Times, They Are a Changin...

Well, a lot has happened in the past two weeks. I do not even know where to start. Things have been really crazy, that is for sure. I guess I should start at the beginning…sort of.

My wife, daughter, and our friend Diana were supposed to arrive here on July 8th at around 10:00pm. Unfortunately their flight was delayed in DFW and they ended up missing there connecting flight to Nairobi. That really sucks, but we can work around it. British Airways was a real pain in the butt to deal with, which is surprising. We actually pay a bit more for BA as their service is usually so good. Anyhoo, after 8 hours of trying to catch another flight, BA FINALLY agrees to provide a hotel room. Nothing like 8 hours of overnight flight with a 10 month old and be stuck in an airport for another day. So prior to arriving at the hotel, they are given two options. One, they can fly to Dar ES Salam (Tanzania) and catch their own ride up to Nairobi (probably would have cost us about $1500 extra) which is a far cry from their non-stop first-class seats from Heathrow to Nairobi. The second option is to try and catch a standby flight the next day. Get a hotel room and it is a no-brainer…right? Wrong.

BA, in their infinite wisdom, does not release the tickets to them until 20 minutes prior to departure…and they have yet to go through security. My wife was begging them to let them go earlier to no avail, even though the tickets are in view and ready to roll. As their luck had it, security was backed up and they missed a second flight. At this point, I am fuming mad at BA, my wife is in tears, my daughter is screaming and crying, and we have probably spent a house payment on international calls trying to get this thing figured out. BA brings up their option of flying to Dar again, and I feel like they can shove it up their butt! So, after about another 8 hours of hanging out at their customer service desk, they get the idea that they can fly to Johannesburg then catch a flight to Nairobi… It is an 8 hour flight from London to Nairobi. It is a 15 hour flight from London to Johannesburg and another 6 hours back up to Nairobi. This was their final option and we had to take it. So, instead of arriving on Wednesday evening, they arrived in Friday evening, looking REALLY tired. It was all worthwhile when my daughter waved and screamed “Da Da” when she saw me.

The part that really sucks….two things actually sucked. One, my wife fell prey to a scam in South Africa. Seems that the flight crew and the ground crew are in on it and a lot of the other airlines and airports are familiar with it. They make you take your carryon and check it in once you get on the plane. They will claim it is too heavy or something similar, but it is all crap. What they do is document what is in it upon scanning it, the stewardess claims it is too heavy, they take it under the plane and then rip off everything they can that is inside it. It is really sad, but my wife lost a LOT of stuff out of her carryon. That is very much like being diagnosed with cancer and having the doctor kick you in the crotch after dropping the news. Of course, all of this is discovered within 30 minutes of arriving to their new home…

The second thing that sucked was that only one bag came through. It took four trips to the Nairobi airport and exactly one week to get all of our belongings to Nairobi. I do not know what else could have gone wrong with this flight…other than they disposed of all my daughters’ baby food at security and there was nothing to be bought at the airport.

Ok, so we have the traveling behind us. Time to get our ducks in a row, right? Wrong. Dead wrong.

Upon arriving here, I was supposed to start working immediately. That was the entire reason for me leaving early (six weeks) and having my wife come meet me here. Well, one thing led to another and I never did get employment started. The day after my wife arrived here in Nairobi, the entire project I was working on was canceled…last minute. In addition, the guy running the project turned out to be a huge flake and left us without any other options. Ok, so here we are in a third-world country, do not know anyone (other than the flake), do not have a job, just moved my entire family here plus animals (about $30K all said and done), and no prospects of a job either. Just got a car, bought a ton of crap to furnish our apartment and now have very limited cash flow…crap.

We got on the horn and now have plane tickets to the UAE (Sharja, just North of Dubai). My wife and I are both looking to interview while being there and if it works out, will move to our third country in three months. Things are still up in the air right now but we are trying to maintain our optimism. I still like Nairobi a lot and enjoy living here. Earning an income, unfortunately, is a high priority no matter where we live and that well seems to have dried up with the flake. Re-learned a very valuable lesson: NEVER EVER DEPEND ON ANYONE ELSE OTHER THAN YOURSELF! YOU WILL ALWAYS GET SCREWED!!!