Kenya Time

It’s a mad rush out the gate when my plane lands in Amsterdam… a 3-terminal sprint to make it to my connecting flight to Nairobi. Nor am I the only one. About half a dozen of us have connecting flights that already started boarding ten minutes ago… and we are leaving the Schengen Zone, which means going through passport control and another security check before boarding the next plane. And did I mention that the next plane has aleady started boarding?

Several of us bunch up at the passport control checkpoint. Three guys going to Buenos Aires, two of us going to Nairobi and another woman whose destination isn’t clear but who seems very much in a hurry. A young African man in airport uniform ushers us into the “Short Connection” line, which for some reason moves more slowly than the regular lines. Soon people who took the regular lines are passing us. We ask the guy who put us in the Short Connection line if there’s anything he can do to speed things up.

“Everyone in front of you has the same problem,” he says with a mild accent. “There isn’t anything I can do.”

The Argentines look pretty desperate. Line Guy takes pity on them and pulls out his phone. “Hold on,” he says. They hold their breath while he makes a call. “Your plane will wait for you.” Yay – success!

Now what about us? Line Guy starts to walk away. Eva, the other Nairobi-bound traveler bunched up in the passport line with me, calls him back. “What about us?”

He looks at our boarding passes. “Don’t worry. You will not miss your flight.”

“But it’s already started boarding,” I point out.

“And this line is not moving,” Eva adds. “Can’t you also call them and ask them to wait for us?”

He looks at us sternly. “Your plane will not wait for you. You will wait for your plane.” With that he walks away. Conversation over.

“Do you think it’s true?” I ask. Eva is from Nairobi so maybe she knows.

“Maybe.”

Eva and I are a team now so I wait for her after I go through the passport check. Once we are both on the other side, we resume our sprint until we can sprint no more. We high-five Kenyan style when we make it to the boarding gate. “Patricia Andrews?” the gate attendant asks me.

“Yes, thanks for waiting.”

Having made it to the gangplank we discover that, although the plane has been boarding for more than an hour, there are still people in line waiting to get on. Soon there’s even someone behind us – a well-dressed Kenyan 30-something on his way home for the holidays. Turns out he arrived in Amsterdam on the same plane as Eva. “Wait a minute,” I say, “you were on the same plane she was on?”

“Yes.”

“Then why aren’t you all out of breath like we are?”

“I’m on Kenya time,” he says with a smile.

“Ah yes,” Eva says. “Kenya time. Once they gave my uncle a short connection… it was here in Amsterdam also. He got here and said, ‘That’s too much in a hurry – I’ll just wait for the next plane,’ and that’s what he did.”

We all share a good laugh. I find myself hoping that I slow down to Kenya time the moment I get off the plane in Nairobi. As luck would have it, I have an excellent opportunity to practice that starting about 10 minutes before landing. Due to some weight and balance issues, the plane’s cargo had to be re-arranged before we could take off. This took a while and we ended up an hour behind schedule. Line Guy wasn’t kidding – we did indeed end up waiting for the plane. So I’m already a bit worried that Joan, the woman who is picking me up – might give up on me before I make it out the door. Then the flight attendant calls our attention to an important announcement – due to a fire, half of the Nairobi airport is no longer operational. When we disembark, she says, we will be taken by bus to the temporary terminal, which, she articulates carefully, “is housed. In a large. Tent.”

That doesn’t sound like the speedy and efficient processing I was hoping for.

It is now almost 10:00 pm on a moonless night. When the bus drops us at the temporary terminal, we find ourselves being herded into a dark hallway lit by battery powered emergency lanterns. With every step, both the temperature and the smell of sweaty homo sapiens increases. We turn the corner to find a massive throng of humanity waiting in disorderly “lines.” At least a third of them are in the visa line. I join them, regretting that I had not trusted FedEx to get my beloved passport to the Kenyan Embassy and back before I left.

Everyone is standing in the dark, confused. Someone faints. An minor altercation breaks out here and there. A medical crew walks by with a stretcher. I hold my place in line and fill out the visa application by the light of my trusty headlamp.

When the lights come on, people clap and cheer. It’s no cooler, and the smell isn’t any better, but the computers and fingerprint machines are working again, and soon the “lines” start moving. When I finally make it outside, three hours late, Joan is there waving at me with a smile on her face. “Welcome to Kenya,” she says… Kenya time indeed. I feel more relaxed already.