(written on my PDA while coming home last hitch) It’s 9:59 and I’m an hour and a half out of Oakland. I’m listening to Counting Crows on my headphones. Not sure why I like a band whose lead singer says that his favorite color is gray - I guess they just make me feel mellow. Besides, one of their songs is about a girl who walks into a house and takes her clothes off.
I’m also not sure why I feel like every trip back from Angola requires me to write about them. I guess it is all just so strange that I feel the need to write about it just to convince myself that it all really happens. The story of this trip didn’t actually start with the trip, it started about a week ago. I received a pretty ominous email from ‘travel’ telling me and 7 other people that there was a problem with our visas, and we should prepare ourselves. I was ready to call the White House and request nicely that a battalion of hardened Marines on their way back from Iraq be redirected to the Angolan visa office. It just seemed like the right level of motivation needed to ensure that I got on the plane back home. I guess the preparation that was expected was something more along the lines of making extended room reservations. They have their way, I have mine. My coworkers, more experienced than I, laughed heartily at my distress, assuring me that “it’s always this way” and regaling me with comforting stories about the time their passport and visa were delivered two minutes before the plane left the ground, presumably by carrier pidgin that had arrived from the capital via Katmandu. They also assured me that having to stay in camp a couple of days extra wasn’t unusual, wondering aloud if that guy who had those visa problems a couple of years ago had ever been able to leave camp. I really can understand the need to ensure the continuous employment of government bureaucrats by requiring visas to enter countries. Those guys have families to feed and BMWs to fuel. What I can’t get is the deal with requiring a valid visa to LEAVE a country. I mean, what are they going to say? “I’m sorry sir; your visa to remain in our country has expired. It is no longer legal for you to remain in our country. You must remain here until it is legal for you to remain here.” So, I immediately go in person to the company ‘visa’ office, hoping that this crack team of government negotiators would have their fingers on the pulse of my particular situation, or had at least hacked in to the highly sophisticated Angolan government computer network to flip that particular bit that would cause some passport stamping machine deep in the bowels of the government offices to stamp my passport “approved”. As a gesture of thanks, I would recommend a fruit basket be sent to the head guy’s family and that someone be sent around to wax his BMW. I waited patiently while one of the visa crew finished what appeared to be a particularly difficult Solitaire game – obviously a cleverly disguised government network hacking program. I explained my situation: I was one of those people that they must be worried sick about, and I was there to assure them that I was fine, and now ready to receive the briefing that they must have spent hours preparing for me. “Name?” I told them, told them again more slowly, then spelled it phonetically. “Bravo Alpha Romeo Romeo...” He walked slowly back to his desk, obviously trying hard to contain his excitement that I had finally arrived for my briefing. He flipped slowly through a printout. A co-worker joined him, looking over his shoulder. They both seemed to discover my name simultaneously, their eyes moving together to the other end of the line where the critical news must have existed. “Mr. Barooo, no news. Check back on Friday.” He then went back to hacking. I think my visa was being cleverly represented by the seven of clubs. Friday. A week away. Plenty of time for the government to see the error of their ways, approve my visa and perhaps send a nice flower arrangement to express their deepest regret for causing me so much unnecessary anxiety. The days passed. I played golf Sunday. For some reason I played even worse than usual. “Usual” play for me is comparable to that of a recently spayed beagle. This day I spent a good deal of my game searching for my ball in the rough several fairways to the left of one I was supposed to be playing on. I’m sure that several months from now an SUV owner in Fresno is going to be paying a garage 23 jillion dollars to repair their vehicle, the reason listed by the mechanic as “Nike Number 4 golf ball removed from fuel system”. The extra week also gave my fellow workers more time to elaborate on their stories. By now they were starting to treat me like a person who had recently been diagnosed with terminal dandruff. My staff also started giving me a wide berth, often dropping documents on my desk for signature and quickly running out before I could get another shell in the chamber. Finally Friday arrived. So as not to seem too eager, I cannily waited 35 microseconds after the visa office opened to casually arrive, as if I just decided to stop by to say “good morning” on my way to an important management meeting. This time I was greeted by a smiling supervisor. He cheerily explained to me that the reason for the delay was that remodeling was going on in the government offices of the visa officials responsible for visa approvals, and rather than move to another office, they simply walked out. So all week, no passports left the office. I’m not making this up. They would get back to work on Monday, right? He then reminded me that Monday was May 1, and in just about every country in the world, except the USA, it is known as May Day. A holiday. Of course, I was due to leave on Tuesday. What advice did he have for me? “Change your flights. You probably will not leave on schedule.”, he said with a smile, “Its much better than it used to be. We used to have people sitting in camp for over two weeks.” I staggered back to my office, making sure not to step on the bodies of the most recent of my staff who had arrived to wish me good morning. Delay my flight? Not go