Last week Ian got to leave mid day for a meeting in Nairobi and then hopefully to pick up Megan from the airport.
Since her plane was delayed, so was he, and he just hadto spend the night in Nairobi at the home of friends. He called me that night to check in on me and the kids. He was calling from the middle of a movie where he was on a “Man Date”. Cruel. Simply. Not only was he alone without the rugrats in the metropolis of Nairobi, but, he had free time and was watching big screen entertainment! I wished him well and knew that some day my turn would come.
My turn came yesterday. We got word that it was time to visit the Nyayo House to complete paperwork for Megan’s alien card. Sweet! We tacked on some errands for the Centre that needed to be completed in Nairobi and were off!
Nyayo House is not an exciting place to visit in itself. Thanks to expathousewifeinNairobi you can see that it looks like this on the outside:
and the inside is dark, and gloomy and filled with the smell of way to many bodies in desperate need of a shower. There are long lines (longer yet if you don’t bring an extra copy of your passport and you have to go hunting around town for a copy machine), lots of sitting here and there, and the final signal to the end of the process: undergoing fingerprinting like you are being booked in the county jail.
Anyhow, along with the work errands that needed to be run, Megan and I decided to pop into a beauty salon I’d been tipped off to in the first week of my arrival to see if they might happen to be able to squeeze us in.
They were.
And it was pure heaven. I haven’t enjoyed a pedicure in a while, and this one was especially sweet and necessary. This Kenyan dust and dirt is doing some serious damage to my poor feet….which my pedicurist reiterated time and time again throughout her multiple bouts of rubbing an enormously large pumice stone over my foot. She went on to prescribe that I no longer wear flip flops and switch to tennis shoes or closed shoes. I’ll opt for the closed shoes. Shoes are pretty cheap and cute here any how, and if I’m being told that I am doing permanent damage to my feet by not having proper shoes, well then the only responsible thing for me to do is to do some serious shoe shopping.
For the health of my feet of course.
Anyhow, this story ends with us waking early, driving into downtown Nairobi, chatting with our immigration liaison and deciding to meet at the amazing Java House for coffee.
It’s not this one, but this is what they generally look like outside. A bit like Starbucks actually but with red umbrellas and logos. http://www.nairobijavahouse.com/
I had a cafe latte, Megan had a green tea. And then we waited patiently for our immigration expert to arrive.
We waited a long time, and had 2 unanswered phone calls. We were about ready to give up when I received an odd call saying the woman who we had just talked to, and who was on her way to meet us, had taken very ill, could not walk, and was being taken to the hospital.
Guess that means we won’t be doing immigration today?
I called Ian to tell him and his response was, “That’s Kenya.”
We’ll give it a go another day. In the meantime, Megan better behave, cause she’s not really a legal alien yet.