Safara the sufferer tries to relocate to the US of A
What you need to know:
- I was super-nervous on the day of the visa interview at the American embassy in Gigiri and took a boda boda to get there before my 9.30am scheduled appointment time.
- In the outside queue, I made friends with a pleasant looking young woman called Beatrice, whose soft face made me think of an overripe mango in Mombasa, and we encouraged each other as our names were called for the interview.
- We went to different windows, and I immediately feared the worst as I faced a hatchet-faced woman of indeterminate age who had the eyes of those Nazi-bureaucrats who used to ask people to remove their clothes before ‘taking a shower …’
By Mike Safara
My name is Mike Safara, and as I told you last time, I was recently laid off work from the muhindi factory I had been working at, and so became the latest hustler in these streets of Nairobi.
I have a cousin in New York city called Safari Safara, and as soon as I informed him of my predicament, Safari, who is a natural born hustler, quickly said “vile Kenya inaenda down, ni afadhali you just come and hustle here in America, vile mimi nina do.”
Safari quickly broke down to me the money he makes in the USA.
“I drive a taxi, they call them cabs here, dude, from 8am to noon daily. That nets ma like 15 dollars per hour, bruh! Then in the afternoon, I am a caregiver at an old peeps’ home, from two to 6pm Another 80 dallas.”
“Is that where you get to clean up old folks’ with diapers and stuff?”
“It’s a crappy job, but it pays the bills, you know watt imma saying, dude?” Safari said. “Then eight in the evening to midnight, I gets busy at the Burger King, ten bucks per hour, amigo.”
“I hope you wash your hands real good between your afternoon and night job, Safo,” I joked, but I was seriously impressed.
My cousin may have his nose to the grind all day, but he was making about Sh25,000 a day, or half a million bob a month, out in the USA.
“Mkisii akichoka na kusota,” I told him, “anaenda kutafta dough Minnesota.”
“But sisi si WaKisii,” Safari said.
“Same principle!” I said, and we both laughed out loud.
Over the next week, Safari helped me fill out the DS-160 immigration visa form. From the Sh432 000 I had been given as my severance cheque and Sacco contribution combined, desperately wishing I had saved more per month, 30K of it went straight to non-refundable visa fees.
Then after me working the embassy phones by day as Safari worked the online appointment portal between his work breaks, and before he slept, we managed to finally get an embassy appointment in Nairobi last Friday.
Instead of my original appointment on the 12th of April, in the year 2024.
I was super-nervous on the day of the visa interview at the American embassy in Gigiri and took a boda boda to get there before my 9.30am scheduled appointment time.
In the outside queue, I made friends with a pleasant looking young woman called Beatrice, whose soft face made me think of an overripe mango in Mombasa, and we encouraged each other as our names were called for the interview.
We went to different windows, and I immediately feared the worst as I faced a hatchet-faced woman of indeterminate age who had the eyes of those Nazi-bureaucrats who used to ask people to remove their clothes before ‘taking a shower …’
“What is your name?” she snapped, although she now had my passport in her hand, which she did not bother to open.
“I am Mike Sa … saf … safara,” I stammered.
“Sufferer?” she raised one super-thin eyebrow, thin like her salamander lips.
“That too,” I tried to crack a joke (she frowned). “Michael Safara …”
“And what do you do for a living, Michael?” she asked, sounding bored.
I suffer, I said in my head, but aloud, “I used to work for a company in …”
“Presently unoccupied, idle and jobless,” she said, malice oozing out of every pore. “What do you want to go and do in the USA, Mr Michael?”
“I have a cousin there in New York who I can live with as I study, Miz.”
“Study where?” she sneered. “The lowest tuition fee for NYU is $250,000. Do you have quarter a million dollars, sir? Maybe under your mattress?”
I shook my head. “But I have Sh400,000. Sh401,000 cash, madam.”
The woman behind the counter actually burst out in loud unkind laughter.
“Mr Sufferer, you really want me to let you go to the USA with 2,700 dollars? You have watched too many Ellis Island documentaries from 1902. When was the last time you were outside Kenya?”
“Well, I was in Namanga, Tanzania, at the end of May 2021.”
“What was the purpose of your trip?”
“Chelsea was playing my team, Man City, in the Champions’ League final, and since Kenya was under Covid lockdown and Tanzania was not, I…”
“Your visa application request to the USA has been denied, Mr Safara!”
