I haven't been writing very often in the last few years because my everyday life has normalized for me. Every once and a while, I wish to share aspects of my daily life, either as a day-in-the-life telling of a particularly crazy day (or to illustrate what I do on a daily basis), or taken collectively to highlight a particular difference or observation. But my lifestyle has become normal to me, in my 4th year in my current job. It is harder and harder to find the impulse to point out a particular instance or to tell a particular story. To avoid having a tone too philosophical or introspective, I should start sharing stories.
Even as my life becomes normal for me, I still have stories of what happens. You know the stories, when something is so absurd you think to yourself in the moment, "I have to tell someone about this." Or the stories that come out of an adventure gone wrong, and you console yourself by saying, "at least I have a good story now."
A group of us were leaving from my last mission in Borno State, Nigeria. The airport in Abuja, the capital, closed on Wednesday. Two of us from our mission had flights on Friday. Probably. I didn't have a flight ticket, but I was pretty sure it would be for 2pm on Friday, leaving out of Kano, our designated secondary airport during the closure. The problem was that our charter plane wouldn't make its Friday rotation into Kano until the evening, so I had to go by car. The problem was the car was 6-8 hours, we think. So not possible on Friday morning. So we would leave on Thursday. A last-minute call put me and the other team member, a hospital logistician from Afghanistan, in the car with an administrator of another MSF section to get to Kano. Our car would meet another car halfway, we would switch our luggage and climb in the Kano car. 9am Thursday starts our journey, and everything proceeds smoothly. We get to Kano in 8 hours of mostly smooth roads, and we mostly slept. Except, every time I woke up the driver would reassure us we were in Kano. An hour later, yes yes, we're in Kano. Apparently he meant Kano state, not Kano town. Sigh...
The next day, we go to the airport for MSF's first ever departure from Kano International Airport on our 14h15 flight on Ethiopian Airlines. We leave just before noon, and get to the airport in a speedy 15 minutes. Already, this is better than expected, and things are going well. We convince the guard at the gate that we are actually an NGO, and that we actually don't pay private fees, and we find our terminal. We go through security, yellow fever health check, and something that might be security, or asking-for-a-bribe post or maybe another health check. They check the men's bags but I'm let through after a 2-minite conversation about how nice Nigeria is. Sometimes a smile goes a long way. But I'm annoyed that I had to talk to a stranger for 2 minutes. I check to see if my smile is still pasted on my face.
Check. Next.
Next is the Ethiopian check-in counter. They closed 4 minutes ago, apparently. Uh oh.
It's 12:34 and we took 15 minutes to walk the 50m from the front door to the desk. We're trying to get on a flight almost 2 hours later, and there was no notice of check-in time. The people behind the check in counter ADAMANTLY refuse to check us in, despite being 5 people sitting there with nothing to do. We see the successfully checked in people dropping off their baggage just a few meters in front of us. It's got to be a joke.
We get referred to the office, just on the other side of a glass wall. Another five minutes go by as I track passed all the health checks, bribe posts, and security, to get to Ethiopian's office. The lady wants to reschedule me on the Monday flight. Darn, they got me. Diversion tactic number 1. I rush back around the glass wall to my two colleagues who are fiercely guarding luggage and keeping the departures desk open. Behind their screen, I rush the stanchion when security is not looking and appear on the other side of the debate. I'm now behind enemy lines and can talk to the supervisor who was hanging back. She's flabbergasted that I'm also making demands of her, and I insist that the office told me to come here and said that I would be able to check in.
A manager appears, and has all of us worriedly pleading our case to be checked in. He starts collecting passports. He's on the other end of the desk, and catches my eye. He motions for me to come around to talk to him, but I only have 2 of our passports. I catch my Afghani colleague's eye and ask for his passport. He tries to hand it across the security gap, which is now staffed with several distraught staffers, who have already tried to eject me back onto 'customer' soil. The passport gets shoved out through no-man's-land and I grab it, at the same time as a security guard. A three-way tug of war ensues, with much shouting and pleading. I remember having a distinct moment, reflecting on the weird situation of being an American in Nigeria, holding the passport of a Togolese colleague, and reaching across a security line, fighting a man for the possession of my Afghani colleague's passport, shouting "it's a passport, it's a passport, don't tear it!" repeatedly. What a multi-national hodge-podge, ignoring current political tensions and stereotypes. Somehow, finally, I get the passport, and I squeeze through the crowd to the manager, and safely deliver all 3 passports. He says the magic words of "check these people in, no one else, but check them in" and we are in the group of last travelers allowed.
Whew. Then it's chaotic business as usual, with information being hand-entered into notebooks and security checks being performed out of a suitcase (they have some border security control computer that travels in a suitcase, and is arranged on the floor), then we get ferried into the slowest moving line to drop off our baggage. Despite there being a frantic group of 20 people trying to get to the counter, no progress seems to be made. Eventually another counter opens up at the end of the crowd, and we three, who are thoroughly last in line, sneak up to it. We have boarding passes, and got our luggage ticketed (after a tedious game of "Which bag is yours?" "This one" "This one?" "No, this one that I'm holding for you" "This one?" "No sir, the one in my arms right now" "This one?" "Yes." "Any other ones?" "No." "This one?" "...").
We go to customs, to another maybe-bribe post, to immigration, and security. There is no one there. We saw 20 people pushing and fighting in line ahead of us, for almost an hour, and there is not a single person waiting to get to the boarding area. Surreal.
