December 28, 2010

12/28/2010 - Tuesday
We are in Cameroon. Our 4-legged flight was quite uneventful. There was, of course, all the stress of baggage check-in (the four of us had eight large suitcases in addition to our carry-ons). We had to go through security-check several times, and our departure from Zurich was delayed an hour. But these are "uneventful" things.
From Zurich to Douala my seat mate was a lovely young Cameroonian woman coming home to visit for a few weeks. She just finished college in Iowa and is taking a job as a corporate internal auditor in Omaha. We discussed everything under the sun including development issues, her Islam heritage, etc. etc. I'd love to stay in touch with her! (Hello, Fatima, if you are reading this.)
The "event" of our trip was our experience at the Douala airport. Ruth had told us that she would not be returning until two days after we arrived, so we had made arrangements to stay at Foyer du Marin, a hotel of the Seaman’s Mission, for two nights. Ruth had said that she would try to arrange for a driver to pick us up, but we also had phone numbers for Foyer taxis in case we needed them. After we had had our passports and yellow fever cards checked we moved on to the large baggage claim room. We didn’t find anybody looking for us, so we went into “Plan B” mode. I knew I needed to change some money to CFAs in order to call and pay a taxi. The whole situation was complicated by the fact that we brought eight huge suitcases and all our carry-ons. And then Barbara couldn’t find one of her suitcases. So as she went searching for it along all the baggage carousels in this tightly packed room of travellers, I went looking to figure out how to accomplish my tasks. I could find neither a phone nor a money exchange. Then, at the far side of the room, I saw an office of tourism. Here was someone to help me! It took awhile, but she got us and all our luggage out past the customs officials without having to have our bags searched and without having to pay “duty” according to those official’s whims. In the middle of all that, Ruth appeared. She had come home in time to meet us. She negotiated a reasonable fee for the tourism lady and her associates and all their trouble. In so doing, she was establishing important ongoing relationships at the airport. There was a scramble to get all our luggage loaded and to get out of there before officials got overly curious about all our bags. Finally we were back at Ruth’s marvelous home, greeted by Raphael and the house staff whom we were so happy to see again. After a fine, late dinner we were taken to our hotel. All four of us slept for 12 hours!