Face to face with ugly East African borders
Nov 18, 2004
THE INSIDE PERSPECTIVE<br><br>ARUSHA— A sleep accident this week brought me face to face with the bitter reality of the need to banish East African borders sooner than later.
THE INSIDE PERSPECTIVE
Ona Ekomoloit
ARUSHA— A sleep accident this week brought me face to face with the bitter reality of the need to banish East African borders sooner than later.
Monday morning, I was due to fly to Arusha, Tanzania, for duty aboard Kenya Airways.
President Yoweri Museveni, the indefatigable — today in Dar-es-Salaam — was due in Arusha, before detouring to Nairobi briefly yesterday.
My flight from Entebbe was set for 5:30am, which meant checking in at the wee hour of 3:00am.
I always catch flights even at such weird hours. This time, however, it was too little too late. I startled out of sleep precisely at the time the plane was taking off: 5:30!
Bewildered, I nonetheless hit the road to Entebbe airport hoping for some aviation miracle.
The next flight to Nairobi at 9:00am was no problem. The snag was that by the time it would touch down at Jomo Kenyatta airport an hour later, both the available connecting flights to Kilimanjaro airport in Arusha — the first at 8:00am and the next at 10:00 — would have left.
As if this was not chilling enough, I almost sank to my knees on being informed by the Kenya Airways airport desk that actually there would be no room on all the connecting flights from Nairobi until yesterday.
Me: Why is there no room on all KQ flights to Arusha till Thursday?
KQ Desk: All the flights on the small Precision Air plane we use on the Arusha route are fully booked?
Me: What about the Air Tanzania early morning Entebbe-Kilimanjaro flight?
Desk: We don't co-share routes with Air Tanzania. in any case that AT early morning flight was suspended.
Me: Oh my God! So what options do I have?
Desk: You take the 9 o’clock flight to Nairobi, and then wait for the 6 o’clock connecting flight to Kilimanjaro BUT via Dar-es-Salaam! Alternatively, you get to Nairobi and travel by road to Arusha — approximately 270km.
Quick mental work showed I would reach Arusha much earlier by taking the land option. At most, I counted on doing it in three hours, which would surely put me in Arusha not beyond 6pm when the flight would just be leaving Nairobi.
Well, it was never to be.
On advice, I booked a shuttle bus drive, supposedly on account of safety and cost too. The flip side was that the shuttle to Arusha has two departure hours: 8:00 am and 2:00pm. The earlier having left long before I got to Nairobi, I had no choice but leave at 2:00.
For starters, the shuttle, with a glittering exterior, turned out to be nothing more than a squeaky 24-seater bus. Since passengers have to fill immigration forms while crossing borders, the shuttle had a sticker, Flight No.TZQ7376. What a misnomer because the shuttle was far from flying. It was groaning and crawling.
The ticket inspector obviously knew it was a raw deal. So before flagging us off, he purported that we would get a “much bigger shuttle†at the border. It was three long hours before we reached Namanga Border Post, some 160km away.
Then it was time for the Kenya-Tanzania border, artificial as it is — separating Masai from Masai — to show its ugly face. In addition to checking travel papers, border officials opened and checked every piece of luggage. It took us one hour to be cleared. I hated to imagine how long it took those travelling in big buses. What about the trailer drivers with enormous paper work?
Fortunately, we indeed got on a different ‘flight’ for the Namanga-Arusha leg. Flight No. ARY 336 was not any bigger, as the inspector had alleged. It was only faster. So we made it to Arusha in one hour.
In all, a journey from Entebbe to Arusha meant to have taken two hours at most, turned into six hours, thanks to poor flight connections and artificial borders.
Clearly, East African presidents meeting in Arusha later this month have their work cut out as they seek to fast track the political federation of the region. There is need to make Arusha, at present the regional capital, more easily accessible from all corners of the impending federation.
Above all, the borders must go so that East Africans freely move and open their minds to each other. In this direction, the immigration departure form at Entebbe airport gives false excitement.
The form is issued in the name of East Africa. I expected the same at Nairobi airport. Alas! The Nairobi one was still screaming out in the name of the Republic of Kenya.
Similarly, the immigration form at Namanga was still referring to Tanzania.
