I recharged my phone overnight and got out my new SIM card. Then I remembered something. I have to unlock my phone. I need a code I got from AT&T before I left. Dammit. That means I need to go to the internet cafe first. I went to the busy internet cafe and with a little sleuthing found my unlock code in my email. Then I popped my old SIM card and put the new one in, and voilà. It asked for the passcode and I entered it. I stepped outside and tried to place a call. The first time you try to call, it registers the SIM so you have to redial. But when it registered me, it told me I had only GH¢0.50. That's like 3 minutes. Busy Internet sells credit, but not this early in the morning. Fortunately, I'm near Nkrumah Circle and I saw people selling credit. I bought GH¢2 of credit from a guy. His girlfriend was there, and she asked I'd buy her some credit too. Sorry.
I called my airport plus extension and finally got a guy. He said he'd look into it and call me back. It was very loud with all the traffic, so I went back to my hotel room where I called again and explained the urgency of the situation--I'm leaving for the US the next day and need my baggage. I got his name, Moses Glago. He said he would visit the Virgin Nigeria office and get them to help. I asked if I should be there too to answer any questions that might arise. He said he didn't mind but it wasn't necessary. So I walked back to Osu to wait for the call from Moses.
I had a beer at Venus in the Byblos Hotel. Then out on the street met a guy (who says his artist name is a rather uncreative Black Africa) try to sell me paintings. I told him I wouldn't buy anything but could look. He tried to ask GH¢28. I reminded him that I said I wasn't going to buy anything. Then he gave me a painting for free and suggested I give him a donation (the left arm buffs the right arm, the right arm buffs the left arm, he kept saying). I said that asking for a donation for a free item is the same as selling it and I wasn't going to buy anything. Finally after about 5 minutes of this BS, I just gave him his painting back and left.
I got another GH¢1 of Tigo time, a Time magazine at Koala, and got a cab to the airport. I found Moses. Had he been to the Virgin Nigeria office? Not yet. He had me write out a more detailed description. Another guy with lost luggage asked for their phone number and they gave him the bad one so I gave him the good one. I tried to go to the Virgin office, but it was closed and the security people told me to wait or come back later. I went back down and peppered another guy with questions about the whole process. My bags were not even in their system. They didn't even know where they were. They were not being tracked. I said I want phone calls to be made and my bags located. Another woman came in on the same 2 flights the same night. Same story with them.
I went to Aerostar and had a beer while waiting for Moses to call. He didn't so I went back and asked more questions. The guy said they don't call. They just use the email system. I figured all I could do was wait and left. A guy outside, Stephen, reminded me that I should go to the Virgin Nigeria office again.
Up I went. There I met Olivia. I explained the whole thing to her--Moses was supposed to talk with her (he didn't), I was leaving for the US the next day, the whole process in Douala was manual even down to handwritten boarding passes and my bags were not even in their system. Then she did what the Aviance people would not. She got out her phone and address book and started calling. Of course, the first guy she called was Moses and made him come up and they had a brief exchange in their native language. Within 5 minutes, a Virgin Nigerian employee had gone to an underground cage where baggage is kept and found both my bags and neither of them was slated to move anywhere anytime. There was an hour to the next flight from Lagos and they would get my bags on that flight.
If I hadn't talked with Olivia, I would not have been able to return to the United States with my bags. The Aviance people were worthless. Worse that worthless. They lied to me, deceived me, and made me waste my time. If the girl who told me my bags would be on the next flight wouldn't have lied, and would have said that they weren't even in the system, I would have gone to the Virgin Nigeria office a day sooner and gotten my bags on the previous evening's flight. Instead I was wasting my entire day--my last full day in West Africa--there and the frickin' airport because that stupid idiot girl lied to me. I'm eternally grateful to Olivia.
I waited in the internet cafe at the airport and then heard the annoucement that my flight landed. I tried to get in the back door to get my bags while there were on the carousel, but it would have cost a GH¢10 dash. Dammit! I tried with another guy but he couldn't get me in either. In the end, the only thing I could do was wait at Aviance. There was a new woman and I told her I wanted my luggage and that the girl who was there at the desk yesterday had lied to me about the luggage being on the flight. Then I saw the girl who lied was there in another chair.
I sat down to wait. A guy sat next to me--he was the guy who I gave the better phone number to. He thanked me. Then after about a half hour, my luggage came. They have a customs officer right there in the room and I cleared customs. He didn't look at anything of mine--just the other guy. I just had to sign a ledger with information about my luggage.
Then I got a cab for GH¢5 back to the hotel. Since it was late and I didn't much money left, I just ate at a local Chinese place up on Nkrumah Circle so I didn't have to spend GH¢6 on cabs to and from Osu. The power at my hotel went out just as I was leaving and it went out at the CHinese place just as I was finishing up my meal. So I avoided the bulk of the problems with the power outages. Though, Ghana had had pretty reliable power until then.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008 8:51 Chicago local time
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