‘Your name?’

‘Hannah’

‘How do you spell it?’

‘H-a-n-n-a-h’

H|A|N|N|A|H, the policeman wrote painstakingly.

‘Your ID number?’

‘I don't have a South African ID … but my passport number is A470 …’

‘When were you born?’ interrupted the officer, glaring at Hannah.

‘I was born on twenty three March, nineteen eighty six.’

|1|9|8|6|0|9|2|3| | | | | | There were blank spaces left in the form, but this would have to do, the policeman thought to himself. His boss would have to understand – few migrant women had local identity documents. In any case, we all knew that they provided false information to hide their identities.

‘Nationality?’ he asked brusquely.

M|A|LA|W|IAN he wrote, squeezing the extra letters together. The form only provides six spaces for this entry. [5 spaces given above]

‘Address?’

‘Flat 103, Fatis Mansion, Jeppe; corner Harrison Street, Johannesburg.’

F|L|A|T| |1|0|3| |F|A|T|I|S| |M|A|N|S| | … continued officer Molokomme. His left hand moved slowly, making jerky movements with the strokes of his pen. Each letter was carefully written in the spaces and no matter what he felt, whether he believed in what he was writing or not, I could see he did take some pride in his written work. Knowing this was going to take a while, I resigned myself to watching the goings-on on Klein Street, right there where we stood, on the pedestrian path between Plein and De Villiers. I cast my eye at the scene in front of me and understood immediately why the superintendent and I were there – why we had to be there.

It was a late summer morning on the last day of March 2008. Although we were still 15 minutes away from midday, when the heat of the sun was inescapable, I was hot from the scorching sun on the police car's dashboard. The area is close to the Noord Street taxi rank, one of the busiest transport nodes in the city. It was easy to understand why the traders set up their illicit trade here – the number of people passing through daily guaranteed them a ready market. Moreover, business at the end of the month is always good.