1 March 2015
In December, still working to get our YWAM land lease renewed, Masai Kahindi and I had several appointments with various government officials. We did everything they instructed, paid everything they said was required and at last, just before Christmas we were given THE FILE. I was informed that after the holidays I should (had to) hand carry this file to Nairobi and turn it over to the officials there and when I asked for details, I was given the name and phone number of a contact person. Well, January was a very busy month at the mission and also I wanted to time the trip so I could spend some days with Richard & Valerie Vicknair who were planning to be in Nairobi Feb-March, so I postponed my business trip until last week. As soon as I knew Vicknair’s schedule I phone the contact and made an appointment to see him on the morning of Thursday the 26th. I flew up to Nairobi on Wednesday afternoon, and flew back Thursday night. My 1-hour flight from Mombasa to Nairobi wasn’t until 4pm but because of the long ferry queue the taxi picked me at 11a.m. I was shocked to find that Jambojet (a subsidiary of Kenya Airways) has adopted the U.S, domestic flight policy of not serving anything gratis to eat or drink. All snacks and drinks—even water—have to be bought with cash. No wonder the round-trip ticket was 3000ksh cheaper!
. Richard picked me from the Nairobi airport at about 5:30 and we spent the next 3 hours in the famous Nairobi JAM (traffic gridlock).
I spent the night at Vicknair’s flat (even nicer and for less money than the place they rented last year), and went to the Registry of Survey office early Thursday afternoon at the same time Richard was leaving with his team to do a medical camp in Maasai land. The time at the Registry of Survey office was very frustrating.
It turned out that the Nairobi contact whom I had made an appointment to see on the 26th had traveled to Mombasa for a series of meetings. So, I was handed off to his very young assistant Ben. THE FILE which we were given by the officials in Mombasa and which they assured us was complete and ready to be processed, was in fact, NOT complete and was NOT ready to be processed. I was informed by Ben that he could not accept THE FILE in its unfinished state. THE FILE contained a 14”x30” clear plastine plot survey map, which I incorrectly assumed was the long-awaited Registry Index Map. Ben said the plot survey map needed to have “color binding” and I should then have made a “linen copy.” After an hour of haggling; repeated questions about why I was not informed of this in Mombasa; about how were people to know this information if officials did not communicate correctly; and repeatedly explaining that I could not run around Nairobi looking for someone to do these things for me because #1) I was clueless and #2) I had a flight to catch back to Mombasa Ben agreed to find and pay someone qualified to do this work for me and accepted cash for that purpose. After I asked, Ben informed me that this process will take about a month and I will have to keep phoning his boss to get a status report and then will have make another trip to Nairobi to collect that document to bring back to the surveyor in Mombasa, who will begin the next step of the land lease renewal process which is not even close to being finished. NOTHING is simple! As Richard has said many times “everything in Kenya takes a miracle.” So True!
