Zanzibar to Killi

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"No, you're not on the passenger list." said the check-in guy, stuck his bottom lip out, and leaned back in his seat as if he was going back to sleep.

Zanzibar airport desks are little more than corroding wooden desks set against the side of the road with scruffy, faded signs advertising defunct plane companies and a chalk board to list the departures. The board had yesterdays date at the top.
And my ticket was really a corroding peice of paper with 'J&Js Travel' printed at the top and some scruffy handwriting underneath and was no more than a reciept for eighty dollars i had handed over to an old guy in a shack on the beach a few days ago.

But I had paid for this flight, and I had to get to Kilimanjaro to join my Killi-climbing group. I could have booked on the proper tour from London and had an agent do all the hard work, but in true Crashpacker style, I had planned nothing and spent too much time chilling on the beach in Nungwi so now this was my only hope.

'Go round to the travel agents' the check in guy lazily said after i double checked the passenger list, my name definatly was not on the list.

I wandered round to a small office that had chintzy curtains around the windows and inside had four guys in suits, feet on the desks all enjoying the cold blast of the airconditioning.
I waved my reciept at them.
They all stared at me, until one of them could be bothered to untangle his legs off the desk and with great effort, lifted himself up to examine my green, grotty peice of paper.
He showed it round the office to the unexcited suit wearers. They all stuck their lips out and went back to enjoying the airconditioning.
Nothing was going to happen.

The customer culture here is somewhere in between 'Inshallah' (if Allah is willing) and 'Do Not Disturb'. The European trick of 'complaining to the manager' or 'making a scene' does not work and is likely to be watched with slightly smirking expressions by everyone around, as they see another mzungu acting funny.

So I, too, did nothing. Just stood in the doorway, stuck my lip out, leaned back on the doorpost and kept the door open, letting all the cold air out.

Eventually, the temperature rose by a few degrees and one of the lads took his feet off the desk and snatched my ticket back off me. A mobile phone appeared from his pocket and he grumpily called a number.

'Mr Johnny will be with you, Mr Johnny coming now' he moaned 'Please, outside now'
Who was Mr Johnny?
I waited outside in the African heat and watched the general hustle and bustle of the car park. The seventy year old porter shuffling around picking up litter. The leader of the taxi mafia waving his hands and barking at his insolent, lazy drivers. The battered taxis held together with bumper stickers and pictures of the drivers family.

An overweight, chubby guy comes jogging up to me, like a black Stan Getz in a cheap suit.
'Ah hello, I am Mr Johnny'
I had seen him strolling down the road ten minutes ago, but he broke into a jog about 100 yards from me to look like he'd hurried.
He took my reciept, stuck his lip out and gave it back to me. He strolled around the back of the check in desks. After Salaaming the officials, the check-in agent and all the cleaners, he came back with a small, thin guy who had been sweeping the floor a minute ago.
'Ah, you can get on this flight, but the departure tax is ten dollars, but you must give the ten dollars to me and you follow my brother here.'
The Little Guy picked up my bag, and whisked it off through a hatch - no tagging, no security questions.
I said 'Mr Johnny, if you can get me on the flight, i will give you the ten dollars'
Baksheesh he wanted, baksheesh he'll get.
'No problems, you give me on other side' he smiled with a broad mouth of metallic teeth.

The Little man shuffled back, pinning a 'security' badge to his chest. He shuffled me around the sleepy check-in guy, past the departure tax window with the two women gossipping away, and around the security checks and into the departure lounge with its window on to the runway.

Mr Johnny strolls round the outside of the building, across the tarmac and up to the departure gate, opens the door and beams at me. Ten dollars in his hand, and off he goes to distribute whatever baksheesh he needed to, further down the pecking order.

Half an hour later the snoozey check in guy appears, beckons at me and sends me off across the tarmac to a 12 seater Cessna before he checks anyone's tickets.

No ticket, no security and no record on the passenger list, I climbed aboard. The dodgy system of bribes and friendly backhanders had got me on my flight.
Surely it would have been easier for the guy in the shack on the beach in Nungwi to call the airline and book me the ticket straight up?
I guess that the baksheesh system allows a small amount of money to be put in peoples hands, up and down the chain, one dollar for the shuffling man, one dollar for the departure tax girls - and stops one big corporate airline taking all the profits.
I'm not saying bribes and swindles are the future of anti-globalism, but it got me on my flight to Killi!

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Photos

zan airport
just walk round, no security

Comments

[Ali]

Baksheesh
I've not experienced this first hand - but friends have told me: "the worst thing about the baksheesh system is that it works so well". A similar thing was said in Shantaram (Novel by David Gregory Roberts)

[Sam Ngina]

Feeding the corruption
Your illuminating story clearly shows how the "baksheesh" system is fed by lazy mzungus such as yourself, who couldnt be bothered to follow common code and practices by simply booking your flight at a reputable travel agents. What did you expect when you bought your "ticket" off the shack on the beach? Little wonder you took off at all! Tanzania could do better to tighten rules and disallow such practices if only to stop blase travellers such as yourself from thinking they can get away with anything if they flash their Western dollars about. It takes two hands to clap - in your case, you (and others with similar mentality as yourself) are the main reason of the baksheesh system existing in the first place. If you had used common sense and booked your ticket at a travel agents like the other tens of thousands, you wouldnt have had to worry about getting on a plane at all, and you wouldn't be fanning the baksheesh system Shame on you!

[thecrashpacker]

i agree!
Sam, you are absolutely right, I should have booked a ticket properly, and i tried a whole number of places, looked on the internet for contact numbers of the airlines, even emailed people in the UK to try and book me one from there. I'm not advocating the way that everyone takes a cut, but it seems sometimes unavoidable, and this time i was wondering if maybe some of my money was filtering into the local peoples pockets. Hopefully people who needed it. On the whole, i found baksheesh/bribing/tipping a lot less common in zanzibar and tanzania than many other places round the world

[Nat]

now I am looking forward my trip
Hello Crashpacker, I came across your blog after getting annoyed at looking for cheap flights from London to Zanzibar (hoping to go in June to learn to dive). Whilst I found it funny I am so what sceard of travelling to Zanzibar alone. I have travelled to the America's and Asia alone but put off Africa as my parents told its not a place a girls should go alone. Although they also said that about me going to Vietnam! I best learn patience and how bribe if I am to survive. Can't wait to get there. Good luck with your travel,