The darker side of international travel... to the UK

I use the term “international travel” for travel off the African continent because travel on the continent, whether it’s a country whose passport I carry or any other, feels like another home.

So the international travel, which I have avoided and have not done since 2012 happens like this. I get an email from a literary festival in the UK.

I reply that I need a letter to apply for my visa confirming that they will be paying for my ticket, accommodation, food and so forth. Because this is how difficult it is applying for an international visa. One almost gets the feeling that there is an assumption that you plan to be an illegal immigrant upon arrival. I get the letter.

I go online and start applying.

This is no three-page visa application form like the one for Nigeria. It’s no one-pager like the Ghanaian visa application. And it certainly is no visa on arrival like Uganda.

I answer questions such as how many times I have been issued with the UK visa in the last ten years. I need to mention dates of visa issue and expiration. I secretly wonder whether the UK government does not already have this information. Or are they trying to see how honest I am?  Three hours later, finally done, I have paid and set an appointment to drop off the visa documents at VFS in Westlands.

At VFS, I am told it will take 15 working days for the visa to be processed. If I want it speeded up, I need to pay 130 pounds extra.

That’s a good 50 pounds more than the cost of the visa. I decline. Less than five working days later, I have an email telling me my passport is ready for collection.

I privately wonder whether someone fast-tracked me without my request or, the VFS woman lied to me in the hope that I would pay extra money to their organisation. Either way, I am glad to have my passport back with a visa.

TOURISTY STUFF

I am supposed to be at the festival for two days. Now I don’t know about you, but if someone is paying for my ticket for a trans-Atlantic flight, I will change the ticket so I can have extra days and do touristy stuff.

So to Kenya Airways I go to change my ticket. When I give the woman a date, she says to me, “Can I give you the cost in dollars?” Last time I checked, I was at the KQ offices in Sarit Centre and I am a Kenyan resident so what happened to shillings? But I nod. “That’s $580,” she says.

I look at her as though I did not hear. “Sorry, how much?”

“Five hundred and eighty dollars,” she answers again.

“Madam,” I say to her, “I want to change a ticket. I don’t want to buy a new ticket.” She doesn’t blink.

“How about the next day?” I ask.

“One hundred and eighty-five dollars.”

“And the day after?” I ask again.

“Ninety dollars,” she answers. I change the ticket so I return two days later than originally planned.

On the plane, there is a big British dude sitting next to me. In my mind I decide he is probably from Hereford raised on a lot of good beef. I say hello. He does not answer. I persist, “Hello.” My thinking is that if I am going to spend the next seven hours next to this chap, at least we should greet each other.

“Hello,” he replies sulkily.

Then he does that thing that some human beings of a paler hue do that darker-melanined folks like myself have never quite understood. He puts the air conditioner on full blast. I imagine he is punishing me for insisting on greeting him. In the past, a Nigerian guy has put me in a position where I could not read my book as he talked my ear off, but he did not put the air conditioner on.

So yes, it may be my first international trip in three years but, I am not keen to do another any time soon. Atchoo. Three days later, I am still sneezing.