Disgruntled of Karen on the Failings of the British High Commission and Zain phone registration

Mustn't grumble. But every now and then things need to be said! Yesterday the kids' school forwarded us a letter from the British High Commission saying that we would now need to "apply directly to the British High Commission in Pretoria" to renew our passports, and that this would take around 4 weeks. No reason given. And I'm not sure how one could apply directly to them in any case. These arrangements are ridiculous for a country that has tens of thousands of British citizens in residence.

But that's not all. It's the icing on the cake. I have registered, and re-registered on the Foreign Office's site, as a Brit living in Kenya. But did I get this email? No, as I said, it was forwarded from the school. So the meeting about this organised here in Karen on Saturday at 10 (Karen Club, in case you need to know...) was news to me. Can't make it anyway, but it would have been nice to have been told.

In fact, in early 2008, when Kenya was rocked by post-election violence, Americans had at least weekly updates of where it was safe to go, what precautions to take etc. And what did us Brits get from the High Commission? Nothing. Not a squeak. In a potentially dangerous situation, the British authorities did absolutely nothing to inform its citizens. Apparently writing an email would have overwhelmed their resources. Around May, 3 months after everything was over, they arranged some meetings about security. Horses and bolts and stable doors come to mind. And apparently the advice was to look out for yourself, as they wouldn't do anything.

It costs about double to get a passport here, to cover consular services. I'm wondering what those services are meant to be. And while I'm griping about the Brits, it's time to mention a Kenyan friend whose valid application for a UK visa was turned down. Among the concern was the hosts wouldn't be able to afford to put our friend up - and yet the accompanying documentation showed several thousand pounds going into their bank account - in fact the hosts are most likely millionaires. It seems that the lady hadn't spent the proper time looking at the documentation. That and the fact that our friend has been to Europe and come back before was ignored. And I know it's difficult deciding who gets a visa, but really...

Well, I promised more disgruntlement, so here it comes... We have to register our mobile phones or they get cut off. OK. We're getting daily texts from Zain, our phone company, to remind us. But can you register your Zain phone in Karen? It would seem not. Not at the Zain merchant, nor at the supermarket. So we went to Junction (around 6 miles away), and we couldn't do it there either. When we rang Zain to comment that it wasn't possible, the first operator hung up. Safaricom users don't seem to have this problem, so it would seem that Zain doesn't actually want customers, and is screwing up the registration process.

All this negativity is getting to me, so I'll tell you that we had lunch at Java Junction, and the service was friendly, efficient and speedy (it felt like 5 minutes after ordering), and the food was fine and good value. Well done! Things really can work well here, which I guess adds to the frustration when they don't. Sorry for grumbling.

Getting ready to be a bloke in the UK

Well, next week we'll be leaving Kenya for the rest of the year, and establishing ourselves in the UK for nearly six months. However, still being the same person, I might carry on and post some random musings here now and then.

An interesting thing about this process is how the well-established expats and others react when we say this. The conversation goes something like this:

"We'll be going back to the UK for six months"
"Are you coming back?"
"Well, I said for six months, so that would imply that we were" (OK, I'm not quite that direct)/ "We have return tickets"

When I question people about this, they say that when people leave for good, they often say that they'll be back soon, and often intend to, but stuff happens, and people find something else to do . The fact that we're holding on to our house is taken as stronger evidence of our intent to return than the return tickets.

The longer we've stayed here, the more people have treated us as... well, 'real' people. I suppose 'real' here is opposed to 'transient'. It gets tiring investing in relationships with people who keep on leaving, so I can understand that others, for whom Kenya is home, treat newcomers -not exactly with caution - but with a little reserve.

Getting ready to be in the UK is interesting as well. Wonderful friends have been helping us to find a house to rent, which seems to be going through OK, though the credit rating agency is being rather slow - when you come from abroad you just don't tick the boxes in a standard way. Our youngest two have spent more of their lives here than in the UK - the youngest was barely one when we left. So doing things like going to school in England will be new. And getting places in schools has been interesting as well. We've abandoned trying for the schools they would have gone to if we'd stayed there, and settled for ones that seem reasonable, rather then running the risk of having them going to different schools in different directions. We've been dealing with two different councils in doing this, and one of them has outshone the other - we'll forgive them for asking to see our UK visa before granting us a school place.

So, overall, quite looking forward to reconnecting with friends, church and family, but not glad to be leaving here. But I think the stresses on the children are greater than on us.