Being a State Guest in Germany was more than dream come true. It was not once but twice, in 1999 and 2001 thanks to a junket by the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs through Goethe Institute in Nairobi.
The first offer was communicated to me in my office in Kisumu in November 1999, where I was serving as the Nation Bureau Chief. A phone call from my Managing Editor, Tom Mshindi, broke the news and informed me to prepare for the trip the following week as part of a team of 20 Anglophone African journalists invited to cover the opening of the Bundesrat, German Parliament, which coincided with the 10th anniversary of the fall of The Iron Curtain.
But there was a catch: did I have a valid Kenyan passport? Thank God my passport was in order. I was so honored and excited that I could not hide it; I shared that good news with my colleagues in the office immediately and with my wife and two children later at home.
The Iron Curtain
I felt like jumping in the air in celebration as that would be my maiden trip to that European country described as the economic powerhouse of Europe and the world.
Within the next two days, I traveled to Nairobi and the German Embassy as instructed by my boss to apply for a visa and be briefed on the itinerary, flight, accommodations, and other arrangements.
The diplomat who ushered me into his office treated me like royalty in his broken English and actions. He offered me refreshments as we got to know each other better before he switched to the main reason for my appointment.
Said the official: "You have been nominated by your media house together with a colleague from East African Standard Newspapers to join 20 other African journalists to travel to Germany for two weeks to cover the opening of our ultra-modern Bundesrat to Parliament."
With those few words, the envoy took me through step by step questionnaire asking me very personal questions like: have you ever visited Germany? if not, which cities, tourist attractions would you like to visit? are you a vegetarian? what is your hobby? what is your favorite entertainment? do you like sports, if so which ones? do you like music, if so which type? do you speak or understand the German Language? among others.
After the 30-minute meeting, I walked out of the Embassy, house at Williamson House, off Ngong Road, armed with my visa and round trip air ticket on Lufthansa airline.
Three days later I was at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport fully armed with my passport, yellow card certificate, and my luggage as I boarded the midnight flight to Frankfurt, the then German capital for the eight-hour flight with a brief stopover in De Gaulle International Airport in Paris, the French capital.
The Air France flight was one of the best I had enjoyed: opulence was everywhere in personal service by the crew, drinks, meals, and entertainment via radio and videos.
My colleague, Amos Marenya, sat a few rows behind me and we gave each other thumbs up as we enjoyed the flight.
On arrival at De Gaulle Airport, we walked together speaking our vernacular language, from the plane and headed to the connecting Lufthansa Airline flight. We used the two-hour stop at the lounge to walk around, do window shopping and take a short nap.
Our first cultural shock was to realize that we (blacks) were a minority, the whites were the majority; the other was French was the lingua franca. But just as we were started to enjoy a nap after finishing some snacks and drinks we had bought "to kill time," my colleague Marenya was jolted into reality, woke up, and rushed to wake me up saying our names have been called severally through the airport public address system appealing to us to rush to the exit and board our flight to Frankfurt or else be left behind.
Lingua franca
We did what Kenyans are best known for internationally; we sprinted to the exit just in time to board the flight panting and sweating profusely carrying our hand luggage as the round crew sighed in relief.
The two-hour flight was interesting but uneventful as the lingua franca switched to German, and just a handful of us were blacks in the fully loaded flight. On arrival at Frankfurt International Airport, we were welcomed by a team from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Goethe Institute.
We, the 20 African journalists, were then ushered to one hotel where our itinerary was shared with us by our assigned translators who doubled as tour guides. From there, we had a group dinner where we introduced ourselves, country, and media organizations before withdrawing to our respective rooms for the night.
The itinerary was very tight and hectic from the following day when we were on the electric train every other day touring and visiting a new city. The first stop was to Bonn, the headquarters of DW (Deutsche Welle) the German TV and radio headquarters, then to Stuttgart, the home of the Mercedes Benz automobile factory, which is one of the most popular and luxurious cars in the world.
While there, we asked the manager what was the most ridiculous request by any African leader for a Mercedes Benz 600 limousine; the answer was Libyan President, Muammar Gadhafi, who wanted “a car that respects him!”
