What year is this?

Now that we are firmly into February it is time once again to visit. Not friends but offices. Every year the paper chase gets going in February. Now some with a Western mindset would think that the best time to start a year is at the start of the year. That makes sense but it just doesn't work here. Schools are out in January so anyone with a government job is at home from early December to just after Groundhog's Day. Which just happens to be my older brother Rob's birthday. (Happy Birthday Rob!) But that is not important. It's also the day that those government workers start filtering back to the offices, so it is my day to start the hunt again for the elusive land lease.

The lease, like the animal mentioned above, will burrow to the bottom of any pile of papers it can find(the groundhog, not my brother Rob). Must be true since no living person in any office has seen my lease application. Not just since last year but ever! Even the gentleman who greeted me so warmly "Ah, my friend, how have you been? Has it been a year already?" When asked about the lease that I put in his hands last year says he has never seen it. I didn't believe him until I saw a pile of papers scurry out the door. Now I don't know what to think.

Walking away feeling discouraged but strangely upbeat at the idea of kicking back and waiting for Rob's birthday 2012, I bumped into a friend at the Resident District Commissioner's office. He is not the RDC but knows him well enough to throw his weight around, a little. Mr Nyanzi escorted me from office to office trying to track the lease. I had to laugh when the young lady in one office said,"Pastor, stop your friend, he is being harsh on me." This young woman had earlier made me stand in her office for over an hour as she leafed through the entry book looking for my filing date. I tried to help her but she got huffy and said that people were not allowed to touch the "BOOK". I watched in amazement as every time she came near my entry date she turned two pages not just one. Now my friend made her turn one page at a time and low and behold there it was. NO, not the lease but the entry date. Now with that and a simple fee of 2,500 shilings I can get a cup of coffee but the lease is still lost.

In one office they asked me if all my fees had been paid. I told them, yes, but only up to last time I saw the lease in 2010. Not to worry, they assured me. You are ahead. You don't pay for this year until next year and last year wasn't supposed to be paid until the end of this year. And because this is an election year nobody is paying until they know who the boss will be!

But I have been assured that the lease will be found by next week. Something to do with Equatorial Vermin Day. Or the president's brother's birthday whichever comes first.


Do not fear however. I have been assured that the lease will be found by Monday. That is bittersweet news as I would love to get our lease officially but then I wouldn't have any excuse to visit all my friends.