Libya:
During Gadhafi’s regime, I reluctantly agreed to go to Libya to help a company’s senior management put together a business plan.
Being a restless soul, I like to get from A to B in the shortest possible time so that I can spend maximum time in A or B and minimum time in between. This means I like to walk fast, join the shortest queue, choose aisle seats on planes as near to the front as possible, and carry luggage instead of checking it in. On that day, I was in the first row and the first in the line of standing passengers ready to disembark after exchanging inane pleasantries with the cabin crew.
As the jetty operator at Tripoli Airport lined up his platform against the plane door, he followed the common practice all over the world of knocking on the window for the senior steward to unlock the doors from the inside (strange and primitive practice in an otherwise highly sophisticated mode of transport, I always thought). I exchanged “goodbyes” with the steward and stepped onto Libyan soil. I say soil; it was in fact the floor of the jetty but the word “soil” is probably more of a verb than a noun in this case, because the floor had a number of streams of liquid in various stages of dryness but the entire atmosphere vividly reeked of urine and other human issuance! This propelled me to walk faster than I normally do through the jetty, which seems to double up as a moving toilet in Libya, to get into the relative cleanliness of the terminal building.
Finally, An unkempt official met me at the top of the jetty and shooed me to a large room, which was divided into two unequal sections. One had over 300 dishevelled and apprehensive immigrant labourers from various parts of the world all clutching wads of official papers in different colours and sizes, including their precious passports. The other smaller section of the room had about 50 passengers in a significantly better state of attire and looking less frightened than the other larger group. Those 50 passengers were not clutching wads of papers and having no wads of official papers with me, I decided to join the smaller group and hoped for the best. Other men from my flight caught up with me and looking like they knew what they were doing, joined my group as well, thus reassuring me that I made the right choice of which team to play for. Finally an official came along and spoke to us; the better dressed team without wads of paper.
Official: you need to exchange $1000 for Libyan currency before you go to immigration so, if you don’t have American Dollars, we will take Euros and if you don’t have either; you need to go to the room at the end of the corridor.
He did not say what was in the room at the end of the corridor and since I had American Dollars, I did not care to ask about that room. