Work Permitted

What has 2 thumbs and is now legally entitled to work in Kenya?

Barely 11 and a half months into my time here (out of 15 in total), my work permit application has finally been both authorised and endorsed (apparently, these are different). It wasn't easy. Today alone, I have spent approximately 6 hours in the immigration department, and seen 7 different people. All of whom were surprisingly helpful.

The killer is the forms. Kenyans love forms. And they all have to be filled in by hand. Normally many times over. I have filled in a form explaining why a Kenyan couldn't be found to do my job instead, a form listing every country I've ever visited in my life and why, and my particular favourite, a form to be completed in quadruplicate, giving them the names of all my Headmasters from school. I'm sure this information must be invaluable to someone.

A friend of mine was recently applying for an entry pass to a government building she visited regularly for work. The form required her to name every American person she knew, with their contact details. She explained that having been born in the US, brought up there, and gone to school there, she probably knew a few hundred Americans.

"Do you understand the problem?" she asked.

"Ah yes", the official replied, "you are going to need some more paper". And he came back with some blank sheets for her. In the end, she named 5 people and handed in the form to the same official, who accepted it without question.

I don't know where all these forms go. Somewhere in the Department of Immigration there must be a stack of files containing multiple photocopies of my passport, ID, degree certificates, various permits and passes. It's a ridiculously complicated system, that can only possibly be designed with the explicit purpose of deterring foreigners from coming to the country. I had vaguely thought that, because I was doing it through the government, we might be able to fast-track the application, take it through some back channels, or something. Turns out it's the other way round. Because we're going through the government, everything has to be 100% by the book. And that book was written in the 1960s. First it needs to be approved by my Ministry, then Ministry of Finance have to have their say, because, Ministry of Finance always have to have their say, before the Immigration Department will even look at the application.

But I think I've almost got the hang of it now, which is lucky, because we're about to go through the whole process again with my replacement, who arrived last week.

In the ghetto

On the subject of welcoming Nairobians, I was invited to lunch over the weekend by a friend at work called Joash. Joash is a clerk in the Ministry, one of the lowest possible ranks. I don't know exactly how much he earns there, but it can't be more than £100 a month. When I first met him, I assumed he was 18 or so - it turns out he's 28, married, with a kid of his own, and a girl he adopted when his sister died 2 years ago.

We met up in town on Saturday morning, and headed back to his place. Traffic on a Saturday morning is pretty light, so it took about 40 minutes, but Joash says in rush-hour it can easily take him 3 hours each way. He gets up at 4, to leave the house by 5 and arrive at work around 6. He lives in a district called Dandora, which wikipedia tells me is a slum in Eastern Nairobi, although my Kenyan friend assures me it's more ghetto than slum, per se.

His place is a room in a ground-floor complex, with a curtain separating the bed from the living area. I sat with Joash and another friend of his; we took tea and talked about work, politics, football and women - the standard discussion topics in Kenya. The place is small, but there's enough room for people to sit, a tv and dvd player attached to a pretty sweet pair of speakers. After tea, his wife came in with lunch: beef stew, rice, ugali, chapatis, cabbage and a fish dish which is the specialty of Nyanza province, near Lake Victoria, where they're from. I admit, I'd prepared myself for the prospect of some slightly gristly meat, that I would just have to chew and swallow so as not to be rude. But the meal was fantastic. No cutlery - you get stuck in with your fingers - but everything was freshly prepared and properly tasty. I assume, although obviously this can be dangerous, that this was not their normal weekend fare. I really think they went all out.

After the meal we talked some more and listened to some music from their home province. I kept them amused by trying to talk to the 3 year-old daughter in Swahili. We seemed to have a similar grasp of the language.

Not only was this a reasonably eye-opening experience, and a chance to visit a part of the city I would never normally go to, but it was also one of the most enjoyable days I've had for a while. There are many spectacular things to do in Kenya - big-game safaris, beautiful beaches, stunning scenery - but most of my favourite times have normally centred around hanging out with friends, eating, drinking and swapping stories, whether it's with Joash in Dandora or, as I had done the previous night, playing pool in a bar with some NGO friends.

I do, however, now feel very guilty for complaining about my own traffic frustrations.

Traffic

The last month has been rather idyllic. Schools were closed for the summer holidays, which means it took me less than 20 minutes to drive the 5km into work, as opposed to the usual hour plus. Unfortunately, the schools have now re-opened, so we're back to the status quo.

It's difficult to capture in words the sheer lunacy and anarchy of Nairobi traffic in rush-hour. You generally drive with your left hand simultaneously covering the gearstick and steering wheel, leaving your right hand to focus on the more important task of honking. If someone stops at a red light, you honk. If someone brakes to avoid running over a pedestrian, you honk. If you're going round a blind corner, and you think there might be someone coming the other way, you accelerate.

Nairobians are some of the most hospitable, welcoming and friendly people you will ever meet. Nairobi drivers, on the other hand, are among the most discourteous, aggressive and just plain stupid. They will cut you up, block you off, tailgate, undertake, blind you with full-beam headlights, veer randomly across lanes, drive straight towards you on the wrong side of the road, and occasionally, under extremely rare circumstances, they might consider indicating.

The most annoying trait is the refusal to queue. Not wishing to draw too heavily on cultural stereotypes, but I do consider myself to have rather developed queueing faculties. The Nairobian, on the other hand, will see a queue, ignore it completely, and then try to cut in at the last moment, normally holding up everyone else in their lane, creating further chaos.

Last night was particularly special. As I turned the corner from my office, I hit the normal rush-hour traffic. The road has four lanes, supposedly 2 each way. Except, obviously, there were 3 lanes coming towards us and 1 going forwards. Not a single lane was moving. Looking ahead, I could see a matatu (minibus taxi - the worst of the worst) had seen the queue, and sensibly concluded that 3 lanes was insufficient for his purposes, and so tried to overtake in our one remaining lane. Of course, this being Nairobi, nobody was remotely prepared to let him back in line.

This is where it gets good. The car 2 in front of mine, blocked by the oncoming matatu, had AT THAT EXACT MOMENT, run out of fuel, and was stuck. By this time, cars had piled up behind us and there was no chance of anyone reversing. The guy immediately in front of me reckons he's had enough, and decides to turn round, trying to execute a 3-point turn in 4 lanes of solid traffic. He makes it halfway before getting completely stuck, able neither to move forward nor reverse. By this time, the other car has been pushed to the side of the road, and the way ahead is relatively clear. But I can't move because the genius in front of me is still performing his now 96-and-counting-point turn, with everyone else inching ever closer to make it as difficult as possible. This farce plays out for roughly 25 minutes, with everyone becoming more and more frustrated, and the chorus of honking reaching a crescendo of Arcade Fiery proportions. 

The worst part of this, though, the absolute worst part, is that's it's all kind of fun. It becomes a game, trying to stick your nose in front of someone who quite clearly has right of way, standing your ground to prevent the matatu from cutting the queue, the uncertainty over whether that bus is going to pull in front of you at the last second (oh he definitely is, but how late will he leave it?). Continuing my journey home last night, I ran 3 red lights, not because I was late, or because I'm particularly aggressive, but because that's just what you do (to be far, 2 of the lights weren't 'serious'; the other one kind of was, but I figured if the bus next to me could make it, I probably could too).

That said, the combined total of 2 and a half hours I spent stuck in traffic yesterday was enough incentive to ditch the car today and walk in for a change. It took me less than an hour, I didn't arrive frustrated and tense, and I didn't even have to worry about parking.