the height of inefficiency

The height of inefficiency

A visa renewal; an easy task, right? Well if ive learned one thing since ive been here, its that nothing is as easy as it should be in Africa. This ended up being a battle, and a near defeat for yours truly, the intrepid traveler.

I arrived in Nairobi on Friday afternoon after another month long stint in the mara, splitting time between naibor and anthony’s camp on the mara river. I wasn’t really looking forward to the stay; my time in Nairobi is about as enjoyable as a walk through downtown Baghdad without a flak jacket. This being said, this go around wasn’t all that bad and boring.

Friday night, after putting in some QT with the clients during the day, I went over to the hyena cottage. (I refer to them as the hyena girls for lack of a better term. I would use names, but I have a feeling that would just confuse yall.) we laid low, watched a movie and ate some take out dinner, and although it was a low key night, it was nice to be around someone my age again and relax without being bombarded with questions from clients to the effect of ‘what do we do if a lion comes into camp tonight? Can we go outside and look at it?’ yes, please do. why don’t you give it a little pet as well.

But Friday night was about the only good night so far. The next morning, after a breakfast with Danielle (ill give the name thing a try) and sarah, i said bye to them as they set off for a conservancy near the Tanzania border to research striped hyenas. Well that’s cool, see yall in a few weeks. They will eventually return to the mara in not too long, or so they’ve said, but who knows. Shortly after their departure I became sick, very very sick.

At first I thought it was malaria, but then the whole stomach business started, so I chose to blame the duck that I had for lunch the day before. That was much easier to do than rush off to the doctor for a malaria test. How, you might ask, can you get malaria while youre on malaria medication? Well, you cant. But I quit my medication about three weeks into the trip. The main warning on the label said avoid prolonged exposure to the sun. that’s a bit like telling an Eskimo to avoid cold weather. It just wasn’t an option. So I quit, and became an expert mosquito killer. So I quit, and became and expert mosquito killer.

I spent pretty much all of Saturday and Sunday on the couch. I watched cricket, rugby, soccer, read and drank tea. Now those are some activities that really get your blood flowing. It was exhilarating. The only thing that interrupted the monotony was little oscar rushing into the den to see if I wanted to kick the ball around with him or watch some high quality bbc kids programming. I wanted to do neither, but I didn’t really have a choice.

Around last night I started to feel better, which was good because I knew that Monday was going to suck; it was time to renew the visa. This process took no less than five hours, and cost me about 19 burst blood vessels in my head.

I had been warned by Fiona that the Nyayo immigration house downtown was a place where logic failed, but this didn’t really set in until I arrived at the place, which is smack in the center of downtown Nairobbery.

I set off from Karen with Francis, a messenger from Fiona’s office, Francis, as my guide. We drove along smoothly for about 22 seconds until we turned a corner and hit bumper to bumper traffic on the Ngong Rd. leading to downtown. I was stuck behind a city works vehicle that put out enough black smoke in one belch to give the entire city a right case of the black lung. I was miserable, it was raining and I still felt a bit sick. The matatu (bus of death, in cast you don’t rememeber) behind me started blaring on his horn, and then attempted to slip around me on the outside, in this case being the left since these silly people drive on the wrong side of the road. But no, I wasn’t having any of this today. If I was waiting, so was this asshole. I pulled the car on the shoulder, much to the dismay of the expert driver behind me, who nearly relieved me of the back third of my little Subaru. I held strong, withstood the verbal abuse, stones and insults being hurled at me and kept the matatu at bay.

Not long after he began to lay on his horn for no less than five minutes. This, combined with the stress of traffic and the lingering effects of some vicious peking duck, cost me the first ruptured blood vessel in my head. My temperature was rising, my eyes were filling with fire and I began to chew a hole in my check. This was not going to be a good journey. Francis, meanwhile, was singing away, fascinated by the wondrous contraption plugged into the cigarette lighter whose screen glowed white and filled the car with all sorts of tunes.

Traffic crept along at a blistering pace (all of 2mph) and we inched our way towards the city. At one point, we passed the Nairobi hospital. Francis was keen to point this out and said if I ever needed it, it was right here. If this was a movie, this would have been some very austere foreshadowing. I just hoped that life didn’t imitate art in this particular instance.

I finally arrived downtown and parked across the street at the intercontinental hotel. Upon entry into the parking garage, two men scanned the inside of my car and then passed a mirror attached to a large metal pole underneath the undercarriage to check for bombs. (you think im joking?) nothing like the feeling of safety in downtown.

As I entered the immigration house, my spirits immediately lifted. Contrary to what I had been told the scene was going to be like, the building was empty and so was the line marked visa renewal. I happily strode up to the desk, presented my passport and application to the waiting lady and said nothing.

She finally spoke. ‘what are you doing here in Kenya?’

