Turns out it is not a one off
incident but more common than I would like to admit. I am recognising the patterns. It starts with a clumsy security check procedure with a group of
disorientated Somali travelers unable to follow basic instructions. The graceful elderly
man with henna-red beard and his young male companion look composed till they
had to go through the scanner and soon as they hear the beeb sound, indicating
they have something metallic on them, they totally lose their cool and
hurriedly remove items from their pockets, remove their shoes and belts and
throw them at the table. I watch in a mixture of pity and amusement. The young
man leaves the elderly man looking helpless and fends for himself. I was
surprised by this as it is contrary to ‘Somali culture’, that loaded word that
no one knows what it means anymore, for a more able-bodied to leave an elderly
man behind.
I patiently wait for this
chaotic scene to pass, go through the security check and proceed to check in. I
am becoming familiar with the Somali nomadic traveler’s scenario. It is like
people uprooted from their camel-travel planet and implanted in a concrete
jungle with strange culture of filling forms, walking through scanners and
boarding in an alien spaceship. Most of the Somali travelers I encounter at
airports, especially between Kenya and Somalia, seem to be totally confused
about air traveling and I am baffled by how majority of these people manage to
own a passport, afford a ticket and figure out how to get to the airport, in
the first place!
The check-in desk was closed
so I decided to take advantage of the time and fill in the departure card. Soon
as I arrived at the desk to pick up the card, I was approached by about 6
Somalis, all apart from one are deportees! They have never gone through an
airport and don’t read or write. I have no choice but to fill the forms for
them. First in line is this young woman who seems either super stressed or high
on khat. She is unable to stand still, fidgeting with her phone and spoke to me
in a broken English. I reply in Somali and she is surprised. It must be my very
short hair and the way I am dressing. I fill her form, ask few questions, like
why does she have a brand new Somali passport issued in Nairobi with no Kenyan
visa? I tell her she better think of an answer before the immigration officer
asks. The woman is so disorientated I am wondering if she has been yanked out
of her hiding place this morning by immigration officers for deportation. I
complete the form and ask her to sign. She refuses! She holds on to the form and
looks at it seriously like I am asking her to sign her life away. A young man
behind her urges her to sign and tells her that there are others in line
waiting to be helped. She asks me what exactly she should sign as! I tell her
to replicate the signature on her passport. Next was the elderly henna-beard man
from the security check. He is polite and says he needs help filling the form
because he can’t see well. To my
surprise, he has an American passport and he is dressed well. Am thinking,
couldn’t he afford glasses and suspected he was also illiterate. I complete his
form and he asks me to kindly also help the young man traveling with him. The young
man hands me a blue paper with deportation orders issued by the Somali
‘embassy’ in Nairobi. I ask him for a passport or travel document to fill the
departure card. The elderly man answers that he doesn’t have a passport and
only has that “Go home”, blue letter. It was the same for the other 4 people
waiting to be helped. They are being deported to Somalia and they are destined
for Galkayo. I complete filling their cards, they say their thank yous and head
for the immigration departure desk.
When I come back from
checking-in my bags I find the disorientated young woman at the immigration
being refused exit! She asks me to help her translate to the immigration
officer why she has a blank new passport and how she got to Kenya in the first
place. As I walk to the desk, another immigration officer in the next booth
shouts out at me and asks where I am going. I politely tell her I am trying to
help someone with translation but she doesn’t listen and repeated her question
and asked why I am joining a full queue when she can help. I am thinking this
is effing annoying and not what I want to deal with at 4am. She let’s me go
soon as she realizes I can explain myself. In contrast, the officer I am
translating for is very calm and polite. He must see this often enough to write
a book about. He asks reasonable
questions and she provides either untrue or confused answers, which basically
boiled down to her having entered the country illegally. I translate literally
and in the middle of this interrogation, she kept answering her phone and spoke
to some concerned family members. Both I and the officer got annoyed and I told
her in Somali that she is acting both rude and suspicious and to put her phone
away if she wants help. The officer asked who she is speaking to on the phone
and why is her phone ringing non-stop. I then had to explain to him that she is
harmless, just totally confused and to please just let her go home. Thank
goodness he agrees. I wanted that young woman back to a place where she knows
what the hell is going on. I don’t get it, do people like her have a family or
friends to tell her to stay put where she is comfortable and safe. I am
guessing she had plans to make it to Europe or North America. There is a side
of me that thinks, who the hell am I to prevent her from realising her dream,
if she has some beyond landing in a frozenland with gold pavements. It is a
depressing situation to witness but am glad at least she boarded the flight and
heading back home.
While we were in the middle
of this confusion, I noticed few other side events. Like how the Sudanese man
with the UN passport who looks like Somali got caught up in this and the rude
female immigration officer who shouted at me started interrogating him also,
lol. You are doomed if you look like a Somali at Jomo Kenyatta airport, you get
some annoyed officers to take out their frustration out on you and honestly, I
am slowly starting to empathise with Kenyan immigration officers. I found some
of these scenes annoying even as a fellow Somali. I was losing my patience with
some of the travelers, everyone needs help at every stage, it seemed. Start the
change now and invest in basic literacy class. If you want travel in search of
better opportunities and quality of life, by all means go ahead and do it. But
for heaven’s sakes, teach yourself to read and write so you can fill your own
forms at airports. You will also be able to read documents determining your
life. I want to scream about this but it
is 4am and I am not fully awake to be preaching.
What I will do is write to
the Somali government, if I can find the right department or person. Minister
of Foreign Affairs, maybe? This is the responsibility of the Somali government
and I think they should employ someone at all major Kenyan airports, especially
in Wajir and Nairobi, to provide information, support and advocacy for Somali travelers.
There are flights from Nairobi to all the major Somali cities at least 3 times
a week and I can’t imagine how many people are stranded, end up in the wrong
cities or denied entry/exit due to language and communication barriers.
3 weeks prior, I arrived
from Mogadishu to find 4 women and an elderly man in desperate need and one of
the women was holding a brand new Kenyan passport but she didn’t speak a word
of Swahili and was in the visa queue until I noticed her passport and asked why
she is trying to get a visa for her own country. She laughed shyly and said it
is her first time traveling. All of them couldn’t read or write and one of the
ladies was in Nairobi to buy stuff for her business back in Mogadishu! Clearly,
Somalia needs a massive literacy and numeracy campaign. How are people to make
an informed decision if they are struggling with the basics? It is worrying.