We get through the eerily quiet security point and find a surprisingly pleasant departures hall, where we board our bus to get on the plane (after a pat-down security check and full bag search; great to see confidence in the security guys with the x-ray machines), and have a smooth flight. It's a good end to a very eventful check-in experience. I told the next group of people to get there just 5 minutes earlier.
Even as my life becomes normal for me, I still have stories of what happens. You know the stories, when something is so absurd you think to yourself in the moment, "I have to tell someone about this." Or the stories that come out of an adventure gone wrong, and you console yourself by saying, "at least I have a good story now."
A group of us were leaving from my last mission in Borno State, Nigeria. The airport in Abuja, the capital, closed on Wednesday. Two of us from our mission had flights on Friday. Probably. I didn't have a flight ticket, but I was pretty sure it would be for 2pm on Friday, leaving out of Kano, our designated secondary airport during the closure. The problem was that our charter plane wouldn't make its Friday rotation into Kano until the evening, so I had to go by car. The problem was the car was 6-8 hours, we think. So not possible on Friday morning. So we would leave on Thursday. A last-minute call put me and the other team member, a hospital logistician from Afghanistan, in the car with an administrator of another MSF section to get to Kano. Our car would meet another car halfway, we would switch our luggage and climb in the Kano car. 9am Thursday starts our journey, and everything proceeds smoothly. We get to Kano in 8 hours of mostly smooth roads, and we mostly slept. Except, every time I woke up the driver would reassure us we were in Kano. An hour later, yes yes, we're in Kano. Apparently he meant Kano state, not Kano town. Sigh...
The next day, we go to the airport for MSF's first ever departure from Kano International Airport on our 14h15 flight on Ethiopian Airlines. We leave just before noon, and get to the airport in a speedy 15 minutes. Already, this is better than expected, and things are going well. We convince the guard at the gate that we are actually an NGO, and that we actually don't pay private fees, and we find our terminal. We go through security, yellow fever health check, and something that might be security, or asking-for-a-bribe post or maybe another health check. They check the men's bags but I'm let through after a 2-minite conversation about how nice Nigeria is. Sometimes a smile goes a long way. But I'm annoyed that I had to talk to a stranger for 2 minutes. I check to see if my smile is still pasted on my face.
Check. Next.
Next is the Ethiopian check-in counter. They closed 4 minutes ago, apparently. Uh oh.
It's 12:34 and we took 15 minutes to walk the 50m from the front door to the desk. We're trying to get on a flight almost 2 hours later, and there was no notice of check-in time. The people behind the check in counter ADAMANTLY refuse to check us in, despite being 5 people sitting there with nothing to do. We see the successfully checked in people dropping off their baggage just a few meters in front of us. It's got to be a joke.
We get referred to the office, just on the other side of a glass wall. Another five minutes go by as I track passed all the health checks, bribe posts, and security, to get to Ethiopian's office. The lady wants to reschedule me on the Monday flight. Darn, they got me. Diversion tactic number 1. I rush back around the glass wall to my two colleagues who are fiercely guarding luggage and keeping the departures desk open. Behind their screen, I rush the stanchion when security is not looking and appear on the other side of the debate. I'm now behind enemy lines and can talk to the supervisor who was hanging back. She's flabbergasted that I'm also making demands of her, and I insist that the office told me to come here and said that I would be able to check in.
A manager appears, and has all of us worriedly pleading our case to be checked in. He starts collecting passports. He's on the other end of the desk, and catches my eye. He motions for me to come around to talk to him, but I only have 2 of our passports. I catch my Afghani colleague's eye and ask for his passport. He tries to hand it across the security gap, which is now staffed with several distraught staffers, who have already tried to eject me back onto 'customer' soil. The passport gets shoved out through no-man's-land and I grab it, at the same time as a security guard. A three-way tug of war ensues, with much shouting and pleading. I remember having a distinct moment, reflecting on the weird situation of being an American in Nigeria, holding the passport of a Togolese colleague, and reaching across a security line, fighting a man for the possession of my Afghani colleague's passport, shouting "it's a passport, it's a passport, don't tear it!" repeatedly. What a multi-national hodge-podge, ignoring current political tensions and stereotypes. Somehow, finally, I get the passport, and I squeeze through the crowd to the manager, and safely deliver all 3 passports. He says the magic words of "check these people in, no one else, but check them in" and we are in the group of last travelers allowed.
Whew. Then it's chaotic business as usual, with information being hand-entered into notebooks and security checks being performed out of a suitcase (they have some border security control computer that travels in a suitcase, and is arranged on the floor), then we get ferried into the slowest moving line to drop off our baggage. Despite there being a frantic group of 20 people trying to get to the counter, no progress seems to be made. Eventually another counter opens up at the end of the crowd, and we three, who are thoroughly last in line, sneak up to it. We have boarding passes, and got our luggage ticketed (after a tedious game of "Which bag is yours?" "This one" "This one?" "No, this one that I'm holding for you" "This one?" "No sir, the one in my arms right now" "This one?" "Yes." "Any other ones?" "No." "This one?" "...").
We go to customs, to another maybe-bribe post, to immigration, and security. There is no one there. We saw 20 people pushing and fighting in line ahead of us, for almost an hour, and there is not a single person waiting to get to the boarding area. Surreal.
We get through the eerily quiet security point and find a surprisingly pleasant departures hall, where we board our bus to get on the plane (after a pat-down security check and full bag search; great to see confidence in the security guys with the x-ray machines), and have a smooth flight. It's a good end to a very eventful check-in experience. I told the next group of people to get there just 5 minutes earlier.
