Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Phone Wars II, Safaricom Strikes Again

Yesterday (Tuesday) afternoon we visited a college one of our CLOUT Cares high school graduates is attending to in order to forge his path into the tourism industry.  Our visit was most enlightening and solidified our belief that this is a good path for him to take and us to support as he transitions into the real world.

Then we were off to the Safaricom store to get SIM cards for our two phones and register the numbers under our names with the government.  This registration thing started just over a year ago as an anti-terrorism and anti-crime measure.  Last year when we had to do it for the first time in our 8 years of coming to Kenya, it took about three days as I recall.  It was among the most frustrating experiences of our entire trip.  See http://kenyasenegaljournal2013.blogspot.com/2013/01/tuesday-january-82013-experience-kenya.html if you wish to relive last year.  I’m afraid to look back.

And, you need not bother.  A fresh experience is at hand.  We can buy SIM cards at our hotel but we cannot register them there.  So, we thought we might as well kill two birds (not the musical morning ones described below but metaphorical ones) by completing the entire transaction at a main Safaricom store/office downtown.

We arrived at the Safaricom store with our friend, David Gakule, to encounter many people milling about and perpetual lines of people and people and people – each line carefully labeled at hip level in the mass so nobody can see where to go.  A quick enquiry of an employee got us into Line #1, a line of about 40 people moving ever so slowly.  Line #2 was empty, and Lines #3 and #4 had about 20 people each.  Indeed, each line was labeled and our sign indicated we were in the correct line.

About an hour later, someone came by to sort out the lines.  We were about 15 people from the goal and she told us we were in the wrong line.  We should have been in Line #2 that had nobody in it when we arrived an hour earlier.  Luckily, now there was only one lost-looking soul in it.  He was looking at the desk slightly to his left, ready to go to it as soon as his turn came up.  I was looking straight ahead, thinking that’s the correct one.  Turns out I was right – dumb luck – and we were now all waiting for the customer at that desk to finish her business so we could get to ours.  That customer left, the guy in front of us went up and spent about 30 seconds to find out that he did not have the correct information with him.  He’d have to come back later.  I wonder how long he stood in the wrong line before being sent to the right one, only to find his time was spent in vain.

Our turn. 

Me: “We would like to buy and register two SIM cards.”  Her: “I need to see your passport.”  Me: “I don’t have it but I do have the number and I have an ID (driver’s license).”  Her: “You need your passport.”   Me thinking: “This is stupid.  Who in his right mind would carry his passport around in Nairobi?”  Me saying: “What do we do now?”  David: “I can register them in my name.”  Her: “OK.”  David fumbling in his pockets: “I don’t have my (National) ID with me.  I’ll call my driver and have him deliver it right away.  Can we just start filling out the forms while he comes?” Her: “No. You must have it before we can start.”  David: “It will be here in 5 minutes.  Let’s just start, OK?.”  Her: “No.  We can’t start until you have it.  Just step to the next counter and wait there until it arrives.  Come back here when it does.”

We step to the next counter and wait 10 minutes for Ian to trot over from David’s office to bring his ID.  When the person then being served steps away from the counter, David goes back under the glare of the person in line who believed he was next.  Her (clerk): “That will be 100 shillings for each SIM card.”  Me: “OK, her you go.”  Her: “Thank you, here are the forms to fill out.”  The first question on each form is “What is the telephone number associated with the SIM card?”   This question makes absolutely no sense since the phone number is printed right there on the top of the page and there is a barcode right under it.  Nonetheless, David takes about 3 minutes to fill out the first of the two identical (except for the phone numbers) forms and hands it to the clerk.  She begins entering the information from the form on her computer as David fills out the other form – total time elapsed for him to fill out the two forms is about  5 minutes.  Twenty minutes later the clerk has finally finished entering the identical information from both forms into her computer, separately for each form.  This is at one of the main offices of the technology giant, Safaricom.

Her: “Here are you SIM cards.  It will be about 3 hour before you can use the phone and it could be up to 24 hours.”  We knew this from last year.  Her: “You’ll also need to top up (buy some air time) before you can use the phone.”  We knew this too.  Me: “Can I buy airtime from you?”  Her: “Yes, how much?”  Me:  “250 shillings for each card.”  Her to the clerk on her left: “Do you have two 250 shilling airtime cards.”  Him: “No.”  Her: “You’ll have to get them at that desk up front.”  Me looking at the front desk with 5 customers standing in front of it: “OK.”  David, to me as we walk away: “No way, well get it at that kiosk across the street.”

Time elapsed: 2 hour.  Ugh! 

  

Birds in the Morning

This morning was a morning like all mornings at the Sportsview Hotel in Kasarani (Nairobi), except we were there.  So were the birds.  At the first hint of daylight at about 5:45 AM, the birds outside our room hesitantly began their morning ritual.  First a few little chirps from some tiny fellows to tune up the avian orchestra, then each section entered sequentially until the din was nearly overwhelming.  Only Sandy can sleep through this.  Aside from the remarkable voices and the to-and-fro of the various sections of the orchestra, the most remarkable and noisy contribution was from the Glossy Ibis section.  They not only kept the beat, they made comments on the performance of the others.  Obviously, they are impatient.  Every now and then five or six of them hollered at each other and the rest of the orchestra, pushed their chairs back, flapped their wings, and left in a cacophonous huff.  When all had had their say, at about 6:30 the rest of the orchestra left section by section, just as they had entered.  Only a few stragglers remained at 7:00, obviously discussing their performance and working individually on those parts they thought could use improvement.  It was a marvelous way to start the day.

I tried to capture a bit of the symphony on videos I took in darkness.  

Elephants at Noon

We made our annual visit to the David Sheldrick Elephant and Rhino Sanctuary in Wednesday afternoon.  The facility on the edge of Nairobi National Park houses orphan elephants up to the age of three years or so.  Most of these orphans lost their mothers to poaching or conflict with humans (as humans multiply and take the land the elephants need).  Right now, there are 30 orphan elephants and two rhinos in the shelter.  When the elephants are old enough they are shipped to Tsavo East where they continue to have supervised care for another five to eight years before being reintroduced into the wild herds.  The four four-year old orphans we currently sponsor recently “graduated” from the nursery in Nairobi to Tsavo and are all slowly being reintroduced to the wild under close supervision.  It was kind of sad not to see them today but gratifying to know that they are on their way back to the wild.

A Swim in the Early Evening

Sam swam.  Water was cold.  I stayed dry. She won't let me post the picture I took of her. She said something about killing me.