Registering to VOTE!

A new voter registration exercise was kicked off on March 22 and will last 45 days.  All Kenyan citizens over the age of 18 are required to obtain a new voter card. As luck would have it there was a registration desk set up at Kilimani Primary School, on Arwings Kodhek Road, which is on our way home.

There was one person in line in front of us so the wait was like 3 minutes…gotta love that!  The registration process was easy because the Registration Officers complete the scantron forms for you and all you have to do is produce a valid National ID card or Passport.  The only information they asked from me was my postal address.  

My left thumb print was requested on the form and the front side of my voter (elector’s) card plus two signatures on the form. They had a rag and some methylated spirit to wipe the purple ink from your finger!

All that was left to do was laminate the card…that’s where it got funny.  I saw the laminating sleeves so I assumed that they would hand you the card and a sleeve and ask you laminate it yourself.  Well, they were like "no, we can't let you do that".  So I was like, where is the laminating machine? You guessed it - no laminating machines…This is Africa… so the lamination was done motherland style using a hot charcoal iron circa 1870.   It’s the little stuff like this that remind me that I am in Africa...home:-)  She had to put the card between sheets of newspaper and then iron on top.  She burned the one from the guy in front of me but mine was done perfectly!

So here I am, a bona fide card-carrying Kenyan voter!  Now all I have to do is figure out which one of these clowns in Parliament I should cast my vote for!