Asked to elaborate, the official said the limousine had to have a roof with a sliding middle to allow the Libyan strong man and his companion to both enter and depart without bowing down and/or removing his hat or headgear!
Gadhafi and Mugabe’s Ridiculous Request
Another one was by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe who was accompanied by his wife during a State visit had rejected a gift of a set of toy Mercedes and demanded that they “give her a real Mercedes limo.” The top bosses consulted and caved in.
From there, we went by electric train to Munich, to visit the Olympic Stadium and BMW's fully automated automobile factory. It was while at the BMW that we were mesmerized by the robots, called Kuka, who were working side by side with engineers and artisans. But what also caught our attention was to see some of the engineers' enjoying a bottle of beer during their tea and lunch break!
Asked to explain, one of the supervisors said it was normal: "Here, we take alcohol as a refreshment, not to get high! The alcoholic content is also very low compared to yours."
We had the afternoon to enjoy the summer sunshine and drinks at the famous Beer Garten, where heavily built waitresses served us with 2-liter mugs of the frothy stuff plus nice yummy nyama choma (roast steak and pork).
The next stop was in Hamburg, one of the most beautiful cities I had ever visited, the gateway for the North Sea, and 70miled from the mouth of the Elbe River.
The Hamburg port is the largest in Europe and has over 3,500 bridges across the numerous arms of rivers and canals, the biggest in Europe. Its rival in Venice which has only 400.
While in Hamburg, the second-largest city in Germany, we were taken on a night tour of the famous St Pauli, well known as a world of nightclubs, bars, and a red light district with no closing time. Traffic jams went on throughout the night.
The red light district is called Reeparbah where everything sells from hard drugs, alcohol to sex. Hamburg has one of the biggest and ports in Germany and the world; we were taken for dinner at one of the most luxurious restaurants I had ever patronized strategically located on the harbor overlooking one of the highest bridges in the world.
Hamburg is Get Way to the World
The largest overseas ships dock there daily and gave Hamburg the name "gate to the world." We were also taken on a river tour in a boat of the most exclusive villas and palaces in that part of Germany. I was later invited for dinner by my mother to a German friend I had met in Nairobi and was shocked when she took me to a public cemetery as a tourist attraction!
Our visit coincided with The Hamburg Marathon, which was won by a Kenyan, as usual. But the runner-up, who was a German, received a bigger financial reward for some strange reasons to us African journalists, especially Marenya and me.
Finally, our electric continental train ride, which is licensed for a staggering 368Kmh, dropped us in Berlin where we spent five days. The inter-city train is licensed to run up to 300Kmh.
Electric train’s maximum speed is 368Kmh
It was during that stay that we visited the headquarters of Deutsche Welle (DW), the German local and international news organization, and we're interviewed live in their Kiswahili Service beamed to Eastern Africa.
We also visited Goethe Institute, during the mornings for lectures on German culture, politics, and history. It is downtown next to the famous Checkpoint Charlie, the former boundary of East Germany and West Germany, before the reunification in 1999. I saw and witnessed snow falling during one of those classes at the so-called “Goethe’s go easy seminars!”
We had the afternoons free to tour tourist attractions like the castle where European leaders met in 1884 at the Berlin Conference, to partition Africa between them and ushered in the era of colonialism.
The 13 European leaders also invited a representative from the United States of America.
We also went on a tour of one of the over 1,000 notorious Nazi concentration camps across the country set up by the German dictator Adolf Hitler, from 1933 to 1945, where he had sent thousands of Jews to their deaths in the worst genocide the world had seen by then.
The darkest side of German history
At one of the concentration camps, we saw the crude weapons and living quarters that Hitler and his sycophants had exposed Jews to en route to the killing fields. Skulls and bones of the victims were displayed on shelves, as foodstuffs are displayed in supermarkets. it was so shocking and depressing to see how evil one man can be to another in the name of politics and race.
The brighter side after the highly emotional concentration camp visit, was to an old castle, the palace of Schloss Sanssouci (French - free of care) built for Prussian King Frederick the Great, which was open as a tourist attraction.
The marvel was pitched on a hill and was surrounded by one of the most beautiful vineyards and garden of flowers I had ever imagined, leave alone seeing and visiting.
