WARNING TRAVELLERS TO KENYA!!!!!

If you are returning from a trip from Kenya make sure you have a current
yellow fever inoculation certificate.

I returned to Johannesburg on the 11.30pm flight dressed in full tropical splendour to weather cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey and I stood in line with my wife at the back of the queue.

Everybody in front of us went through without any problems and without being asked for their yellow fever cards except us by the counter lady who seemed to be suffering from a bad dose of Hitlerian tendencies or maybe PMS.
I was amazed because I had spent 2 hours on a fast internet ISDN line seeking information on all the relevant sites as to the requirements for Kenya travel. The only topic that came up was Malaria.

We were brusquely and very vaguely directed to the Dept. of Health offices supposedly open 24 hours a day - which they were not. After a long wait the offices were opened and the injections administered at the incredible cost of R360-00 each. Failure to do so would entail 6 days spent in quarantine AT OWN OWN EXPENSE!!!

A perusal of the WHO site on yellow fever advises against the inoculations for young babies AIDS sufferers and persons 60 years old and upwards. I am 62 and cannot help wondering what will happen to me over the next two weeks.

The story does not end here - we were now locked in the airport. To cut a very very long story short we eventually got out of the place at 2.30am. At one stage in sheer desperation I considered holding my cigarette lighter under the sprinkler system to elicit some form of response which no doubt would have landed me in jail.

I can now feel flu symptoms coming on -is it flu malaria or reaction to the yellow fever injection?? So I am now off to my doctor.

I have this nagging feeling that the injection centre is a private company delegated by the Dept. Of Health to administer inoculations and the lady at the passport counter acts as their pimp to generate a steady flow of captive and unsuspecting customers. Some would call it blackmail.

According to my passport and my wife's we are still not back in South Africa - more trouble to come when we leave the country?

Some time back a German tourist to Kenya was badly treated by Kenyan immigration officials, he sent out e-mails to all the German tourist companies with the result that it took three years for German tourists to come back to Kenya. Our officials should be aware that with the internet it is a small world and they could pick on the wrong person. Fortunately I believe our tourism industry has the potential to create many much needed jobs and I promote this country at every opportunity.