Saturday, March 24, 2007
Arrival in Tanzania late, late at night
The plane touched down at close to 1 AM local time; goodness knows what time that is at home, but my body wasn't protesting so it must have been daytime. The heat was like a molten mud bath; damp, sticky but most of all simply HOT. Even inside the jet-way I could feel the lava-like warmth envelop my entire body. As I was dressed for the freezing temperature of the airplane this heat was impossible to handle. We exited the jet-way and were into the dilapidated interior of the Dar es Salaam airport.
We were corralled into the tired looking passport control area with a few of the passengers already at the wickets. A seemingly well-connected fellow passenger was guiding certain passengers to the front of the line and putting them in front of the various passport officers. This angered me a bit but that is how things go so what the heck. We waited our turn until the real "line manager" put us in front of different officers.
Nicole went to one wicket and didn't realize that mine and Abby's passports were given to different people. I did not want to leave Abby on her own and stood by her protesting to the line guy that I would not leave her alone and would wait with her 'til she was done. The Officer with my passport did not seem to like this and kept shouting about where is the guy who belongs to this passport? I was thinking, 'to hell with it, if they want to kick me out of the country for not leaving my daughter alone that's fine with me. I would rather have to go home than let Abby deal with them on her own.' So once she was done I went over to my passport and after some grumbling from the officer it was all good.
We finished up with passport control and Nikki and Abby did their Girly thing in the bathroom while I headed off to see where our 6 huge suitcases would be returned to us. I didn't have to go far as the airport is pretty small. I declined assistance a couple of times from the somewhat pushy but well dressed young men who were falling all over themselves to provide some help with the luggage. Once I noticed their official looking name tags hanging from their identical shirts I accepted their help and after we had loaded a couple of the 70lbs bags I was happy that I had. Besides they seemingly had the only pushcarts in the place so I would have been forever moving the bags to a vehicle. Nik was not too pleased to see that I had enlisted help but again after she realized we would have broken our backs moving these bags she warmed to the idea too. So with the luggage on two carts and our two helpers in tow we headed out to find our driver.
We were corralled into the tired looking passport control area with a few of the passengers already at the wickets. A seemingly well-connected fellow passenger was guiding certain passengers to the front of the line and putting them in front of the various passport officers. This angered me a bit but that is how things go so what the heck. We waited our turn until the real "line manager" put us in front of different officers.
Nicole went to one wicket and didn't realize that mine and Abby's passports were given to different people. I did not want to leave Abby on her own and stood by her protesting to the line guy that I would not leave her alone and would wait with her 'til she was done. The Officer with my passport did not seem to like this and kept shouting about where is the guy who belongs to this passport? I was thinking, 'to hell with it, if they want to kick me out of the country for not leaving my daughter alone that's fine with me. I would rather have to go home than let Abby deal with them on her own.' So once she was done I went over to my passport and after some grumbling from the officer it was all good.
We finished up with passport control and Nikki and Abby did their Girly thing in the bathroom while I headed off to see where our 6 huge suitcases would be returned to us. I didn't have to go far as the airport is pretty small. I declined assistance a couple of times from the somewhat pushy but well dressed young men who were falling all over themselves to provide some help with the luggage. Once I noticed their official looking name tags hanging from their identical shirts I accepted their help and after we had loaded a couple of the 70lbs bags I was happy that I had. Besides they seemingly had the only pushcarts in the place so I would have been forever moving the bags to a vehicle. Nik was not too pleased to see that I had enlisted help but again after she realized we would have broken our backs moving these bags she warmed to the idea too. So with the luggage on two carts and our two helpers in tow we headed out to find our driver.
