Veiled sentiments

I am going to continue the story about Nairobi soon, I have something else I want to share with you. When we were on holiday we met a very friendly woman from Lamu (For her privacy, I won't mention her real name, let's call her Shakila) who was a friend of the owner of Subira House. She is 36-years old, born in Lamu and has 4 children. One adopted girl who is 15 who has escaped with her boyfriend to Mombasa, one 10-year old son from a previous marriage and 2 children who are 3 and 5 with her new husband who is from New Zealand. I learned that being married both two and three times having lots of children who are half siblings is quite common in Lamu. Another thing I learned is that someone's child may very well live with a grandmother or an aunt instead of the biological mother, there is nothing strange with that. To a Westerner it may seem odd to leave your child to grow up with someone else even if they are related but in Lamu it is not, children is not anyone's property.


We met Shakila and her 10-year old son while staying at Subira House, she had come to visit her family for 3 months since she nowadays lives in New Zealand with her kiwi husband and 2 children. Her other son who lives with his grandmother in one of the Lamu islands had come to spend time with his mum here in Lamu town. Shakila's English is not the best so at first I found it hard to understand the intricate relationships. If someone in Sweden would leave their husband and 2 small children for 3 months and take off it would seem very odd or even unacceptable but then we don't have the same perception of time. A week or two in Lamu is nothing but in Western countries time is everything. Shakila and her son were very helpful and kind during our stay in Lamu that when mentioning she was going to Nairobi to organize her visa, I instantly offered her to come and stay with us in case she needed. She told me she always felt scared when in Nairobi and I think our offer came somewhat as a relief to her.

She didn't really know what date she would arrive in Nairobi but she said she would send a sms. After we left Lamu I did not hear a word from her until the very same day she was sitting on the bus on her way from Mombasa hahaha talk about different perception of time, she was to arrive the very next morning. Precisely that same week Mats was away in South Africa and we had also promised to lend our driver to Mats's boss, who's son needed being taken to school in the morning and picked up in the afternoon - typical! Shakila would arrive around 6.30 -7 the next morning, the boss's son had to be taken to school around 7.30 and then I needed to take Noah to kindergarten (for his trial period) and spend the day there with him..

Well, somehow I got the driver to pick her up by the bus stop a few hours after arrival, there was nothing much I could do about the wait. She was then taken to the Embassy to organize her visa and then had to wait for us to come and pick her up at 1.30 p.m thankfully the Embassy was nearby.

Shakila was supposed to catch a plane to New Zealand the following morning, however there had been some problems at the Embassy..I then learned that the visa she needed to apply for was a so called transit visa. I couldn't understand what she would need a transit visa for when she was going to New Zealand where she is also a resident. Apparently, the plane would make a stop over in Melbourne for a few hours to fuel up...and due to that she needed a transit visa - FCK crazy this would never happen to a European. Anyhow the problem was that when arriving at the Embassy she was told that the application form could only be printed off the Internet, heeellooo? Firstly how many Kenyans have computer access, secondly how many Kenyans know how to work a computer? Shakila had an appointment at the Embassy 9 o'clock the next morning and therefore had to cancel her flight.

I took her home and got a friend to print out the application since we don't have a printer in the apartment. I then helped her to fill out the 5-page visa application which took me 40 minutes, someone not fluent in English would not make it by themselves. We tried to re-book her flight but it was booked out and the only available seat was five days later, poor little Shakila.

I dropped her at the Australian Embassy the next morning on our way to kindergarten and hoped there would be no hassles. Of course there were more problems, the Embassy people said the application was ok but she now had to wait 10 days before she could travel.WHAT? After some pleading they finally agreed and stamped her passport.

Shakila spent the rest of the week with us and I learned a few things about the Muslim culture in Lamu. She showed me a photo of her extended family and started explaining who was who, I was miserably lost only after a few seconds. "This is my sister, we have the same mother but not father, but her father is also the father of my other half sister" and so forth, I just could not follow and I wonder how they themselves can keep track of all their siblings (I am saying this without being judgmental!).

Shakila has applied three times for a visa for her son (who now lives with her mother) to New Zealand but this seems almost impossible due to bureaucracy. She has her x-husbands approval since he of course also believes that his son would be offered a better life in New Zealand, Lamu is after all pretty poor. She also needs her sons birth certificate which she actually has, she also needs her x-husbands birth certificate and there is no such document not uncommon in Kenya at least not during the 1960's. Many people here do not really know how old they are, evidently a birth certificate from someone living in a small village with no doctors would be to ask too much. So her son cannot get his visa because there are no birth certificates to prove whatever they need to prove. Of course, I realize that there has to be some sort of process and legalities when granting someone a visa, however this must be a common issue when dealing with people born in developing countries and one would think there must be another way of solving this problem. Maybe the administrative hindrance has been put there deliberately as to curb immigrants from entering the country, what do I know. I just think it is terrible that someone, a mother who has residency and work in the country cannot be allowed to bring her 10-year old son over to live with her and his half brothers.

Anyhow, at the day of her departure, Mats decided to go with her to the airport just to make sure she would get on that plane. What do you know, she got stuck again. Since Mats could not be let through customs without a ticket, he could only glance through the glass windows, seeing something wasn't right. Shakila tried to explain the problem through the glass in her bad English..not very successful. I felt proud of my man, when he played a trick and waved to the guard saying she had left her mobile phone in the car and finally he was let in. He then sourced the problem and learned that more than one Kenyan person had the same passport number as her and at first the Australian customs would not let her in. After an hour or so she had received clearance and then only waited for the New Zealand customs to clear her. More problems!
Her residency visa did not allow her to leave New Zealand in the first place hmmm she has residency and is not allowed to leave the country? After half an hour or so, they cleared her and the residency problem was only a technicality which could be solved when back in New Zealand. SIGH!

After all these processes I realize how fortunate I am to be born Swedish.

A few days later I received a thankful text message from Shakila saying she had landed in New Zealand.