Getting Kenya'd

It’s been quiet in my blog-o-sphere the last two weeks while I’ve led a group of 12 students on a trip to Samburu, Kenya. More on that soon in another post. The students left about 2 hours ago for their return to Colorado, and the no-alcohol policy has departed with them.  The dust probably hadn't even settled from their departing vehicle on the gravel road before I had a warm Tusker beer in my hand.

My zebra researcher friend and colleague Siva (pronounced “Shiva”) lives in Kenya and uses a term that I’ve since adopted to describe when everyday things take an excruciating and irrationally long time to complete. The term is contingent on the city.  So if you’re in Archer’s Post when this happens, you get “Archer’d” or if you’re in Meru, you’d get “Meru’d”.   In this story, I was Isiolo'd.

While in Isiolo (ee-see-oh-low) earlier this week, I had to exchange another small pile of U.S. money for Kenyan shillings. Isiolo is about 25 miles away from my Samburu base in Archer’s Post, and it’s one of the few places in Kenya where I’ve been entirely unable to find anything appealing at all other than the opportunity to buy avocadoes that are bigger than my nephew’s head. But I can do that throughout Kenya so it doesn’t separate Isiolo from any other town around here.

I figured I was likely to get Isiolo’d from the moment I walked in the bank and saw one teller and 15-20 people in line. In truth, there were two tellers but I’m not counting the second who was fiddling with her cell phone in plain view of us all, like she intentionally wanted to screw with our emotions and remind us that customers are not in the power position here. The remaining teller swiveled back and forth in her chair with enjoyment while she served customers. When I finally got to the counter just more than a half-hour later there was a piece of protective glass between myself and the teller that was so thick you can’t hear the other person speak. Instead, you both lean over and talk into the slot through which you pass money, deposit slips, etc. It’s awkward because with both of us leaned down close to the protective glass it feels like I’m trying to make out with someone that I’m visiting in prison.

After my 30+ minute wait, I decided to time the remainder of my duration in the bank. I wanted to quantify my misery. I wanted to know exactly how much time would be sucked up by getting Isiolo'd. In the end, it's not a number that any one really wants to know, like checking your credit card balance on-line. But I was curious.

After I handed over my money, the teller left for eight minutes, thirty seconds.  I saw her walk past a few times during the 8:30 minute interlude, in searrch of something, and I got the impression that this type of internal scavenger hunt is normal.

She returned with a brand new notebook, drew five lines on a page to create six columns, and then handwrote a title to each column.  While she carefully drew her perfectly vertical lines, I momentarily pondered and got lost in a juxtaposition: whatever information is to go within these columns seems important given her attention to vertical line detail, but if so important, why was the previous notebook not kept in a standard place.

Simple column titles emerged from her pen, one by one: “Name,” “passport number,” “mobile number,” “serial number” (of the bill), “date of issue” and so on.  And then she numbered the lines on the page by hand: 1, 2, 3 and so on. I desperately wanted that piece of paper so I could do it for her. I’ve seen toddlers write numbers in sequence more quickly than what I observed before me.  She stopped at 200. Then she slid the paper through the make-out slot and asked me to complete this information for each bill. EACH BILL.  I discovered shortly thereafter that I had 58 bills. I know that because I used 116 lines on her paper.  58 x 2 = 116.  I had to do it twice.

I screwed up the first time.  I drew a vertical arrow down an entire column after I wrote information once that would not change for the remaining 57 entries, such as my name and passport number, and that was apparently a violation.  She placed a massive "X" over my 58 lines of work. Her expression of disapproval was strong; one of the lines of her "X" extended off the page and onto the counter, and our process was interrupted so she could go find a spray bottle of cleaner to wipe it clean. She found the spray bottle quickly. It is kept in standard place.

I started again, and asked for her approval after my first entry in the way a 1st grader asks the teacher if he summed correctly on the first problem of a worksheet when learning to add. "Like this?"  She nodded with approval. I continued.

I tempered my emotion with a minor bit of research during my second attempt. Was my initial observation true that most of my bills' serial numbers started with an “H” or “J?"   And I’ve since learned that those letters correspond to the respective Federal Reserve location where it was printed: “H” is St. Louis and “J” is Kansas City.  I continued some more, with my stack of bills that in fact were printed mostly in the state of Missouri.

I wondered silently if the teller was making up rules, as I've never encountered this step in a money exchange, and the notebook approach seemed too hasty to be legit, but nonetheless, I continued on my second attempt.  I felt like what I imagined Kerry Strugg felt like in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics when she did that second vault on a sprained ankle to win gold. I was going to get it right this time.  Kerry Strugg had a sprained ankle; I had a sprained spirit.  And like Kerry, I’m proud to report that I nailed it. Not only did I nail it, but within this second round of entries of the 58 bills, my second 29 entries were more than two minutes faster than my first 29 entries.  In marathon world, that's called a negative split, when your second half is faster than your first. It’s a sign of high performance.   Unlike Kerry Strugg, however, I celebrated alone. No cheers from the others in line. No jumping into the embrace of my coach, the teller (damn you, protective glass).  I salute and envy you, Kerry.

Recording all of my bill information twice took 34 minutes.  Cumulative total to this point was more than one hour, thirteen minutes.  I looked at the clock; we were squarely within the dangerous time period of 10:30-11:00am. The only instance when a Kenyan pays attention to a clock is when it works in their personal favor to do so, such as the mid-morning tea break around 10:30.  The British left behind customs such as morning tea and misspelling words like "centre" before they packed up for good in 1964 and left Kenya to be its own country, and unfortunately they didn’t leave behind something of arguably more value such as a capacity to govern cleanly or prosper economically and widely. Morning tea and medicocre cuisine, however, are firmly in place.

Nothing interferes with morning tea. I’ve been in presentations at universities in which the speaker was interrupted to allow for a tea break, and I’ve been around laborers digging a 6 foot hole in direct sunlight and 95+ degree heat who take a break for hot tea. Back in the bank, I was up against the clock. In the back, I saw the tea cart preparations being made. I feared the teller would turn around. I knew she liked that swivel chair. I made flirty eye contact with her. I smiled. I asked her trivial questions. Do you live here? Do a lot of mzungus come here to exchange money? Just keep looking forward, my teller. Keep looking forward.  What do you think when I smile at you? Will we get married? Will I see you in the market later?

I persevered.  I earned my 143,000 Kenyan shillings which came to me as a stack of 143 bills of 1,000 shillings each. She counted it out, bill by bill.  She asked me to count it out to confirm. Our counting matched.  We were on the same page. Two countries, two ethnicities, bridged through the universal language of counting whole numbers the same way. I feared I would have to record information about 143 bills but I did not. I smiled. I was done.

Before turning to leave, she asked if maybe I wanted two 500 shilling bills in exchange for one of my 1,000 ones. An odd suggestion to swap out just one of my 143 bills, but I appreciated the gesture. I would need smaller bills at some point, this I knew. But in a flash I wondered if she would have to swivel to get those two 500 shilling notes and feared she would see the tea cart. So instead, I declined and I left. One hour, twenty seven minutes. The bar is set. Next time, I go sub 1:20