Easter holiday in Nairobi Part 2 - The 'metropolis'

When I first arrived in Kampala it was funny to hear how Ugandans were talking a bit, even in an infatuated way, about Nairobi, referring to it almost as the big metropolis in East Africa.

I have been going to Nairobi for a while now, exactly since 2002 at least once per year, and I always looked at it in comparison to London mainly, so from that perspective it was smaller and not particularly glamorous. This time round, however, comparing it to Kampala the picture was much more exciting!

Nairobi has also changed anyway. One of the things that friends and family commented the most about was new places, my husband and I were even reading about this in a local newspaper too. A couple told us to go to Zen Gardens, I must admit I was very impressed with the place and the menu. The place is set in quite a big compound, and you can find a Japanese restaurant and a cafe. The gardens are lovely and the menu at the cafe (I didn't manage to see the one for the restaurant) could well be a menu out of a trendy modern cafe in London with 'new' salads including bulgur wheat which is still unheard of around here.

We also went to Brew Bistro, this time for drinks, it has been there for longer but it was my first time and I liked it, again a good combination of trendy and modern design with a reasonable offering of drinks/food.

Although we didn't go to Sierra Lounge (in Yaya centre) or Onami (Japanese sushi restaurant in Westgate), we also heard very good things about them. In fact the local article I was referring to was talking about Sierra Lounge, and how his owner had looked to set up a new place that was different to what was there before, but also a place that somehow reflects his favourite places in other big global cities, like New York, London, etc.

We went to a couple of my other favourite places in Nairobi, like Arts Cafe (Westgate shopping mall) which has some of the most fantastic desserts I have tried anywhere around the world, even the actual Westgate Shopping Mall, with the many shops and diversity of offering is very refreshing coming out of Kampala.

With all these new places and new trends going on, I must admit that it did feel like Nairobi has definitely become the new 'metropolis' of East Africa. But what I find most interesting is the capacity of the new generations of Kenyans of liking both the very new, trendy and modern places, and the traditional 'Gipsies' and 'nyama choma' (barbecued meats) joints, they do feel at ease in both scenarios without any problem. I suppose it is not a dichotomy after all, but the result of the union of tradition and perhaps, let's call it like that, globalisation.

In general I was very excited to go around the supermarket too, can you believe it? Of course in Nairobi I could see all the brands that I had been missing in the previous two months in Kampala, like my Helmann's mayonnaise and some items like Italian pesto etc... I suppose that my realisation here is how attached we are to brands, when in reality, bottom line, what matters really in live is not if the mayonnaise is Hellmann's or even if mayonnaise is so essential, but there you go, I suppose marketing directors around the world make a good job selling us more than brands, a way of living.

Maybe the final measure of a city becoming a world metropolis is how globalised it is... maybe after all Kampala is not too bad, in spite of not finding Hellmann's mayonnaise here, I still like the local flavour in many other ways.

Easter Holiday in Nairobi - Part 1 Immigration Issues

Well you must have been wondering if the earth had swallowed me or if like many other enthusiastic new bloggers, I posted some thoughts out there and then run out of steam or time to post more...

Ok, I am back, it is just that we have been on holidays and then have been organising major celebrations for my son's 1st birthday and my birthday too, as they are very close to each other.

Our holiday was a trip to see friends and family in Nairobi. At this point you must also be wondering why is this entitled 'Easter Holiday in Nairobi - Part 1', of course because there will be a part 2 as well, today I want to focus on the first part of the trip, when we had to do some work around town too.

As I have explained before my husband is African, concretely from Kenya. Given that we do come to Kenya a few times a year, it is always very interesting that, as Spanish passport holder, I need to pay the blessed entry visa every single time... So we figured out that we ask for a so called 'Dependant's pass', which as spouse to a Kenyan, will allow me to avoid paying this visa every single time I come in.

So we went to the famous Nyayo House (home of the Immigration Department of Kenya) already back in December, when we were planning our impending move to Uganda. I say famous because among Kenyans this department seems to be known as one of the most inefficient and potentially corrupt of the Kenyan Government. As always I was keeping an open mind. So there we went, and the first interesting thing that I find is the name that has been given to one of the Department's section: 'Aliens section'.

I have mixed feelings about this one... Being a Spanish speaker and having studied Latin for a while I knew immediately that 'alien' comes from Latin and means 'foreigner', so probably should not take it personally; however I think these days we find that word more often associated to some form of extraterrestrial being... Indeed, if you go the Oxford Dictionary it confirms this 'Noun. 1 a foreigner, 2 an alien plant or foreigner species, 3 a being from another world', however let's imagine for a second saying the 'Department for Alien Affairs', or saying in UK terms the 'Secretary of State for Alien & Commonwealth Affairs'... humm, I don't think it works, even if some politicians seem like taken from another world sometimes!

Anyway, we filled in the application and then took it to the windows for help. Well, to start more than half the windows very completely empty... it was definitely not lunch time, as they do close for lunch time for around 2 hours (and then people talk about Spanish 'siesta')... maybe it was tea time... Right!

An initially helpful civil servant took our application, and when my husband enquired regarding when could we come back to collect the pass expecting to hear some time in one week or so... the gentleman just said very briefly 'In two months'. Both my husband and I exhaled very quickly, a mix of shock and surprise... my husband wondered how a single sheet of paper can take two months to process, but the gentleman just responded again 'Two months' so we thought it was better to stop the argument at that point.

So with that precedent, this time round we were heading back to pick the named Dependant's pass up. It took a while to find the place, mainly because it was not where we had submitted the application originally, but somewhere else on the 5th floor. When we finally found the right room after going through a maze of rooms, we found these two ladies having tea (again!), so clearly we were now interrupting their break...

My husband explained the situation and one of the ladies said that she could help us in 15 mins. We went back to a very very tatty looking reception (for that matter most of the building was pretty tatty looking) and waited for well over 30 minutes before going back in to ask as she was clearly not coming out for us.

What was our surprise when we go into the room again and we find the other lady who had been there earlier was literally sleeping on the other desk! My husband, who almost told me off when I was taking the photo of the 'Aliens section' banner outside saying that it was most likely not allowed to take photos there, was now almost cheekily keen to take a photo of the lady sleeping, I thought that I should share the evidence of the dedicated customer attention, so here it is.


When the other lady eventually returned, she didn't pay any attention to the sleeping beauty by the way, who carried on sleeping throughout the rest of the time that we were there; anyway, she explained that my file had been lost - apparently as we had applied for our son's Kenyan passport at the same time as we had applied for my spouse Dependant's pass, they had taken the file for the baby's passport and had not completed the work on my pass. Disappointing to say the least, as this was already 4 months after we submitted the application and we had to start now the whole process again.

Maybe it was just a plot to ensure that I continue paying visas every time... who knows, maybe I should just be happy that I am contributing to the Kenyan economy like that...

On the way back to our car, which was parked right next to Nyayo House, I saw the most amazing clamps for cars... with huge nails... Definitely quite distinctively different to the European ones... I couldn't avoid thinking that at least they must be very effective, surely as a driver you will not try to move your car a single centimetre!