Traveling Cat

QUESTION: How can you tell if you are being swindled by Kenyan Immigration?

a. Your application paperwork is mysteriously lost.
b. The “acknowledgement” to prove it was turned in five months ago was filled out incorrectly by someone officials say was a “bad employee.”
c. Immigration staff sends you on wild goose chase for information, sending you to multiple offices, then to different windows for different clerks, then down two floors, then up five floors, then finally down into the basement.
d. Middle man who is “here to help” wants your passports and $1,000 cash, but won’t give you the forms that are supposed to be filled out and turned in.
e. They tell you the second visa extension doesn’t cost double or triple or even ten times as much as the first extension, but instead supposedly costs 160 times as much as the first extension.
f. Immigration official asks you clearly and directly for a bribe.

ANSWER: All of the above. Well, let’s not generalize. To be fair, being swindled can look different for each person, and for each Ministry. But in our case, all of the above has been our personal experience with the hell that is known as Kenyan Immigration. I don’t think that every Immigration employee is corrupt, but we’re told that asking for bribes and conveniently “losing” passports and applications happens all the time. We’re also told that people who turn in their passports to officials for the completion of paperwork are at risk of having them sold on the black market.

Needless to say, it’s a bit exasperating and a little scary too. Frankly, it’s hard to be calm and hopeful when you’re seated in the office of a “Senior Immigration Official” as they’re explaining to you how they lock up people like us with expired visas, charge heavy fines, and then deport us. The paperwork process should have started when we sent our paperwork to our supervisor in November. However, she didn’t get it turned in until January. And the people she gave it to didn’t actually turn it in until February. According to Immigration, it should only take two months and should’ve been done in April. But it wasn’t. So in May I went to Nairobi to check on it and was told the applications were lost. I told my supervisor but she said it was just slow. We went to check on it again in June, and were told again it was lost. This time we reapplied. A week later we also applied for a visa extension since our three month visa was expired. Now our visa extension also expires, fittingly, on this Tuesday July 4th. So, what to do next? Hope? Pray? Apply for a special pass? Bribe someone? Get locked up on the 7th floor of immigration? Cross a border? (I thought crossing a border to get a tourist visa would be an easy solution, but since the East African Union countries don’t require separate visas, Tanzania and Uganda borders don’t count. So we’d need to book a $950 flight to South Africa or take a (potentially unsafe) two day bus ride into (not quite stable) Rwanda.

Who knows? I just got a call from a man in the Diocese office who says we need to go to Nairobi in person on Monday, be polite, and get it done ourselves. Never mind the fact we were just in Nairobi last week, fighting the very same battle at Immigration. I’m willing to go (I do like road trips and I do like being legal), but the 8 hour bumpy bus ride to and from isn’t exactly appealing. Guess we’ll figure out something sometime soon. We only have until Tuesday, when they’re supposedly ready to lock us up, charge us fines, and threaten deportation.

Ever wonder what kind of stuff happens in small villages? People told us in January upon arrival that our district was the “Rumor Capital of Kenya.” Do we believe them? You betcha. There’s always drama and rumors generally followed by more drama and more rumors. Here’s a fun, and true, news article about our next door neighbors and the demonstration/police that showed up in our shared yard. Who doesn’t love quiet, small town living?

JUNE 26, 2006
By BEN SHIZUKANE

A CHURCH SERVICE at Malava Catholic church in Kakamega failed to take off over the weekend when faithfuls staged demonstration against their father (priest) as the leadership wrangles that have dogged the church exploded.
Angry worshippers protested against father Gasper Masawe Mulemi whom they barred from conducting the days mass accusing him of high handedness in the manner he was running the church.
It took police intervention to rescue Mulemi, whom they described as a disgrace to the Catholic church, from the rowdy church members who were baying for his blood.
The faithfuls stationed themselves at the gate heading to the church blocked Mulemi’s car the after he arrived for the days mass and told him to go away as he was unwelcome.
“We are not interested in you for you are adulterous and your continued stay at the parish would further injure its good name. You preach to us today,” yelled one church member.
The enraged worshippers demanded an explanation from Mulemi as to why he is undermining the church curate Fredrick Wasike.
“You have locked him out of the parish church and office. You don’t facilitate his movements to sub-parishes in the area to conduct masses. What are your interests in this issue?” a church member shouted at Mulemi.
Efforts by police officers from Kabras police station under the command of OCS Okumu Ogwang’ to restore order failed as the worshippers vowed not to allow Mulemi into their church and threatened to lynch him should he use force. The police later drove off.
The incident was an explosion of a long time leadership row between Mulemi and Wasike. It was established that Mulemi has been undermining Wasike who was posted to the parish last year.
Not even efforts by Kakamega diocese Bishop Philip Sulumeti to reconcile the two has resolved the matter as they have continued to bicker over leadership seats.
But Worshippers yesterday unanimously agreed that they would not allow Mulemi to be their priest and called on Sulumeti to transfer Mulemi elsewhere.
“We don’t want him here. He has marred the good reputation of our church and we shall not let him,” vowed one church official who did not wish to be mentioned.

