I had a hell of a layover in Jomo Kenyatta airport the other day, 6 hours waiting for a 1 hour flight, and after a night flight too. All because Rwanda, regional capital of all things ICT, has a national airline that cannot cope with the codeshare partners etickets. Hmph!
Instead of trying to find a comfortable piece of concrete on which to get some kip, I paid the 20$ and crashed out in one of the First Class lounges for a while. Admittedly part of this decision was in order to get away from an extremely grabby Indian colleague at KIST who also happened to be transiting through NBO that day. I’ve known him for most of my two years at KIST but at some point in the recent past, he has decided that its totally acceptable to handle me like some woman who hangs out at hotel bars looking for customers. Its really infuriating.
So after a while, I emerge from the refuge of the lounge to take a poke at the duty free shops. I run into grabby Indian talking with some other passenger in one of the main waiting areas. The other is a tall attractive guy with some kind of strangulated American accent who claims to be from Botswana. Neither his look or his accent fit with this, but who I am to judge?
He claimed to be held up on route to some UN job in Juba, South Sudan. He later said he’d missed a connection the day before and had slept in the airport. I thought at the time he looked remarkably fresh given that fact. I mentioned that Kenya Airways should have given him accommodation and he claims he knows that now but didn’t think to ask. So he toddles off and I check into the final waiting area – the one just before you board the flight.
Some time later, a lady working in the airport says I have a friend who wants to talk to me outside. I can see someone waving outside the glass but can’t see clearly who it is till I get back out past the hand luggage screening area. Its none other than our lost UN guy, claiming he has no money and can I lend him 2$ to check his email. Hmm…this was definitely being to feel like a scam.
On the other hand, many young Africans going to jobs or study abroad don’t have the means to travel with much cash, so they have no margin for error…if there’s a flight delay you go hungry, its not as if they have credit cards, bank cards, travellers cheques or a reverse charge call to home to use as back up! So I decide to err on the side of niceness and hand him 200 bob (200KES about $3.50). Then he asks for my email address, so I think maybe he is genuine…until I see where he asks me to write it. He presents the front page of the book he is reading, where there are scrawled at least half a dozen other email address in a haphazard fashion. Come to think of it the book looked pretty new too!
On the plane, I ask grabby Indian what the deal with the guy his. He says the guy told him that he actually got to Sudan but the paperwork wasn’t in order so he got thrown back.
“Work for UN and paper not in order?”, says the grabby Indian, “Impossible!”
So, two different stories, definitely a scam. Perhaps his final destination was Nairobi and hanging out at the airport for a while proved a lucrative venture. Wonder what he is going to do with my email address?
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