kweli?
As I write this, I am at Bar’dayez Bistro, a local (dare I say) on Muthithi Road in Westlands, Nairobi, KENYA. (It will soon be clear why I capitalised my country.) I have also been moved tables, with the promise of a free shot of something of my choosing. It seems the people they want the table for are more important to Bar’dayez, in ways I can’t be right now. They are drinking what looks like Jim Beam, one of the best-selling bourbons in the world. Ooh, and they are smoking shisha, with Schweppes bottles and one bottle of Aqua sparkling water on their table. In my not humble opinion, I could buy all of that for myself. But, I let them be, and let the move happen.
I was introduced to this spot by my longest friend (of 16 years), Caleb. I find the name Bar’dayez a cool play on the Swahili word baadaye, which means “later” or “after”. As in, after hours. Pretty cool for an after-hours spot, right? The first time Caleb brought us here was after we had gone to see our primary school friend, Ceaser, at the HCG CCK Cancer Centre. He had just finished his chemotherapy and was about to give the “normal, healthy” life a chance again. So this place has always been where we come after the hard things. I have been back a few more times, and I like it more each time.
(In between writing that paragraph, I have been moved again. This time I asked for the shot to be doubled, and it has to be tequila made into a cocktail of their choosing.)
I keep accepting these moves, as if I am echoing what has happened to me THREE times in 14 months. Surrender. I just accept it. I can’t do anything about it. This piece is about me and my escapades with visas. Schengen visas, to be blunt.
When I was a boy, I thought a Visa was the card the bank gave you, because VISA was written on it in bold blue letters. So I grew up knowing that my mother had a Visa. I was naive, and I know better now. I have those bank cards. But oh boy, I have news: I don’t have a visa.
I am at Bar’dayez today not because I have just come from a therapy session. Rather, I need therapy. I have just been denied a visa to SPAIN.
It hits harder when I look back. Fourteen months ago, I made my very first visa application, to attend NixCon25 in Zurich, SWITZERLAND. I was denied the Visa. Why? I couldn’t prove my means of subsistence. But, NixOS said they would. So I surrendered. Then, about four weeks ago, I was meant to travel to POLAND for NixCon26, but the POLISH embassy had not given me an appointment date since June. I think the NixOS Foundation is getting tired of my Visas not coming through, and it hurts me that they might give up on sponsoring me to attend NixCon.
No sooner had I healed from the POLISH embassy not budging than a team of two students I was mentoring won the first Responsible Computing Buildathon in KENYA. I was happy. Dude, really happy. I was proud of them, then proud of me. And, importantly, I was happy for KamiLimu (look out for the piece I will write about KamiLimu). The two, Steve and Farida, were selected as winners, and with the win came a sponsored trip to the Mozilla Festival in Barcelona, SPAIN. And as fate would have it, they were scheduled to present on the main MozFest stage.
That’s huge. MozFest is the Mozilla Foundation’s annual global gathering for people building a better digital world. This year it runs from 28 to 30 October at the Recinte Fabra i Coats, a former industrial complex in Barcelona turned cultural centre, with around 200 sessions, labs and installations under the theme “Wilding”. And my two students (one already denied a Visa) on its main stage. I had made arrangements to fund my trip, to witness the two brilliant students rock that stage and to experience one of the most prestigious holistic tech conferences on the planet. It starts in five days.
What the SPANISH embassy handed me was their country’s name with a silent S: PAIN. I feel really bad, because the reasons they gave me are BS. Yes, BS. They claimed “reasonable doubts” that I would not leave their country before my visa expires. LoL. I have a job that I love, colleagues I wouldn’t trade for anything, and a boss who is just heavenly (even though I don’t know what heavenly is). I definitely would come back. I have a family to love and take care of. I definitely would come back.
And I know, if you have been through this, you’d say none of that matters to them. But yeah, here I am, feeling bad that I am not going to MozFest. Maybe I will sometime; maybe I won’t. But for now, I will dust myself off, because I must. I will feel bad, because I must. I will suck it up, because I must.
Let me ask for that double shot of tequila, because I must.
Check out kamilimu.org and bh-consulting.co.ke. Two loves of my life :)