was my adventure from Uganda to South Africa just before Christmas. It began about two days prior to my date of departure. I was in Kampala for a few days of management meetings and happened to email my travel agent about luggage allowances. She emailed back that night, about 50 hours before I was to board the plane, that my flights from Johannesburg to Cape Town and back were cancelled due to a change in alliance between my airline, Kenya airways, and the domestic airline in S.A. Not only was it cancelled, but I would need to purchase a new flight – at my expense, no refund from the other flight – and I also needed to come in to their office to get it done before leaving. I got this information over email, in Africa. Who would ever think emailing someone in Africa would be reliable? What if I didn’t check my email before leaving? What if I couldn’t check my email before leaving, which is more likely to be the case here! Well, I had meetings for the next two days, all day long, and would not be able to get to their office – plus I had already dished out a pretty penny for these tickets & felt no obligation whatsoever to pay more! On top of those thoughts, I was absolutely exhausted from the last few weeks on the field & therefore coped with this situation by falling into a heap of sobs whenever I had the chance…quite adult, I know. My blessing came in the form of amazing friends here who went to bat for me, calling the travel agent & making them pay for the new flight as well as taking it upon themselves to get the ticket from the office in lieu of me – can’t thank Trace & Shelley enough for their friendship & support!
Did I mention I was exhausted? Well, I’m also socially unable to say no – so I went out each night with all the fun Medair people who I don’t get to see very often. I had fun, but increased my exhaustion and stress…my flight was to leave at 5am from the airport, which means checking in at 3:30, which means leaving for the airport at 2:30am. The night before I was up until 10:30pm and felt sick even as I fell upon the bed. Luckily the alarm did go off, I was able to stumble into clothes & meet my taxi and two traveling companions on time, but not without a very upset stomach and headache brewing. Our flight to Nairobi went well – at least for me…Zoey found out at the counter that she also had that flight I was told about two days before that had been cancelled, but was going to be able to change in when in Joburg, but still a frustrating realization at 3am. Quentin forgot he had his very expensive swiss army knife in his bag and was told it would be given to the pilot to carry, but surprise, surprise it never seemed to make it to the Nairobi terminal… So we’re walking through the Nairobi airport to our next gate & the comment is made that its Jennie’s turn to have something go wrong – I claimed that happened two days ago, so I’m good to go. Ha! We get to our next gate, hand the guy our passports & as he flips through mine, he says “Miss, there’s a problem”…
It seems the pages you see in your passport that say “visa” on the bottom are just that – visa pages. And the pages at the back that say “amendment” are for amendments. So, the blank pages I thought I had plenty of in my passport were actually amendment pages, not visa pages & therefore I could not get on the plane to South Africa until I had more visa pages. The Kenya airways guy convinced me that the South African immigration would turn me away & send me right back to Kenya. There was no way I could get on the plane to S.A. that morning…so I said goodbye to my friends and started the deep breathing again. The Kenya airways guy told me he’d work on getting me another flight on the same day, there was one that night – right now I needed to get to the US Embassy and get more visa pages added to my passport. After paying my one-day entrance visa to Kenya immigration I headed to the taxis to try to bargain a good price to a place somewhere in Nairobi – a city I’ve never been to before and am at least thankful its 7am, not pm as I don’t hear very good stories of this lovely city… I find one taxi company that agrees to transport me to the embassy & back, waiting for as long as it takes while I’m inside. They show me on the map that the embassy is indeed on the very other side of Nairobi, of course, and the agreed rate is $90 – a good price in the US, a very large sum of money here & especially when trying to travel on a budget. The biggest blessing of the day was being led to a lovely older Kenyan man named Steven who was my taxi driver and companion for the day – plus his taxi was a black cab such as the ones in London which just made me smile. We got to the embassy about 1 ½ hours later, complete with huge traffic jams and a scenic drive through downtown Nairobi. I actually learned a lot from Steven during that drive about the upcoming elections – the city was calm then, seemed like such a success for African democracy – anyone who pays attention to world news will know the very next week what hell broke loose and how the hopes of a quiet nation was terribly disrupted, but I won’t go into more detail now.