‘Working for a safari-‘. Not good, wrong answer. Without a work permit, the word work should never leave my mouth.

‘but you don’t have a work permit.’

Shit. ‘right…I know. I didn’t mean working, I just meant that ive been down at a safari camp that is owned by a friend of mine. He works there. Or owns it, whatever’

‘and what have you been doing down there?’

‘driving around, watching animals’

‘driving? Driving a safari car?’

no, its actually a BMW M3. god I hate people. ‘yes, a safari truck, the ones clients use.’ Oh crap, I did it again. I wasn’t really at the top of my bullshit game here and I was quickly digging myself in a hole.

‘how have you been driving, you do not a PSV license to operate a safari car?’

er. ‘I didn’t mean that ive been driving, ive been driven around, you see. around the mara. By people, people with work permits and licenses.’ Im flailing.

‘why have you stayed so long?’

‘they need me there.’ Ive done it again. Im done, kill me now. I was quickly heading up shit creek with a turd for a paddle.

‘if you are not working, why do they need you there?’

‘they are my friends and have been there for a long time. Sometimes its nice to have someone new in camp, they like having me there. Did I mention im their friend. The unemployed, nondriving, legal immigrant friend?’

Within 15 seconds I was dismissed and, judging by the look on her face, judged to be a complete idiot. I could not simply renew the visa since my original stay was longer than 90 days, but rather, I had to apply for alien status. This required me to return with two passport photos and a fistful of cash. I had lost the first battle, brining the running score for my trip to: Kenya 1,682 – Grant 0.

I returned about 15 minutes later and was crestfallen. During my short absence, every single immigrant in Kenya had decided that it was time to renew their visa as well. My once empty line now contained the entire population of India. The place was becoming hot and stinky. Not quite as stinky as the paris metro, but it did smell like food poisoning coming out the wrong end. Blood vessel number two was gone.

So I took up my place in line, waited and then eventually arrived at the front. About 30 seconds and 2,200 shillings I was cast back out to wait amongst the masses. At this point I accidentally got in the way of a soldier guarding the building.

Now im not really sure why the guards are here at all; at the entrance to the building was a metal detector, but with no one supervising it. People walked in and out at will, the detector constantly beeping away warning people about imminent threats such as loose change and key chains. To be honest, I was more scared of the guards than I was of the people. Most had AK-47s (which ive come to fear after my last encounter with one) and one had an HK-MP5.

not to get all Tom Clancy on yall, but the MP5 has a slector switch as a safety. There are three settings; safe, three-round burst, and full automatic. As the guard with the MP5 approached from my blindside, she (yes, she) proceeded to ‘accidentally’ dig the butt of her gun into my ribs and ‘politely’ ask me to move out of her way. All the while, her finger rested just behind the trigger of the weapon, and when I saw this, I also noticed that her selector was on full automatic. Now the gun was either unloaded and this was all a show, or she was the best damn gun safety expert ive ever seen. I spent the next 3 hrs. dodging the swinging barrel (which was at any given time pointed directly at someones chest given how she held the gun) of her gun while she strode around the building on some very official business. This marked the rupture of vessel three.

I waited. And waited, and waited even more for….shit, I had no idea what I was even waiting on. I had a little piece of paper in my hand after forking over my passport and lots of shillings, but I had no idea what I was doing.

I approached the counter numbered 3, I started at number 7, and asked the lady what I was waiting on. She asked for my little slip of paper and told me to take a seat. Defeated, once again. I was fuming. I heard a little pop in my head as the fourth vessel went bust.

I toughed it out for about 20 more min when I went back up to her. She gave me a look as if I was the last person on the face of the earth she wanted to help. In fact, she stared at me, then went back down to her paperwork as I stood before her. I cleared my throat, tapped a finger, and did pretty much everything to let her know I wanted he attention.

Finally, she looked up. I once again asked what I was waiting on. She said it was to be fingerprinted. Fingerprinted? Are you kidding? When I was arrested, the whole arrest, booking, printing, mugshooting and cell assignment went so fast it made my head spin. And here I was waiting on a f***ing fingerprint for three hours for a card that I would get right around the time of my departure from this great nation. This was a futile exercise exacerbated by a level of inefficiency never before seen with mine eyes. That was then end of vessels 5-17. I was well on my way to a coronary.

But alas, I finished. I was passed along between 5 different desks for over four hours to sign a little form, pay a little money and have a little fingerprinting. Francis came back to collect me after his errands and was surprised to find me just exiting the building. We had agreed that if I was done before him that I should not wait, but my lighting fast round through the immigration office gave him enough time to run a telegram to Tanzania on foot. he came back anyways just to make sure it had gone well and that I wasn’t getting screwed. (im sure I got screwed somehow…at least it felt like I did.) for his help and troubles I bought him lunch at the java house.

That’s it for my immigration story. All in all, it sucked. Hope you like the pictures below.