Sort of wound up in “work” mode and perhaps after one too many glasses of champagne, I offered this fabulous talk-show diva advice (initially unsolicited, then embraced, with gusto) on marketing, branding, and “taking it to the next level.” (I had spent the day helping the team here invent, name, brand a new newspaper.) If I’ve learned nothing else after two months in Africa, “moving up” is what everyone seems to be trying to do these days, on one level or another. Maybe it’s all anyone has ever aspired to, now that I think about it.

Her show, “Moments with Mo,” has been on national cable for three years, and has just gone regional. The first two years, she says, were stage-fright city. I said fear not, I grew up watching “A.M. Chicago” and Oprah wasn’t always the smooth operator she appears today. She too had to start somewhere on the road to becoming a global megabrand!

Mo – stylish, articulate and energetic – was eager to hear my thoughts on where to go next. Continental expansion of her show! Clothing lines! I told her to go for the gold. My Chicago connection was not lost on her in any way, so she assumed I was the pipeline to Oprahtivity. Here’s some of my advice I shared with la Mo:

• OK, so you too are all about inspiration and empowerment. Forget “Moments with Mo,” I said. Sunset that title, reinvent yourself and the show, and go with “Mo!mentum” (or “Momentum!”) for your new platform.
• Spice up the brand, get a new logo, start that blog! (True, difficult in Nigeria, with the internet working about 5% of the time, but people, we are dreaming the big dreams here.)
• Africa still loves newspapers, so start an advice column. Be the Nigerian of Nigerians and get up in everyone’s face! (In a nice way, of course.)
• So you want to get Oprah’s attention. Don’t think small, woman! Open a girl’s school. In Lincoln Park. In Chicago.
• Further, take your lead from Oprah, and title your production studio your name spelled backward. Forget Harpo Studios – what could be more inspirational, more balanced and centered, than Om Inc.©
• But don’t stop there – demand must exist for “mO – The Magazine©.”
• If you really want to go for it, change your name. Hello, Moprah!

I can’t wait to see what comes next for Nigeria’s Oprah, and look forward to connecting with her on my return travels there later this year. (Warning to my friends Todd and Kristyn at CBS Channel 2 in Chicago – and my Poynter broadcast friends Jill and Al – and probably Kelly, too – you will be asked to review Mo’s programs if I can get them on DVD at some point. Stay tuned!)

Fun links: check out her website here!

My concerns (randomly): Has someone watered the plants back home? Will I owe any fines for late fees from bills stacking up? Am I getting fat from too much time at the breakfast buffet? How much of an ordeal will getting my Nigerian visa be? Do I have the time/energy to work up and submit that weeks-overdue invoice? Where’s the number for the florist in LaPorte? My laptop mouse is dying. My driver’s late – again. Can I possibly continue to wear the six same shirts and four pairs of pants for another 12 days? I just realized, I’ve hardly drank any milk (normally a staple for me) for six weeks.

Osir’s concerns (observed/overheard): How to pay the 800 shillings rent per month ($12 U.S.) How to send the oldest kids to their first year of private school (1000 shillings per month). Sunday dinner: a pot of boiled navy beans, leftover from a February donation by the Red Cross following the post-election violence. (The cost of meat was prohibitive even before the current runaway inflation on food prices.) Pre-paid credit on the cheap mobile Safaricom phone is getting low. Health care for six young kids, including the one who caught malaria a short time back. The “front door” lock is actually a latch, which is actually missing. Damn that glass of moonshine tasted nasty.

Just some food – and moonshine and technology and politics and room & board – for thought. Watch this space for more on Kibera after I wrap my brain around it a little more.

Links: Previous photo album of Kibera scenics. Previous album of Kibera’s kids.

