Kenyan trials and Ethiopian Tribulations

Interrupted by a Sunday and Kenyan Independence day we finally made it to the High Commission who were mercifully quite empty so we were able to start the process (£95) of getting an emergency passport. This requires copies of the police statement, airline tickets, which can be tedious as airlines require sight of your passport which of course you have not got and identity which has also gone, but scanning every possible document into your computer helps. Plans to get back to Addis next day are complicated by a significant delay in getting the said pass port, a trip to the Immigration department (more long sweaty queues) and getting the car off to its new and hopefully temporary resting place next to a swimming pool in a smart gated Nairobi suburb. Will we ever see it again and will it be repairable are of course the big and as ever unanswered questions. The man at the consulate is nice but the passport pickup is long and tedious so there are Kafka signs of having to go from office to office. The other piece of classic mis-information was that we needed a stamp from the Kenyan Immigration office, and when we got there we were told that we would need $50 which of course we had not got, requiring mad dash to hotel and back again to get a signature from a bored, silent lady doing a cross word at……..no cost but several hours of coronary tightening anxiety about missing aeroplanes. The emergency passport allows us to go to London through Ethiopia but the question of course is will the Ethiopians. I write this in the departure area of Nairobi airport – lounge would be too good a description. We are looking at car hire but it does seem exorbitant and seems to come with a driver and all that sort of thing so possibly not.
E mail interest has started in us possibly relocating to Kenya and this now becomes a distinct possibility but finding somewhere interesting will prove a battle as I am sure will be the wearying trips to various government offices and collecting stamps. The next big battle of course will be to get a U.K passport to get to Geneva and I can see many trips to London during our short sojourn in the land of the free. The hotel bill is astronomic but hopefully we will be able to slough some of this off on the insurance. Telephone call account for significant losses and the absence of credit cards is causing some stress. Have had to spend some hours dealing with American Express, the hopefully English appearing number being routed to America and then you have guessed it India. Have your checks replaced within 24 hours is pure farce and the usefulness of these cheques is not in doubt – they are quite useless and getting the money back, particularly when you are not sure where the receipts are is going to take a long time. Time readers to destroy any vestiges of anything you have to do with American Express in protest.
So an uncertain future awaits us and the only glimmer of hope on the horizon is a bottle of gin and a bottle of Pimms – festive warm Christmas fare, only we do not have a fridge and thus no ice so we shall see. Any non egg laying hens may finally realise that they are under Christmas threat but as they seem to be becoming part of the family I suspect that this may not happen.
Curiously, apart from being put in the wrong queue by some moron from Ethiopian Airways getting into Ethiopia with a photocopy of my residency permit was a breeze, as they looked me upon the computer, stamped my emergency passport and there we were. The wheeze for getting the car in would not have worked and we would have been cought doing something naughty in Ethiopiaand been regarded as bad bad bad.
After a few hours sleep, a wearing drive and a stop at a strange Ethiopian transport café and we are back again. Not a lot of help from local organisers and still no fridge but Karen feels she is home.

I go on the ward round and find young Jabber fighting fit, so much so that a trip to the orphanage looms, prospective adopters please note! Otherwise there is the usual litany of ill informed patients trying to kill themselves and certainly managing to kill her baby – para 5, section with the 4th for a face presentation, got away with it for the 5th., but the 6th. Got her with a face presentation and hole in uterus. Assured that she had been told to come back after the C.S – does education help probably not. Many thanks those in the U.K. for help with histology but chronic folliculitis does not move things on at all and the oxytet though helping slightly is not a lot and my colleague has her on anti-TB treatment now. Dianette and Retinoids would seem to be the order of the day but fat chance now.
In the meantime the remaining alive twin and a lady with some immune compromise await my attentions tomorrow. However I still have a broken car in Nairobi and an uncertain future to sort. However for those of you who enjoy this back to some mainstream and irreverent blogging for a while. Upcoming discussions will include thoughts of the cynical (partners would say far too negative and cynical volunteers, in an environment in which the local and transnational NGO wars mean you count for little – but actually we knew that any way.

PS a fridge has just arrived, penicillin encrusted and small and without shelves but still a fridge so there is ice for the gin and tonic now.

PPS Who can spot the chickens?