We joined a long queue of tourists waiting to step in what had previously been the preserve of royalty. Our tour guide paid for our entry asked us to wear special extra-sized house bathroom sleepers with our shoes on. Asked why we were told it was to protect the marble floors from the wear and tear!
Opulence at a former palace
The interior of the building, well-furnished rooms, and decorated walls was a scene to behold decades later after their owners had moved out. What caught my attention most was a secluded one-storied building at the corner of the huge compound. When I asked our tour guide, he told us it was a "painting’s house" for the king to display and store his paintings!
Another unique trip was to a Catholic church and monastery on the outskirts of Berlin where we were advised to go after the Sunday service because of the poor attendance by Germans.
And indeed, when we arrived 15 minutes early, we were shocked to see a handful of mostly elderly worshipers walking out of the beautiful age-old sanctuary. Our delegation was more than the worshipers! The Father in charge was excited and happy to take us on a conducted tour and gave us the history of the building that was over 200 years old.
We winded our tour at a theatre to watch an International South African musical group perform a day after we had been taken to the cabaret. During my second trip to Germany to cover the Elections of the Chancellor, for two weeks, we were not booked in hotels but linked to selected German families to stay with them, learn the culture and language first hand.
The good news was relayed to me in my Kisumu office, by Nation Political Editor, Emman Omari. This time around, our itinerary included a conducted tour of the Foreign Affairs Ministry headquarters and shown how they work locally and internationally.
We also visited the African University where we met former Tanzanian President, Julius Nyerere, who was also visiting and had made several talks. His country is a former colony of Germany, and some elderly Tanzanians can speak and hear the language.
During the Question and Answer session, I asked him: "Mr. President, Mwalimu Nyerere, you wrote a book in the 1970s lamenting that while Americans were busy going to the moon, Africans were busy dancing. What is your position now?"
Tanzanian President in Germany
His response was short and to the point: “I am sad to say it is now even worse than before!' The couple I was assigned to stay with was in their 70s and we're still going to work daily. They had lived in the Berlin City Public house for the past 40 years. When I asked them why they were still working, they were as shocked as I was. "We cannot sit behind and do nothing just because of our old age," the wife revealed.
Thanks to the Foreign Affairs Ministry we were able to visit and cover some of the election campaign meetings, though it was awkward waiting for our translator to do the needful. we later asked him politely not to bother.
But there was an embarrassing moment during our visit to Deuschbank headquarters in Bonn, on the 50th floor, to meet a group of German investors who had special programs for Africa, focusing on South Africa as an entry point.
The German translator was cut short by our Tanzanian colleague who spoke the language fluently and corrected him. Another embarrassing incident was when we were invited for dinner by the President of Daimler-Benz in his boardroom where our African delegation was served with asparagus, which is a German delicacy.
But none of us touched it, forcing the PR officer to alert the chef to replace it with meat, chicken, and/or fish. Once that was done, we all enjoyed our meals and exchanged jokes.
While on my own time without the translator taking an evening walk around my hotel, I bumped into an Italian man who begged me to buy two high-quality male and female leather jackets.
According to the desperate man, he had gone gambling all night and was ripped off by some twilight girls.
Desperate Italian Gambler
Said the Italian an in broken England: "please just buy these so I can get fuel for my car to drive to the German-Italian border where I can use my credit cards. please, please, please help me. you’re the only one who can save me now!"
I obliged and got a deal of the century at a throw-away price. My second trip did not end well as I misplaced my Kenyan passport during the election campaign meetings. I was fortunate that by then, the Kenyan Embassy had moved from Frankfurt to Berlin, a block or two from my hotel.
I took a walk to the Embassy after passing through the Polizei (police station) to get a travel document. The Embassy staff were most sympathetic and friendly, they heard my story, saying the Kenyan passport was in high demand in foreign countries, and then processed my travel document which I used the following day to travel back home through JKIA.
Since the trip, I was always invited by the German Embassy to attend their national day celebrations as a guest. Fast forward to 2006, a senior police officer telephoned me from Isiolo in Northern Kenya asking me about my passport and revealed that it had been recovered from a human trafficker in the area with my mugshot photo on it, but with a Somali and Muslim name.
I told him I had replaced it a decade later after reporting it missing.
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