.“Akufukuzae hakwambii toka.”
He who chases you does not need to say get out.
Kenyan proverb.
You have been admitted to graduate school in America. Your relatives slaughter a goat. Your mother tells the neighbours her child is now “almost a professor.”
Then the payments begin. Application fee. Language test fee. SEVIS fee. Visa fee. Soon you have spent enough money to buy a respectable second-hand Toyota.
You arrive at the embassy in Nairobi dressed like a responsible global citizen. Your documents are ironed. Your bank statements are arranged like a wedding cake. And the interview lasts sixty seconds.
The officer stares at you the way one examines a maembe in the supermarket. He asks one question.
“Have you ever been here before?”
“No!”
Pink slip.
Next!
Visa denied.
No explanation. No refund. Only encouragement.
“Please apply again.”
A motivational speaker has just mugged you.
Perhaps you only wanted to attend a funeral in America. Your uncle died in Boston. You gather documents like a bureaucratic archaeologist: death certificate, invitation letter, bank statements, passport photos, affidavit, and photocopies of photocopies.
Weeks of preparation. Sixty seconds later:
Pink slip.
Your uncle is buried without you. But the embassy keeps the visa fee.
Maybe your daughter is graduating from an American university. You carry a folder so thick it looks like a PhD thesis. The officer does not open it. He looks at you briefly, as one looks at a suspicious-looking mutura.
Pink slip.
Your daughter walks across the graduation stage. You watch it later on WhatsApp.
Some Africans are invited to international conferences in the United States or Britain. Flights paid. Hotel booked. Transport arranged. Sometimes they are the keynote speaker. But the visa interview still lasts one minute.
The officer asks:
“What do you do?”
“I’m the keynote speaker.”
Pink slip.
Apparently the keynote will now be delivered by Zoom.
Young Kenyans enter the American and British embassies hopeful. They exit emotionally damaged. Sometimes crying. The visa process has the psychological structure of a slot machine.
Pull the lever. Jackpot or maybe bankruptcy.
The criteria for approval is mysterious. A husband and wife apply together using identical documents. The husband gets the visa. The wife is rejected.
The embassy has discovered a new science called quantum immigration physics. Two identical applications exist in different realities simultaneously. Inside the interview booth the questions are beautifully pointless.
“Where are you going?”
“New York.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m a teacher.”
“Are you married?”
“Yes.”
Pink slip.
Thank you for participating in today’s episode of “Who Wants to Go to America?”
Even if you have visited the US or UK for ten years straight, the outcome remains unpredictable. Sometimes the officer asks a question and denies you before you answer. Sometimes he denies you while you are answering. Sometimes he denies you because he is already thinking about lunch.
After a while you begin to suspect the real criteria might be more scientific.
Maybe your skin tone is too enthusiastic. Your nose is suspiciously wide. What if it’s your bald nyundo head shape that looks threatening to Western civilization? Or you simply look like someone who would enjoy New York too much.
We are always warned about gambling.
But the real casino is the visa office. It is pata potea diplomacy. And as every gambler knows, the house always wins.
Applicants pay around $185 for the opportunity to be rejected. The fee is not refunded. You can apply again.
And again.
And again.
The embassy has invented the perfect business model: Charge people to disappoint them.
Even better, they are now introducing a new $250 “visa integrity fee” approved during this Trump presidency. Integrity, apparently, costs extra.
The truth is, Kenya is a beautiful country. A paradise. Few of us would voluntarily abandon our sunshine, our oneness in community, not forgetting our gossiping neighbors, for the freezing climate and the individualized life in the West.
But history happened. And history often happened with Western fingerprints. We elect leaders. Western institutions select who will give us serious ‘Curriculum Development’ by rigging results and creating puppets.
According to this global recruitment program, the ideal African president should preferably be a kleptomaniac, a fraudster, a dictator, a nincompoop, or at least a very enthusiastic incompetent.
Whenever a competent African leader appears, something unfortunate happens. A coup. An assassination. A currency collapse. An IMF workshop.
Soon our economies are dismantled, our industries privatized, and our public assets sold to multinational corporations interested mainly in our land, water, electricity, and minerals.
In the meantime, our governments construct enormous churches so we can pray for jobs instead of creating them. Naturally, our national dream becomes to escape.
In Kenya, the former U.S. ambassador Meg Whitman often moved through Nairobi’s corridors of power with the relaxed authority of a regional governor. She famously declared Kenya’s contested 2022 election the most credible in history.
Many Kenyans admired her confidence. It takes courage to certify miracles.
When the victory of Donald Trump was announced, Kenya’s Twitter immediately created the hashtag #ResignMegWhitman.
One Kenyan politely requested:
“We humbly ask MAGA Donald Trump to come collect his ambassador.” Soon afterwards, she resigned. Twitter, for once, felt powerful.
If Western countries truly do not want us in their hood, that is perfectly fine. Just do us one small favor.
Be like the Japanese embassy in Nairobi. There, you pay the visa fee only after your visa is approved. And it costs KSh 2,800.
No gambling. No emotional trauma. No pink slips. Just a polite yes or a polite no.
Imagine that.
Civilization