I visited an old fashion embassy this week, something I had not done in almost three years. It was a mansion in a leafy suburb with registration books and guards who confiscate phones as they give directions.
I sat among a group of silent people in a circular garden, only speaking to ask whose turn it was to next go to the reception area and plead, through a one-way glass window, for a visa to travel to another African country.
A good thing about the small embassies, unlike visa processing centres of larger embassies, is they can tell you how complete your documents are, before they accept your application fees and passport. But a drawback was they don’t accept mobile money, and I had to go a kilometre away to get cash from an ATM to pay for the visa.
The week also had an official update from Washington DC on the bilateral strategic talks between the USA and Kenya that was full of pledges to cooperate on regional peace, defence, trade and combating terrorism.
I first went to the US Embassy to apply for a visa for my undergraduate studies. The building was in Nairobi CBD at the corner of the railway roundabout. The embassy had two associated centres nearby; one was an academic office in Cargen House which advised prospective students on different colleges to apply for, and another was a library in the National Bank building where you could walk in and read books and browse magazines.
The facilities were relatively open, and only the Embassy had some security, perhaps on the level of a government building today.
The USA was not the only one that put a friendly happy face on their culture as an export. Britain, France, and Germany all had libraries and cultural centres in downtown Nairobi with language learning classes, examination services and promotional materials.
But after the US Embassy was demolished in a bomb attack in 1998, its operations briefly relocated to a house in Spring Valley where they continued to process visa applications. They then moved to Mombasa Road where the Ole Sereni Hotel is today, before relocating to Gigiri.
After the British Commission moved from the four floors it occupied at Bruce House to a larger complex in Upper Hill, the British Council later followed to an adjacent site. There, one could read books, listen to CDs, and browse the internet. It had cool events such as “Wapi” where people performed songs, rap, recited poetry or painted graffiti and art on the walls.
These days more embassies have outsourced their visitors to visa processing centres that collect and return the documents of applicants. You pay sizeable fees before they accept your documents and, often, Europe and the US embassies have interview appointments that are only available long after the dates that people intended to travel and attend graduation, conference or wedding ceremonies.
What does the future hold for travelling across Africa? South Africa shows the progression that is possible. When I first visited the country in 2006, I applied for a visa at their High Commission on Lenana Road. For subsequent trips, applications were done at a visa processing centre that was sometimes cumbersome.
But from January 2023, Kenyans going to South Africa can get visas on arrival, finally reciprocating a service that Kenya has offered to South Africans for many years.
Visa-free or visa-on-arrival travel is championed by the African Union which seeks to reduce restrictions on Africans for travel within Africa, to boost trade, business opportunities, knowledge, and tourism among other benefits.
The Africa Visa Openness Index Report 2022 from the African Development Bank notes that just three countries Benin, The Gambia, and Seychelles offer visa-free access to all African nationals. 14 countries offer visas on arrival to citizens of at least 35 other African countries and 24 African countries now offer e-visas (electronic visas) in which applicants apply for permission on secure online platforms before they board a plane. These should be the norm for more travel across Africa.