Upon arrival at the embassy, I left my luggage and valuables in the cab – risky, I know, but I had no other choice then. I couldn’t even carry my cell phone into the embassy due to their security restrictions! Thank God Steven was honest. I experience for my first time at this secure fortress what I’ve seen many times used in movies – the influence of one dark blue American passport. At the gate, I was ushered ahead of all others waiting to go through security. I hate that feeling of special treatment, but right then I was terribly grateful! I walked down a long path of concrete – luckily covered by an awning as the sun was beating down that day, to find a very long line of people waiting to get in. I could tell most were Africans and I did wonder if there was another line for Americans…but more people were lining up behind me & how was I to find out when I couldn’t even see the front of the line & would lose my place if I continued to the front? So I stood for about 20 minutes, reading my book & wondering. At that point, a uniformed man passed by & glanced at the passport in my hand – ‘are you American’? Yes! ‘then head up to the front of the line’ – very welcome words, though the feeling of guilt as I passed that line of probably 200 people was acute. At the front, I was ushered through again, passed through a small room where you can leave valuables & liquids to gather after going inside, then had to head to another wait outside the main doors. There were about 20 people sitting outside & a security guard at the door – “are you American?” YES! “Go ahead in.” (love that blue passport – at least at that moment) Inside was a room full of occupied chairs and walk-up windows like at the bank, again, “are you American? Go through the doorway to the right – and there, I find a completely empty waiting room! There was one room to the left that was where I was headed, but was occupied & had instructions to wait until the room was empty before proceeding in. So I sat & pondered what all those people could want – a visa to enter the US? All the while, my head is pounding, my body aches, and I can feel a fever rising – will I really get on a plane to South Africa tonight?
The room cleared & I took my seat in a small semi-private room that looked through a glass window to the secure realm of embassy personnel at their business. A lady came over in time and asked what I needed – I explained my situation to which there was not much sympathy, but at least I was given the next step: to go back to the waiting room and fill out a form. Form filled, other people back in the small room & waiting again – reading the form which explains extra visa pages can take 3 days if you expedite and doesn’t seem to mention the price you pay for that speedy service. I start to sweat, partly because I’m sick, partly because I’m sick at the thought of being in Nairobi for three days! The room clears again & I go in – lady takes my passport and I begin to beg for any help since I really have to catch my flight that day…my begging is met with an annoyed stare and some words to the affect of “just go out and wait again” to which I hoped meant they would be working on it for me. So I sat again waiting, all the while worrying if she meant I would for sure get it back today, plus the clock is ticking closer & closer to the 11am mark, which is when they close until 2pm for some reason…do I just sit there and hope at 2 they have something or will I be here all day long wondering? At 11, I finally get the nerve to go to the window again and demand an answer, but of course she’s not around & all I can see are people all the way across the room…after a few minutes of staring, trying desperately to send thought messages to anyone who might receive them in the embassy world, a girl across the room looks up, waves a passport at me, and I happily take that to mean she’s working on it & take my seat again. Thankfully, I translated her wave correctly & only had to worry a few minutes about how much this was going to cost me before she brought the passport to the window, handed it over, and told me to have a good day. Thinking, ‘should I ask if I have to pay for this?’ I decided to walk out and enjoy my lucky getaway & rejoice that the passport is travel-ready once again. My taxi was faithfully waiting for me & I got back in just as my fever really took control and managed to sleep my way back to the airport.
Back at the airport around 1pm, I find out that the flight in the evening won’t work because I’d be stuck in Joburg for the night before catching a flight the next day. So they booked me on the same flight at 7am the next day and now I needed to find a place to stay. Steven had waited around, very wisely understanding I may still need a taxi that day, and here began the second part of my 3- part adventure.
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