When Wanjiku* Travels (I)

“Where is Wanjiku? Is she even in Kenya? Might Wanjiku be in the Diaspora? If so, what would she see there or how would she see Kenya from there?”                                                                     

- Wambui Mwangi

Wanjiku* at Passport Control

A few years before Osama made air travel a bit complicated, I went to Australia for the first time. I knew that Australia takes her flora and fauna very seriously so it was no-no to natural bead necklaces and to smelly French cheeses too.

Getting my visa had been child’s play; I was impressed to have it in under an hour. My positive impression continued on the way down to Australia: the airline meal—edible, mmmh! food served on real china with gleaming silverware and spotless glassware—had been prepared by a French chef.  And no, in case you may be wondering, I was not flying Air France, otherwise I might have missed my flight due to some strike or other. Today, I suspect that all that fine silverware and china was eventually nicked and the airline now serves their meals-in-the-air on plasticware, alas!

On arrival at Melbourne Airport, I fell upon a friendly customs officer who, after going through all the formalities, looked up at me all smiles and said, “Welcome to Australia.” Pray tell me, how many customs officials smile and welcome you to their country?

Another singular exception, on a very different occasion, was this serious, very Baba watoto immigration officer at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, Nairobi. He flicked open my passport and without looking up asked, “W, umerudi nyumbani?” W, have you come back home? The fact that he had spoken in Kiswahili and had not addressed me by my baptism name, nor by my married name, but by my true-true name, the one that speaks of my roots and calls out my origin, was just as if he had said, “Karibu nyumbani.” Welcome home.

Though all things considered, when I am in front of a customs fellow, be it in Kenya or elsewhere, I kind of feel guilty. Will they discover that I have committed a crime that even I am not aware of?  Do they really expect me to confess that no, I did not pack my bags? And yes, I am carrying a dangerous weapon in the form of a mini nail cutter-with-file attached to my bunch of keys? And will the x-ray machine identify my Farmer’s Choice beef sausages and call them grenades? Oh, what is the number of my embassy? And yes, I have beep-beeped as I have gone through the detector machine and beeped some more when the female security officer has run a hand-held detector over my body. The surprise is that I am really beeping around the chest area and I have no jewellery on me. The security officer hesitates a second: are you wearing a bra with underwire? There you go. No, I do not have to strip.

Travelling with a Kenyan passport has its advantages: no-one will want to take a Kenyan passport-holder hostage, bar in Somalia. Why ever not? No clout, that’s why. Ever seen a serious covert spy, or I dunno, a professional hit man pass for a Kenyan? Pass for a North American, yes. An European, yes. Israeli, yes. A national from the Middle East, yes. Hey, even South African is a yes, but Kenyan? Unh-uh. However, in the unlikely event that you, as a Kenyan, are taken captive in some obscure part of the world (bar in Somalia), brandish your passport  (bar in Somalia) and chances are your kidnapper will go (bar in Somalia): “Great country! What wonderful wildlife! I saw this superb BBC documentary on Kenyan wildlife on television the other day….”

For those not very familiar with the geopolitics in East Africa, for the past two decades, Somalia has not been on the friendliest of terms with her three neighbours, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Djibouti. Al-Shabaab, a militant Islamist group based in Somalia and having Al-Qaeda’s wink and nod has been giving Kenyans grief since September 2011. Kenya, with a nod, a wink, and additional muscle and intelligence from her allies, has been hitting Al-Shabaab back.

I have not observed any hostility while travelling with a Kenyan passport. However, I have heard tales of passengers coming from certain destinations and travelling under passports of a particular colour.  If you happen to be queuing at immigration and see ahead of you a passenger or, the heavens forbid, passengers holding their passports of this particular colour, connecting flight or not, you will be well-advised to change queues or you might be standing in line for longer than you wish.

In AD (right After Dinosaurs became extinct), I travelled to Europe for the first time with three other girlfriends. We found ourselves with exceptional APEX tickets for France. Not only were these tickets cheap, they also came with a very interesting offer: possibility to visit two additional European countries. One of us chose to go to England, another one chose Germany and the remaining two chose Switzerland and England. We decided to visit the additional country first, followed by our collective rendez-vous in France, ending with a final visit in our second country of choice, which for some meant going back to the country they had visited in the first place.

B, who had chosen to go to England first, had a cautionary tale for the two of us who had just visited Switzerland and would wind up their European stay with England. Back then in AD, Kenyans did not need entry visas for England. What that translated to was that at the British port of entry, one ran the risk of going through a rigorous interrogation à la post-9/11. B had obviously not known this before she set foot on English soil. Our good selves neither.

The customs officer had asked B a set of questions, questions that B thought were irrelevant to her wanting to visit England and who finally getting fed up with this line of questioning, made the mistake of sassing the official. The next thing she knew, the official’s colleagues were opening her hand luggage, and lo and behold! What do they see? A packaged kilo of very suspicious powder.

“What is this?” they demanded as they tore the packet open. The powder spilled all over her personal belongings which the officials were already tossing out of the bag. There went flying a toothbrush and a tube of lipstick. Out flew a pair of knickers that landed many metres away from B who had to scramble to pick them up before other in-coming passengers trampled on them.  And oh! My goodness! Was that her bra right over there? And so went the personal garments and toiletries ballet under a fine shower of powder. Finally satisfied that B was not importing anything illegal, the officials had her pick up her personal effects which she humbly stuffed back into her bag.

The kilo of very suspicious powder? It was only a very humble packet of Jogoo maize flour. Welcome to England. 

Whether you have travelled half around the world and are beyond exhausted on arrival or whether you have flown a few hours to your destination, never hold a customs official in disdain, especially when he does not tell you “Karibu.” Welcome to my country.

*Wanjiku, a feminine Kikuyu name, has come to represent the common man and woman, the mwanainchi, in Kenya today.

(Weaving alongside W. Mwangi, The Surprise of the Familiar; M. Mohammedali Wanjiku Sends a Postcard Home and S. Gichia, People)