Monday, 8 February 2016
I was up at 3 and couldn’t sleep.
What if Jimmy the cabbie didn’t turn up? What if he couldn’t find the place? I
was ready at 04:45 and left the room with my bags. I brought them to the living
room and peered out. Darkness greeted me. No sign of Jimmy either. I paced and
must have made Banet nervous. He was already in the kitchen, working on
breakfast. He insisted I must eat before leaving although I had told him
previously that it wasn’t imperative. Getting to the airport and making my
flight was more important.
05:00 came and went with no sign of
Jimmy. 05:10. 05:15. Finally, I asked Banet to open the door so I could walk
out to the gate. It took him a while and when I got to the gate, the guard
wasn’t there. Probably off to take a leak? I went back in. 05:20. Banet insisted I
have something to eat so I poured some water for tea and had some toast. 05:30,
I told Banet to call for a cab.
It took him another long while. He
came back and told me the guard had no airtime to call for a cab. I didn’t
understand why he needed to ask the guard to make the call so I asked if he
couldn’t use the house phone. Banet then asked if I knew any taxi number. Say
what? Why would I have any taxi operator number based in Lilongwe? Finally he
found a name card of a taxi operator. The card looked old and I wondered if the
number was still valid, if the taxi operator was still in existence. Still, it
was the only number we had.
I asked Banet to make the call then
he told me he didn’t have any airtime left either. What the -? He said he could
buy airtime with MWK500 and I dug my wallet and gave him MWK500. It took an
eternity for him to scratch the number to reload his phone. Man oh man oh man.
I had carried my bag outside the gate by then and told Banet to wait with me.
Five minutes passed. Still no cab
came.
I was already squatting and
whimpering at this stage and told Banet to call the number again. Come on man!
I must make that flight, I simply must! My flight back to Dar was scheduled for
07:15 and I was supposed to fly home later in the afternoon from Dar. All in
all, we waited about 15 agonising minutes before cab arrived. And would you
believe it, the cabbie had to refuel! But to his credit, he drove like a man
possessed all the way to the airport through the fog and all.
We reached the airport in record
time. The fare was MWK20K so I paid him MWK16K and the balance in USD. I had to
have my ticket re-checked and guess what, the airline computer system was down
^&*()__!!# I still managed to check in my bag before check-in closed but had
another problem at immigration. The smug pompous arrogant uncouth gruff immigration
officer asked if my passport was diplomatic. I looked at him puzzled and said
no. He barked why the stamp was for gratis visa in my passport and stressed that if I wasn’t
on diplomatic passport, I should have paid for a visa. So I explained to him that I
didn’t need a visa. He wasn’t convinced and asked me to come around so that he
could show me his computer system and yeah it showed the same thing as what was
shown to me in Friday. Exasperated, I told him what happened on Friday. He still
wasn’t happy and was barking at his colleagues. Then he told me he needed to
check with the office and took my passport with him.
I waited. 7 minutes later, he came
back grumbling in his native language. He then duty stamped my passport, still muttering
and then waved me through. Without any apology. Well, you know what? FU. What
would it take for some people to apologise and admit their error? Would it be
demeaning to them if they do so? If you didn’t want to admit your error, just
say something to the effect that you didn’t know why the system showed
otherwise.
I went to the boarding gate and good
thing there was a TV showing the weekend’s matches so I watched them and calmed
myself down. We were then called and oh guess what, we had to walk to our plane
because the shuttle bus was out of order. Really, I think that’ll be my first and
last visit to Malawi.
Guesthouse
We landed at Dar at close to 11:00
and after clearing immigration and getting my bag, I went out and sat down to
wait. I went in the departure area at 15:55 to check-in. Again, I had to have
to my ticket verified before I could drop off my bag. Next, I cleared
immigration and went to the boarding gate. I was checking my emails and
timeline when we were called to be ferried to the plane.
It was an uneventful flight and I managed
to squeeze in a movie. I was about to doze off when we landed at Doha at 23:00.
I cleared security transfer and went to wait for my flight home.
Tuesday, 9 February 2016
I boarded the plane at 01:15. Sleepy as
I was, sleep was as usual elusive. We landed at 14:05 and I was home by 15:30. I
had to clean the mess left by my brother’s family - WTF - amidst unpacking. Yes, everything
had to wait until I returned home from Africa to be cleared.
But yes I would do it all over again if I
have the rezeki, health, means and time. Now, if only flights to Africa don’t cost a
bomb!
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