decided to put on a show for us.

By this time, we still had a way to go, and I didn't take any photos when the dark descended.

So, there you have it. We eventually voted and all was well. A surprising thing was that the people in the queue, were all friendly and we could hear a lot of laughs. This is the way to go, when one is faced with inevitable discomfort. The guy ahead of us in the queue even offered his camping chair for me to take a seat on, but I respectfully declined because I am still young:))
Now we are waiting, and the final results of the election will soon be released. We were also impressed with the friendly electoral commission staff, and it was a great relief to drop our voting records into the boxes.
Just another day, as some say.

I hope you have enjoyed the pictures and the story.

Photos by Zac Smith-All Rights Reserved.

Camera: Canon PowershotSX70HS Bridge camera.

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