A Kenyan woman’s Australian visa approval, the result of more than a year of exhausting paperwork and nearly KSh 690,000 spent out of pocket, left her crying alone at home rather than celebrating.
The woman shared her experience online, describing how she sat in silence through what should have been one of the happiest days of her life.
Year of Anxiety and KSh 690k Spent
She had applied for the Australian visa late last year, and the clock had been ticking ever since. With her medical results and IELTS scores set to expire by next month, the pressure to secure approval before those documents lapsed had kept her on edge for months.
“I am stuck in the house. I am weak, I have no one to tell anything, and I am drained so much. I have cried a bit. I feel very overwhelmed,” she wrote.
The bulk of her ordeal centred on documenting five different workplaces over the past decade.
For each employer, she was required to produce a reference letter, payslips, tax return records and P9 forms, full contact details, and confirmation letters from her universities. The paper trail alone was a test of endurance.
One moment stood out as particularly painful. She spent an entire day, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., waiting at a single spot just to receive a reference letter from a former employer.
“Nililia hiyo siku nikijiongelesha,” she recalled. “Na imagine hata si eti I left vibaya.” The former boss, she said, had never forgiven her for resigning, and having to return to that person with a request was humiliating.
Tracking down records from a workplace she had left a decade ago proved equally difficult.
“Just Wanted My Turn Too”
Throughout the process, she wrote three separate explanation letters to account for gaps and date discrepancies in her documents, aware that any mismatch could trigger a denial or an S56 request for additional documents.
She had watched her brother secure a US visa the previous year, a journey she had encouraged him to pursue. Seeing him settle in and thrive only deepened her own desire to move.
“Just wanted my turn too,” she wrote, adding that now that her turn had finally arrived, she found herself unable to feel it.
“I feel I am not very happy as I expected. I don’t know if it’s the year-long anxiety I have had while waiting,” she admitted.
She had told nobody throughout the entire process, making her online post the first time anyone heard her story.