Have I mentioned yet that June has been quite a fantastic month? It’s been a full month to say the least, and has been packed with fun stuff and new experiences. I’ve been slacking on posting, but I guess that’s because it’s we’ve been so. Here are a few of the highlights…

• The month started with a weekend visit to Nakuru National Park which was super great (see blog post and pics below).
• Amos had us over to his family’s homestead one weekend where we met his wife and baby, hiked around cool rock formations, saw bat caves, ate really well, and had a grand old time.
• Last week I went with a friend to her cousin’s college graduation near Kapsabet. It was fun to see the different traditions, fun to see the traditional dancers, and cool to be given a “press pass” which let me go anywhere I wanted to take photos of the action up front!
• A coworker recently had a bunch of us over to his house, where his four sister-in-laws cooked tons of food for us and all of the nieces and nephews wanted to provide “entertainment” for us. I love dancing with kids (yes, I am a dork) and I love being included in someone’s family for the day.
• Angela now has an apartment with electricity and she bought a TV. What does this mean for us? We actually have a place to watch World Cup games when time permits! We’ve only been there for one game so far (still not safe to be out after dark), but plan to see more. Kenyans are obsessed with football. Go Black Stars! (We’re all rooting for Ghana over here, not sure who you all are cheering for).
• I spent 5 days in Nairobi doing visa stuff and researching potential site placements for next year’s volunteers. I’m a big fan of my little village, but suspect I’ll always be a city girl at heart as the hustle and bustle of big cities is super fun for me. I even found Ethiopian food at a jua kali joint (street vendor) and it was so fantastic!
• While in Nairobi I had the chance to visit some of the slums for the first time where I met lots of great kids. I also saw lots of impressive projects by NGOs working with AIDS orphans and other homeless youth.
• I was asked to speak at the funeral of one of our kids who died this month and did so at the father’s request. (Does that sound odd? I mean to say that while the death was sad, the inclusion as a guest and speaker felt good. Who doesn’t like feeling like a valued part of the community?)
• Speaking of people wanting to include us in stuff… I got a call from a priest one Saturday morning at 6:45am insisting we come for dinner at the Bishop’s house that evening and spend the night. I was all about getting a fancy free meal and interesting dinner conversation (he’s the BISHOP after all), but I didn’t know how I felt about spending the night. It ended up being pretty great… the meal was very good, my guest room was giant, the bed was a four poster, my guest bed bathroom had hot water and was larger than a normal person’s bedroom, and most impressively of all the Bishop had digital satellite TV! I’m not a big TV fan in the States, but after going without news for so long I stayed up late after he and everyone else went to bed and watched some CNN news, BBC news, and also mixed in some bad movies, a World Cup game, a Melrose Place rerun, and all kinds of other modern greatness. Fun fact from the Bishop: Did you know that our one diocese actually has more than 20 different tribes?! ‘Tis true.
• And while I wasn’t actually there in person, I did to see pictures online of friends riding in the Fremont Parade and was able to live vicariously through them and their madness. Happy Solstice everyone!

I’m sure there is more that I’ve left out, but for now know that June was a lovely month. I’ll try to post pictures eventually… probably some of Shivache dancing and Wasike consequently laughing so hard she actually fell down onto the ground doubled over in laughter! Ah… those were good times!

I’m now in Malava doing internet in my house via wireless dialup! Yep, it seems like an oxymoron, but it’s true. Wireless dialup. Three cheers for Safaricom!!

It’s not terribly fast, and it’s definitely not free, but it does mean I can now download pics of my nephew when Charlie sends them, send attachments of Word docs for work, save stuff to print, etc.

Let’s hear three cheers for Safaricom!!

This post is dedicated to Martha (you wanted Cat pictures, here you go!) and Adria (OMG, thanks for the amazing care package(s)! I haven’t seen M&Ms or read a magazine since leaving the States!)

Last weekend was perhaps my favorite road trip yet! Cindy and I had a 4 day weekend (Kenya’s Madaraka Day), so we decided to visit Nakuru. We also decided to invite Elwin which was a pretty bloody good idea as he’s highly entertaining. Nakuru, in addition to being the town where Sundi went to secondary school, is home to Lake Nakuru and Lake Nakuru National Park. It’s also home to discos (we went dancing all three nights and made friends with the bouncers and prostitutes alike!), good food (mali kofta, yum!), souvenir shops (bone bracelets?), swimming pools (oh so nice!), sweets shops (Kenyas just don’t have the same appreciation of chocolate us Americans do), and even a coffee house (freshly roasted on site)! I took advantage of every one of the aforementioned excitements, and we still found time for hiking at the Menengai Crater.

We also did our first safari (it was just a half day affair) and saw lots of animals as one would expect on a safari in Kenya. There were storks, cranes, pelicans, and approximately 5 million of the famous flamingos that call the lake their home. We also saw lots of zebras (so cool!), white rhinos (is that lump on the horizon a rock or a rhino?), warthogs (so funny), jackals (smaller than you’d think), African buffalo (nice horns), baboons (nice babies), vervet monkeys, elands (the largest antelopes in all of Africa), and tons of other antelope animals like impala, bushbuck, and waterbuck. We didn’t spot any elusive lions or leopards, but they’re supposedly there somewhere.

Cindy says y’all don’t need to see any of my lovely animal pictures, and Marth says I should be proud of pictures of me, so today you get a special photo edition blog entry of all Cat photos. (I think I have more photos of myself from this one weekend than the first five months in Kenya combined. Many thanks to Elwin, Cindy, and random guides for taking the pictures below!)