Funny stories, but I didn't live them

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Hi everyone
I hope you're all well and that the coldness of Canada isn't getting to you quite yet. Here it's still toasty warm, about 37 degrees during the day here in the city. Up at site it's still past 40 degrees.... unbelievable...

Before I go any further, I want to say hello to Danielle and her teacher/classmates, whoever is reading. I heard that you'd tuned in to my writings, and I just wanted to say, welcome! 😊

To continue with the story-telling... My running buddy, Guy, just got back from the Congo (DRC) and sorry to break it to you Steve, things there definitely can go Wrong-o! The following are the stories of Guy's travels through the Congo as related to me today. That's one thing expats do here; laugh at each other's horror stories.

So upon Guy's arrival at the airport, it took him 2 hours to obtain a visa to travel within the country. In Africa, it's very common to get your visa upon arrival at the airport rather than beforehand because many countries don't have embassies in neighbouring countries. This visa not only took two hours, but he had to pay a hefty "handling fee" which the officer unabashedly put into his wallet right in front of Guy. This is a place where corruption rules.

After he got his visa, Guy went to look for his luggage, but since it had taken 2 hours for his visa, it got collected and brought to a particular counter. When he went to claim it, Guy found that the airline tags identifying his luggage had been torn off, so the officials were giving him a hard time giving it back. Not only did he have to haggle for an hour to convince them it was his, and explain the contents, and let them go through it... he also had to pay a heft "handling fee". So far things weren't going well.

I should explain that the company had employed a woman to facilitate Guy's entry into the country, a logistics expert, and this is WITH her help. Imagine without it! So after Guy got his luggage, the police said he could go but they wanted to keep the woman for questioning because they wanted to question her over some expats she brought into the country under terms they deemed "suspicious". You can imagine how ridiculous this is considering THEIR behaviour, but nontheless, it does no good to argue with men holding M-16s, so Guy was led to a waiting room while she was interrogated. After such a long flight, poor Guy had actually dozed off, and was awoken 2 hours later when his guide was released; luckily none the worse for wear.

So that hellish ordeal over, Guy stayed in the country just under a week and carried on his business with no other major events. However, upon his departure there was one more hiccup...

As he was leaving the country, Guy was asked to present his World Health Organization immunization record, to prove he'd been vaccinated against certain diseases (usually yellow fever). These vaccinations are usually required to ENTER a country, not to leave it, so this was a very unusual request. However, in all the commotion of entering the country, Guy had lost his immunization record and wasn't able to present it. Of course, there is a very African solution for this: buy a fake one off the guard. 😊 So for $50 US, Guy got a brand new WHO immunization record with his name, and even the batch numbers of the vaccines he's supposedly been vaccinated with, but which were completely fake. The irony of this is two-fold: first, the vaccinations cost way more than $50 so anyone could get one of these and enter countries without the proper immunization. Second, Guy actually DOES have the proper immunizations, so he had to pay another $50 for a fake document.

Anybody find that funny? As Guy pointed out to me, all this nonsense is for what should be a very routine trip through the airport. Imagine the hoops you'd have to jump through for a mining permit!

Anyway, now you can see why expats all sit around laughing at our misfortunes; because we'd cry if we didn't! 😊

I hope you're all having a great day, and not getting ripped off by corrupt customs officers!

xo
-Brownie

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Comments

[mom]

Hey Sweetie...guess what ...it snowed here in Kemptville today!!!! You have definately been out of the country too long.... we don't have corrupt customs officers we had a whole legitimate corruption organization...it's called the Liberal party et al.....! Love you mom...no payola necessary.