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!
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