I’M OFF TO THE BENIN CONSULATE

I have 5 weeks till I leave on my 2.5 month trip of West Africa and it was time to get serious about getting the last of my visas.  I wasn’t able to get my Sierra Leone or Ivory Coast up until last week as I had been waiting on letters from the tour company that has to accompany our application.  As I have mentioned before I am not sure how Australians would these wacky visas from Australia with such a short amount of time.  I just checked online and the Consulate of Sierra Leone opened in New South Wales last year, but there is no Ivory Coast representation in Australia.  I would hate to be the travel agent on that booking that is for sure.  My 10 week tour is broken up into 3 sections and after receiving the letters from the tour company I can see how many people are on 2 of the 3 sections.  Apparently there are 7 of us doing the whole 10 weeks.  The second section there are 8 people including myself and broken down there are 3 Kiwi’s, 3 Brits, a Canadian and me as the token Australian which is a great looking group and there are 4 gals and 4 guys which is also a great makeup…..  I’m happy with that and the last section there are 11 people including myself and that broken down by nationality is 1 Canadian, 3 Kiwi’s, 4 Brits and the Aussies get better representation with 3 of us.  I think groups of 10+ are a great size and I am just glad there is not less than that and again the male/female ratio is 5-6, which is pretty cool as most of the tours I have done there has definitely been more girls than guys.  I wonder if it is because of the destination that guys feel they can’t do that part of the world on their own.  Who knows but I like the looks of the group already and let’s just hope that they are all nice people!

So I have 4 weeks to get the remaining visas, as I am in the Masai Mara next week for 7 nights, so I lose a week there and decided to try and get 2 visas this week and then it leaves only one visa left to get upon my return.  I had contacted the 3 Consulates back in May and got all the information, opening times, validity and costs of the respective consulates and I DOUBLE checked that they issue visas for Australian passport holders that ARE NOT residents on Kenya.  It was all go and there didn’t seem to be anything too difficult for any of the processes.  As I am still paying for taxi’s I wanted to get the most out each trip and decided that Benin worked in best first as it is only open 3 days a week and takes 2 days to issue.  Then when we pick up Benin on Thursday, hoping that the traffic isn’t too bad, we will drop off my passport at the Ivory Coast on the same day and they take 24 hours to issue their visa and I will be able to pick it up on Friday so I will have my passport for my Masai trip and then Sierra Leone will be the last one…..  It feels great to have a plan and today Steve and I were off to Benin.

The Benin Consulate is only open 3 days a week on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays and only between 9.30am til 12.30pm.  The small window of opportunities was part of the reason in getting this one first.  I got Steve to pick me up at 9.30am-no-one wants to serve some-one right on the doors opening so we figured if I go there around 10.30am that it wouldn’t seem too keen and nobody wants to piss off a consulate, they are the visa Gods and hold all the cards literally in to gaining access to their country.  Based on the timing of the morning and Nairobi’s notorious traffic, Steve took us a way that we hadn’t driven before to avoid the city traffic.  It took us by the edges of Pangani, which I did have an address of an apartment to checkout when I first moved here which GG promptly crossed off the list, past Machakos Airport, which is where all the local busses leave from to the rest of Kenya, past some large local markets and through the outskirts of Eastleigh, one of the roughest suburbs of Nairobi.  We passed a lot of lower economic areas and Steve even wound my window up and advised me to put my bag on the floor as a precaution as even during the day time it can be unsafe and at night time this place is dangerous even for locals, let alone mzungu’s during the day.  There were obviously no mzungu’s this part of town and Steven said that it would be unusual and unsafe for us to walk around these parts.  We got caught in pockets of bad traffic, but we found the consulate, just behind Nakumatt Mega in the industrial area, and the street where the consulate was located was in car part heaven.  It seemed an unusual place to have a consulate, and you wouldn’t know it was even there except for the small sign on the outer building 2^nd floor height and a dirty looking Benin flag tangled on a pole protruding from the 2^nd floor also.  But we found it okay and with Steve dropping me out front, I climbed the 2 flights of stairs hoping I was heading in the right direction as there was a small sign on 1^st floor as reassurance but no directions, I just knew from the address I had written down that it was on the second floor.              

Once I got to the second floor there was no signage for the Benin Consulate but there was a table with a lady sitting behind it and signage for a consultation firm that lead into another room.  Not knowing where to go, puffing after climbing 2 flights of stairs I asked for the Benin Consulate and she said I had found it.  There wasn’t much of a smile there, but I asked for a form and told to take a seat in the other room to fill in the form.  I have applied for my share of visas in my time, for myself and also for clients and I believe the more information you have the better.  I have a West Africa folder that has spare photocopies of my passport, copies of my ticket, my yellow fever vaccination and from the last 2 visas a few copies of my bank statement.  Including all my receipts, my full itinerary (which Dragoman do a magnificent job) and anything else I can think of was in that folder and I felt prepared.  There were men in suits coming and going and I was given a book to lean on for the form.  It was a pretty easy form and when I had completed it I handed it back in and was told to take a seat again.  She served someone else quickly and then asked for my supporting documents which included my passport, my yellow fever certificate and my letter of employment. Um…..my what?  Well my stomach dropped thinking this could be a problem and I told the woman that I am not working.  The look on her face, let’s just say looked at me a little sceptical and I told her that I had a bank statement if that would suffice, which she took and told me to take a seat again as she took my stuff, presumably to get it checked.  It must have been okay as she came back out and handed me a small piece of paper that had the consulates bank account details and I had to deposit the money direct into their account and bring back the receipt.  Great (not).  But she told me the bank was just a 5 minute walk away, so I phoned Steven to tell him what I was doing and he said he would come with me, which was sweet, and she was right it was only a short ride walk away.  I was able to deposit the money in USD, got my receipt and with my bodyguard Steve we walked back to the consulate where I was given a receipt for my receipt and told to come back in 2 days at 11am for collection.  The lady had warmed up some, and gave me a smile, so I risked the question if I could come earlier as I had to get my passport to the Ivory Coast on Thursday afternoon and she said that would be fine.  Let see if it actually will be ready earlier or not.    

So it was a painless process and it was as simple as they had made out when I enquired on the phone 2 months ago.  Thank-you Benin for your help, let’s hope the Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone are just as easy.