"The Truth Will Set You Free"

I’ve read quite a few books since being in Kenya about government corruption in Kenya, Nigeria, Iraq and various other countries. I have been thinking, “I wonder what I would do in a shady situation?” Well, this morning I found out.

So there is this house in Takaungu, the biggest house there. It’s owned by an Italian man named Tony who only spends a few months out of the year Kenya. The Takaungu sub chief started building a house so close to Tony’s house he literally could step from his front door into her front door. Tony’s house is beside mine so I’ve been watching the back breaking construction go on for over a month. One day while walking somewhere I met Tony for the first time. He looked upset. He said, without introducing himself, “They can’t build here! This is my property! I’m going to my lawyer.” That was that.

I was laying in bed reading early this morning and Katana, one of the EAC’s groundskeepers came to my house and told me that there were some men and Tony waiting for me at the primary school, and I should head over there. So I went there, and was greeted by two men from immigration, Tony, and the head teacher. I was confused but not yet scared. The immigration officials told me to go back home and get my documentation, and my “colleague” (Kris). Kris and I went back to the school with passports in hand. They snatched them from us and started asking us questions. “What do you do with the EAC? What does your work in Kenya entail?” We tried to explain to them that we don’t exactly work, we volunteer. The officials then showed us our visas and said, “this is a holiday visa, it isn’t for working or volunteering”, which is true. We explained that we weren’t advised otherwise when it came to getting a visa, but it was in vein. A copy of the Kenyan Immigration Act was opened up and we were told to read a few confusing clauses. They then shoved a piece of paper and pen under our noses and told us to write statements declaring what exactly we do with the EAC and in Takaungu. Simon looked me square in the eye and said, “The truth will set you free.” He was messing with us, my stomach turned and thoughts of prosecution and Locked Up Abroad came to mind. They turned to the head teacher and tried to pigeon hole her into admitting that she was our boss and that she allows us to teach at the primary school. She insisted, and truthfully that she is not our boss, and that we do not teach at the school but again, it fell on deaf ears. Simon looked at the head teacher and exclaimed, “this is what’s wrong with Africans! They don’t tell the truth!” To hear that from one African to another was unsettling. The head teacher took in stride. Our boss is in the states, she’ll be there until the end of this month. We made the mistake of putting the word “work” in our written statements. I shot Tony a, “what should we do glare” and we rubbed his fingers together for the international sign of $. No way was I going to risk it with a bribe, everything was too shaky. The officials handed us our passports for a brief moment so we could write the passport numbers on our statement sheets and then took them back. I asked why but it didn’t matter. Kris insisted that they not take it, as the one official, Simon was prying it from her fingers he saying, "I am not taking it by force”, clearly he was. The whole thing was so surreal. Simon and his sidekick told us to report to the immigration office in Kilifi in 1 hour, and off they went with Tony and our passports.

Kris and I quickly sent out a few important emails and called the US embassy, who advised not to go to the immigration office and that they were launching a fraud investigation. Quickly word got out that Tony had gotten the building of the sub chief’s home stopped and she was so angered that she called immigration claiming that Tony was housing volunteers, which is illegal and untrue. So after a day of “what ifs” we decided to come to Kilifi and spend the night with a friend Peace Corps volunteer to wait things out. It looks like the embassy frightened the immigration office because one of its minions called us and told us we could come by and pick up our passports at 8:30 Saturday morning and they would issue us a volunteer pass no problem. We’ve been advised against this so things will have to wait until Monday.

To lighten the mood we went to Mombasa, to a state of the art movie theater and indulged in Fame, which was quite entertaining and distracting. Tomorrow we plan to spend the afternoon in Malindi to blow off some steam and prepare for whatever Monday may bring. Either we will get passes to stay, or I will be seeing JFK airport a lot sooner than I thought I would, however my time here is not done.

I am not superstitious but upon reflection, I just realized that yesterday was Friday the 13^th. When it comes to superstitions if there ever were a time and place to believe it would be here and now.