Monday, July 02, 2007

Hard Landing


Leaving Senegal was much more difficult than I had anticipated. I spent my final evening in Dakar on a great three hour ocean view dinner date with Tina GASSAMA, one of my officemates at ENDA Diapol. While watching the sun set over the Atlantic and conversing in French we walked along the beach until a man seated near a dilapidated gate demanded to know where we were going. He looked me in the eye and explained that we had to turn around, as the rest of the beach was “property of Club Med.” I asked him if he told the hungry local sheep the same thing whenever they mistakenly venture on to the hallowed grounds of the global elite. I got the sense that my sarcastic words were somewhat lost in translation. We beat a hasty retreat to a fantastic restaurant and I proceeded to learn a little bit about what life is like for an Islamic woman holding down a research job while pursuing her Masters degree in development economics and helping to look after the everyday needs of her four brothers.

Back at Keba’s place I collected my baggage and deposited a few more things with his family, including the remains of my medical kit and a cell phone. Several family members had come down with malaria during the previous weeks and I implored Keba to invest in new mosquito nets. Saying my goodbyes I realized how lucky I was to have been immersed in the French language and in Senegalese culture with such happy people. On the street with all of my things they literally had to push me into the waiting taxi.

Having confirmed my flight twelve hours earlier I was worry-free, and as I walked through the typically sketchy scene at the airport on my way to the check in I was counting down the hours to the sushi dinner that awaited me in Toronto. After handing over my travel documents and turning up the volume on the Toure Kunda track I was listening to, the supervisor tapped me on the shoulder and informed me that I did not have the required documentation. Despite the fact that my name and seat number were already in the system and confirmed, he explained that he needed to have my paper-based ticket in his hands before he would let me board the plane. I only had a flight receipt, itinerary and confirmation in the system. After asking him to telephone South African Airways (SAA) Dakar downtown office, and being told that that was my responsibility, my blood pressure went up a notch.

As we walked back through security to the SAA airport office he pointed to a pay phone and told me I had better hurry or risk missing the flight. With no one available at the Dakar office to assist me on the phone – it was 12:30am on Sunday morning – I walked into the airport office and asked if there was anyone that could help me to get on the plane. I was notified that I would have to buy an entirely new ticket to Washington, and then purchase my onward journey from Washington to Toronto after my arrival at Dulles. They refused outright to call anyone at SAA on my behalf. At that point I lost my cool and in return received a lecture regarding customer service and how the concept only applies to those that do not resort to exasperated language. Relenting, I told them that I would purchase the new ticket and for some unknown reason I was advised that I could only obtain it through the Air Senegal International office next door. The people staffing that office subsequently swiped my credit card and issued me what I thought was the ticket.

Returning to the check in I was told that Air Senegal had only printed my boarding pass and that SAA still needed to see that I had in fact made the purchase. Once again I found myself outside of security imploring the Air Senegal staff to hurry while listening to the SAA Supervisor harangue me about my language. Just after they handed me the ‘real’ ticket and I observed that it was strangely dated the 25th of June rather than the correct date of 24 June, the Supervisor picked up his radio and instructed his team to close the flight. I bolted for the check in. Upon arrival I was told by numerous people to “come back again.” And then, having no other option available, I began to grovel in earnest. In French I explained to the Supervisor how he was most certainly right and that I was the dumbest rookie traveler South and West of the Sahara. I think he liked the self-deprecation, as before I knew it, I was on the tarmac watching the stairs being backed up to the plane and its sealed door being reopened a full hour after the flight had been scheduled to depart. Relieved to be in my seat I contemplated the many lessons that I could learn from this experience (such as the lingering importance of paper in an era of digital reservation systems) and wondered if the whole event had simply been an elaborate scam or if there were other reasons beyond my own stupidity it had been so physically difficult to leave Africa this time.

After shelling out at Dulles for the home stretch I arrived in Toronto ready for an amazing Bloor Street sushi experience. During my time in Dar es Salaam I did not make it to Tanzania’s sushi bar and I similarly avoided a Kigali restaurant that offered sushi to patrons that were able to give “twenty-four hours notice” of their intention to consume raw fish. I should have known something was up on Bloor when the white tuna I ordered resembled the colours of the pink and brown tones in my wardrobe. Recovering in Collingwood from the welcome back bad fish the next evening, I found myself amazed yet again at the scale of life here. One of my former students recently referred to this as our “big Canadian lifestyle.” I was slightly overwhelmed by the ordinary.

Things were basically non-stop culture shock this past week as I set up my office at the University and my living space in Dundas. While finishing up the former task I stopped into the Institute office at McMaster to hand in an envelope containing receipts from my research-related expenses that had been sealed and stowed in my luggage since April. Inside that envelope Sara Mayo, the Institute’s Administrative Coordinator, found my glossy and unused paper-based SAA ticket. Someday soon, perhaps I will be able to make use of the absent minded professor excuse….

I pushed on to Ottawa for a few meetings at The North-South Institute and caught up with a few friends. My misadventures with transportation systems continued Thursday as I headed back to Toronto on a 6pm train that made it only as far as Belleville before having to reverse back to Kingston as the tracks were blocked. Twelve hours later the bus I was traveling on came to a stop at Union Station. Most people I conversed with that night told me that the strategy of blocking railways and roads to raise awareness about the plight of Canada’s aboriginal peoples – the reason for our lengthy delay – was misguided. One of my seatmates asserted that Canada’s First Nations people do not experience “real poverty like Africans do.” It was a tough a night. Although it was a long first week back in Canada, I am still smiling.

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The North-South Institute has posted a number of these writings on their site: http://northsouthinstitute.wordpress.com/tag/africa/

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