home to see my lovely wife? More importantly, I wouldn’t be able to open all that cool stuff I had ordered over the Internet! This was a disaster. The next few days went by in a haze. I played golf again on Sunday. If it was possible, I played even worse than the previous weekend. I didn’t even have the energy to search for my balls in the rough. I met another visa victim for lunch. He looked terrible – unshaven, haggard, and he appeared not to have slept for days. “I guess I’ll have to call my wife and tell her” he said, staring at his plate. “No good can come of this.” Monday, one day before I was to leave. I went through the motions of packing up. I had decided to go ahead and fly to Luanda in the morning. My boss offered his home for me to stay. “Don’t worry,” he said, “I’ll show you the sights in Luanda.” As tempting as that sounded, it just didn’t seem to compare with that new set of speakers I had ordered from Buy.com. Besides, I missed my wife. The other worry in all of this was an upcoming trip that we planned to Las Vegas the day after I got back. A delay would mean missing that flight. Missing that trip would be a disaster – our friends were having wedding vows renewed by an Elvis impersonator. It would be the end of the world, or at least as bad as a flat tire. Monday dragged by. The body count outside my office diminished as I decided to accept my situation. Besides, I was running out of ammo. After a sleepless last night, I extended the handle on my rolling bag, donned my backpack, and made the trek to the helicopter base. I was met there by 6 fellow passengers; all except one were members of our management team. We were treated with the respect we deserved, making a very smooth flight to Cabinda airport. I had been warned that my lack of a passport may prevent me from being able to board the onward flight to Luanda. My friends told me the chances were 50/50 that someone would check for my passport and find me wanting – sending me back to camp. I had equipped myself with multiple copies of my passport, just in case. My fellow passengers saved me the embarrassment of being prevented from traveling. Assuming that everyone in the group had equal stripes, we were saluted and shown to a 50 seat aircraft. All 7 of us. Finding a seat wasn’t an issue. Upon arrival in Luanda, we were immediately shown to waiting vans and were swept to the company office. My fellow van passenger was a young Nigerian man who had immigrated to the US as a teenager. He had the grand smile and deep laugh that I had come to associate with Nigerians. Why was he in Luanda? Visa problems! We were instant friends, discussing our common problem and our strategies for dealing with it. He also had a flight to catch after he arrived in the US, and worried aloud about the money he would lose if he missed it. Once in the office, I asked one of my fellow workers call the local visa office to assess the situation and use whatever influence they might have. After what seemed like hours on the phone, speaking in Portuguese, he hung up the phone. I waited anxiously. “No news” he said, “their man is at the visa office. We should check back at 2 o’clock.” I wondered what all the other discussion had been about. My alternate arrived and we started our discussion of the previous month’s events. I decided to leave out the part about the gunfire. He would find out soon enough. Besides, confessing my level of distress over a simple visa delay wouldn’t demonstrate the level of machismo that was expected from workers in deepest Africa. We talked through 2PM, my usual bad memory hampered even farther by my distraction. My new Nigerian friend stuck his head in the office a couple of times, seeking news and giving status reports on his own situation. I finally excused myself long enough to go out for another status report. After another long conversation, I was told that if I didn’t have local accommodation, I would have to return to camp. He also said, “The man is going to wait until 5PM. There is a very small chance that you will still get your passport back today”. My alternate left to catch his flight to camp. The local supervisor decided that a tour of the facility might take my mind off the thought of having to spend several more days in Luanda. 5PM came and went. My Nigerian friend joined me. We finally got a call from the local visa office that the man had left the government office with “several visas”. We were to make sure we informed them of our whereabouts at all times in the evening, just in case they actually found our passports. Eventuality, we decided to go to the company guest house for dinner. Both of us were emotionally exhausted. My boss joined us for dinner. The magic time was 7:30PM. That was the latest that the van could leave the guest house and have any hope of making it through traffic and make it to the airport in time for the 10PM flight. Dinner came and went. We made small talk, my boss adding to the visa stories, explaining that he recently had to get his wife an emergency medical visa out of the country so that she could get a root canal by someone other than a witch doctor. At around 7PM we heard the door of the dining room open and a group of laughing Angolans enter. Then, I heard my name. “Barrow? Is Mr. Barrow here?” I shot from my seat, turning to see a smiling Angolan holding two passports. He made a show of carefully examining the photo in one of the passports, and looking at me critically. “I think this might be yours!” He handed the other passport to my friend. I shook his hand. Then I started shaking hands with everyone else. Never have I been so happy to see a small blue book. My friend and I picked up our bags and headed into the night to our waiting van. We were laughing and slapping each other on the back. The rest, as they say, is history. Even the walking-pace speed of the van through traffic didn’t dampen our enthusiasm – after the day’s adventures we didn’t feel that anything would keep us from our plane. As it turned out, our slow progress in the van and an exceptionally long immigration line made us very late. But we made it. Again.