1. American stationed in Kenya on business is told that a new assignment in *** has come through. “You need a visa to get in. It may not be easy.” Options: send my passport back to Washington, DC, with tons of paperwork and hope for the best, in a very short amount of time … or … research options for taking care of things from Kenya.
2. An online search is not easy. It turns up what seems to be an official application form for a visa, but no information on where to process it. Form is filled out. Quest continues for information on the *** embassy or consulate.
3. Eventually a dogged web search finds a site for the *** High Commission on Lenana Road, Nairobi. No specific street address. I need to know things like cost, and hours of operation. Several phone numbers are listed on the site. None works.
4. Phone call to directory assistance yields yet another number. A recording there states: “Sorry, this number is temporarily disabled.”
5. I make a plan to just visit Lenana Road and hope for the best. But first, I need up to 4 passport photos, to attach to the visa applications. (Egypt required the same thing and never asked for it, but I figure, better safe than sorry.)
6. I visit a chemist (pharmacy) near my hotel where I noticed a flier for passport photos. A druggist fumbles about for a circa-1998 digital camera with failing battery, throws an old sheet on the wall, and I try to strike a non-terrorist pose. He fusses with the camera for 25 minutes to produce what I thought were tolerable passport photos.
7. My current client graciously excuses me from a busy morning – my own Powerpoint presentation to the chairman and executive committee – so I can make my visa application in person. They provide a car and driver to Lenana Road.
8. We are early. A man emerges from a 3-foot high door in a solid steel gate (think Emerald City but not as friendly) to say: “Come back in 10 minutes!” I sit in the car and chat with my Kenyan driver, Richard.
9. After 10 o’clock, I make my way in and register at a guardhouse. I enter the office where a secretary looks at my formal application, printed off the Internet, and says: “what is this? I’ve never seen this before. Have a seat.” I wonder if I am at the *** High Commission. A nun is in line ahead of me; it’s my second confrontation with a suspicious nun on this extended journey. An omen.
10. The nun summons me to the gated window where a visa clerk (who actually seems to be the entire *** High Commission) is ready for my application. She refuses to give her name but I will call her Nancy because she turns out to be a Negative Nancy, though I suppose there is little chance that’s her real name. “What is this form?” I say it’s downloaded from what appeared to be the official Kenyan visa application site and I was trying to play by the rules. “It’s not often used.” Harrumph. “Why are you going to ***? Why are you here in Kenya? What’s the deal with this passport photo? It looks so bad. You look terrible!” (Raised eyebrows.)
11. Alarmed, Nancy points out that my passport has dangerously few pages left for visas. Someone has been traveling too much. “I highly suggest you go to the American Embassy right now and have them add more pages. It’s easy, they’ll do it quickly.” Is it near here? “No, it’s at the United Nations. (Across town.) Go there and come back.”
12. My driver is sympathetic, even though he is trying to plan the funeral for his mother who died two days ago. We dive into the terrible, typically Kenyan traffic to United Nations Road. I try not to think about the report in The Nation on Sunday about American interests in Nairobi being on high alert for terrorism after the U.S. wiped out an al Qaeda operative in Somalia. This whole ordeal is just an annoying and earnest (though Oscar-worthy) George Clooney movie waiting to happen.
13. I arrive at the Embassy guard station and state my request. “You are too late.” It’s 11:15 a.m., and such requests are only reviewed until 10 a.m., and then again after 1. “But I must resolve this and return to the *** people before they shut their doors at 12:30. This is the last day I can do this or my trip is in jeopardy. I’m stuck.”
14. The Kenyans at this guard station, and a second, eventually show sympathy.  (They really are sweet people overall.) No guarantees, but we will call inside and state your case, and see if they can make an exception. After a 15 minute wait, it’s no dice. The official whose salary I am essentially paying has the time to listen to my appeal on the phone, but refuses to leave her desk for 2 minutes to come down and glue some pages into my passport, smoothing over my business with ***. Come back at 1. Sorry. (Your tax dollars NOT at work.)
15. Back in the hot car in a seat with the broken springs and into Nairobi traffic. Back to the *** High Consulate to insist that the final two pages be utilized for my visa. I tell Nancy, please deal with this, I can solve the problem of the additional pages back at home. (I assume this will be costly and a hassle there as well).
16. Nancy raises eyebrows again – they are in danger of spraining. Reluctantly she takes my passport again and says, “you can pay.” She takes my 18,000 Kenyan shillings ($300). I can come back later in the week to pick it up (presumably if this blog entry hasn’t been discovered, endangering my good graces with ***).
17. Check back here for update by end of week to see if I’ll be on my way to *** soon.

* * *

This isn’t the most annoying bureaucracy I’ve run into in my travels or life, but it was annoying nonetheless. I take deep breaths, recollect my armchair Buddhism training, and realize that things could always be worse. As I’ve done a lot lately in Kenya, it’s a good time to count my blessings. Despite the frustrations, at least I have cause to seek a visa to an exotic country, which suggests a decent if not steady living. I had a driver provided to cart me around instead of having to use taxi or the dreaded Kenyan matatus (gypsy minivan taxis). It could have been raining. The embassy could have been bombed. Unlike Richard, my driver, I didn’t have to juggle work and funeral planning for a family member. As with everything in life, aggravation is relative.

P.S. The reason I substituted *** for the actual name of the country above is because I am told it is often difficult to impossible for journalists to enter the country. Though I won’t be acting in any capacity there as such, best not to aggravate the situation. Stranger things have happened to me than a country like this finding my blog post and denying me entry!

• In Kenya, to state that I am from Chicago, Illinois brings an immediate, positive and warm reaction from many people who know it as the current residence of part-Kenyan Barack Obama. Will you vote for him? Will he win? What about this Wright affair? Will it do him in? Would America ever really vote in a lady president? All are questions I’ve been getting. (Kenyans are intensely interested in their own politics as well, owning a particularly young democracy, and politics consumes the entire front page of the major papers each day, and a good deal of daily conversation.)



• In Egypt, Hamed (above), the driver of an airport shuttle lit up when he realized I was from the U.S., but asked with concern, and a raised eyebrow: “Are you for Bush?” Seemed like a trick question, but I figured a quick NO! was the best way to go. Who out in the rest of the world, and especially the middle east, would want you to be for Bush? I find in such situations I end up apologizing on behalf of our national system that allowed an idiot to be (erroneously) kept in office. I promise to do my part and vote Democrat in the fall. This leads to an impassioned plea for me to be his pen pal via email, so he can practice his English. Everyone wants to get ahead.



• Also in Egypt, at the gorgeous, sacred Muhammed Ali mosque in Cairo, a confrontation of a different kind: Yo-yo (his nickname), above, a young man who appears to be in his mid-20s (turns out to be 19), approaches me, starts speaking in Spanish. He is training to be a tour guide (as is half of Cairo, it seems) and is also studying Spanish, as the tour guides here know that carving out a niche with a certain nationality will increase demand for their services. He wanted someone to practice Spanish with. After loosening up for a minute or two, I dove into my broken basic-level Spanish (dusted off from a remote area of my brain, left there after my winter in Argentina) and had a nice 10-minute conversation. When they learn you are from the U.S., guys like this often get a wistful sort of look in their eye – obviously, they have discovered it can be an easier, more prosperous, more exciting type of life, filled with opportunity of all kind. (Thank you, Hollywood.) Finally he asks: “What is love like there?” Well, what do you tell a young man from a country where certain kinds of love are punishable by death? You feel dumb saying, well, it’s more free there, but maybe that’s just what he wants – confirmation of things he’s read or seen on the web, something to dream about or aspire to. We part ways, and every one of these encounters reminds one to be a little more grateful for the freedoms we do enjoy.

Other links:
My photo album from Cairo’s Citadel and gorgeous Muhammed Ali mosque.