Ed. As most of you know, we just got back from our Meet-F.-2012-World-Tour (tshirts available on demand). I did not blog on holiday, in the spirit of mindfulness. The next few entries will therefore be backdated like those canny Wall Street options - still moving in the right direction from a time perspective, but starting from March onwards. This one, for instance, relates how F. got his birth certificate, which was a crucial ingredient to getting a passport, and to going on the world tour in the first place.
Late Feb/early March 2012
As even the most casual reader of this blog will have noted, we had a baby recently. In Nairobi. In the wake of the fireworks of emotions and joy comes the acrid smell of logistical legwork.
I mean, of course, that we had to get a birth certificate for young F., as a necessary ingredient to then obtaining the passport (Can, Swiss, Indian, whichever was quickest) we would need to leave Kenya. Under Kenyan law, a child born on Kenyan soil to non-Kenyan parents does not automatically qualify for Kenyan nationality.
I manfully sized up the task of obtaining the Kenyan birth certificate. How hard could this be? I pride myself on being an expert form-filler (little known fact: this is the subject of a one-semester class in law school, btw).
Turns out, the process is not that simple. First, when leaving the hospital, you have to have the wits to insist upon the staff giving you half of a pink paper called a birth notification (BN). (We had been briefed by friends - thanks Monika! - so I made sure we had this before we left). Then, the hospital sends the other half of the BN to Nairobi Archives, which then processes it and sends it on to Nairobi City Hall.
I breezily waved the details aside, and in expat-fashion hired an agent to do all this for me. 'Get the certificate in the next ten days' I said with what I hoped passed for an authoritative tone, 'and I will make it worth your while.'
Two weeks came and went, and the agent, tired of my ceaseless haranguing, tendered his resignation - returning my money and BN. I promptly turned to another agent, who was a little craftier.
'4000 shilling (roughly $50)', he crooned, avoiding any semblance of eye contact. I reached into my wallet for the sweaty bills eagerly.
He then added, 'I will not be able to produce receipts (Kenyans are absolutely obsessive about receipts for even the most trivial transactions) for this amount.'
This statement sat between us for a while, until I figured out that he meant that part of the sum would be to lubricate the wheels of city hall. I nodded sagely, like I was a hardened player.
Ten days later, this second agent phones me, sounding less confident. Apparently, his contact has been reassigned, and City Hall won't expedite my certificate unless the parent shows up in person to explain the urgency.
I sigh. We make an appointment to meet in the business district (in and of itself a chore) the next morning.
I arrived at the appointed hour, having braved a solid hour of savage traffic. My man, Mr. G., was bang on time, with F.'s dossier tucked under his arm. He then sternly gave me the following instruction:
- Mr. G. is known at City Hall, and so I could not permit anyone to know that we were together. I tried to understand why this had to be a covert mission, but Mr. G. only shook his head by way of explanation.
Shoulder slumped, I followed him (at a suitably discrete distance) up three flights of a marble staircase. The place was clean, relatively uncrowded, and orderly, and I began to get my hopes up that this wouldn't be a colossal waste of time.
In the birth registration room, 6 people waited in a broom closet sized waiting area. Mr. G. made some room on the bench with his bony bum, and then gestured at me with his eyes to just go forward and engage the officer on duty. I gestured back with my chin, 'what about these people in the queue?' - but by that point Mr. G. was furiously texting (some other hapless client, doubtless). I felt oafish and inappropriately dressed among my more respectfully clothed petitioners (see unduly foppish sartorial choice below - which picture I took while waiting to be served):
I bellied up to the officer, who was dressed in a dark suit. Next to him was an Indian guy, who it was clear from their discussion was a VIP petitioner (seeking his mother's death certificate it transpired). The dark suited officer was studiously highlighting in yellow a line on a form. Frown. Highlight one sentence (seemingly at random). Turn to next form. Repeat about ten times before I cleared my throat discretely.
He looked up at me with one raised eyebrow, which looked amazingly like a question mark. Without waiting for further body language cues, I launched into a petition of the urgency of my case, brandishing all the while my pink BN. The officer seemed unmoved, but called over my shoulder to one of his colleagues. The officer asked his man to retrieve the government half of the BN, so that we could match them and then proceed with the issuance of the certificate. This done, the officer indicated the waiting room with his chin.
I retreated, feeling secure in the knowledge that the waiting wasn't dead time. Which was when I noticed this sign on the wall above Mr. G's head:
An hour or so later, dark suit coughs in my direction by way of an invitation for a follow up discussion. There is hemming and there is hawing, and I feel baffled and a little marooned. The Indian guy sitting next to dark suit raises his eyebrows, and asks me (in Hindi) whether I was intentionally trying to ***k this transaction up for myself. In fact, he suggested, I did not, on a subconscious level, even want the document.
I responded (in Hindi) that I did desperately need the document and humbly sought his guidance on how to proceed. He smiled a little and discretely rubbed his thumb and index finger together. What a dummy I am!!
500 shillings (roughly USD6) and three minutes later, I got my document. I brandished it proudly at Mr. G. in the waiting room, who just slapped his forehead. What a (resourceful) dummy I am!!
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