Then there was the four-word question from the immigration officials reminding one that we are still far from being citizen of East Africa.
“How long are staying,†the officials religiously asked?
Ona Ekomoloit
ARUSHA— A sleep accident this week brought me face to face with the bitter reality of the need to banish East African borders sooner than later.
Monday morning, I was due to fly to Arusha, Tanzania, for duty aboard Kenya Airways.
President Yoweri Museveni, the indefatigable — today in Dar-es-Salaam — was due in Arusha, before detouring to Nairobi briefly yesterday.
My flight from Entebbe was set for 5:30am, which meant checking in at the wee hour of 3:00am.
I always catch flights even at such weird hours. This time, however, it was too little too late. I startled out of sleep precisely at the time the plane was taking off: 5:30!
Bewildered, I nonetheless hit the road to Entebbe airport hoping for some aviation miracle.
The next flight to Nairobi at 9:00am was no problem. The snag was that by the time it would touch down at Jomo Kenyatta airport an hour later, both the available connecting flights to Kilimanjaro airport in Arusha — the first at 8:00am and the next at 10:00 — would have left.
As if this was not chilling enough, I almost sank to my knees on being informed by the Kenya Airways airport desk that actually there would be no room on all the connecting flights from Nairobi until yesterday.
Me: Why is there no room on all KQ flights to Arusha till Thursday?
KQ Desk: All the flights on the small Precision Air plane we use on the Arusha route are fully booked?
Me: What about the Air Tanzania early morning Entebbe-Kilimanjaro flight?
Desk: We don't co-share routes with Air Tanzania. in any case that AT early morning flight was suspended.
Me: Oh my God! So what options do I have?
Desk: You take the 9 o’clock flight to Nairobi, and then wait for the 6 o’clock connecting flight to Kilimanjaro BUT via Dar-es-Salaam! Alternatively, you get to Nairobi and travel by road to Arusha — approximately 270km.
Quick mental work showed I would reach Arusha much earlier by taking the land option. At most, I counted on doing it in three hours, which would surely put me in Arusha not beyond 6pm when the flight would just be leaving Nairobi.
Well, it was never to be.
On advice, I booked a shuttle bus drive, supposedly on account of safety and cost too. The flip side was that the shuttle to Arusha has two departure hours: 8:00 am and 2:00pm. The earlier having left long before I got to Nairobi, I had no choice but leave at 2:00.
For starters, the shuttle, with a glittering exterior, turned out to be nothing more than a squeaky 24-seater bus. Since passengers have to fill immigration forms while crossing borders, the shuttle had a sticker, Flight No.TZQ7376. What a misnomer because the shuttle was far from flying. It was groaning and crawling.
The ticket inspector obviously knew it was a raw deal. So before flagging us off, he purported that we would get a “much bigger shuttle†at the border. It was three long hours before we reached Namanga Border Post, some 160km away.
Then it was time for the Kenya-Tanzania border, artificial as it is — separating Masai from Masai — to show its ugly face. In addition to checking travel papers, border officials opened and checked every piece of luggage. It took us one hour to be cleared. I hated to imagine how long it took those travelling in big buses. What about the trailer drivers with enormous paper work?
Fortunately, we indeed got on a different ‘flight’ for the Namanga-Arusha leg. Flight No. ARY 336 was not any bigger, as the inspector had alleged. It was only faster. So we made it to Arusha in one hour.
In all, a journey from Entebbe to Arusha meant to have taken two hours at most, turned into six hours, thanks to poor flight connections and artificial borders.
Clearly, East African presidents meeting in Arusha later this month have their work cut out as they seek to fast track the political federation of the region. There is need to make Arusha, at present the regional capital, more easily accessible from all corners of the impending federation.
Above all, the borders must go so that East Africans freely move and open their minds to each other. In this direction, the immigration departure form at Entebbe airport gives false excitement.
The form is issued in the name of East Africa. I expected the same at Nairobi airport. Alas! The Nairobi one was still screaming out in the name of the Republic of Kenya.
Similarly, the immigration form at Namanga was still referring to Tanzania.
Then there was the four-word question from the immigration officials reminding one that we are still far from being citizen of East Africa.
“How long are staying,†the officials religiously asked?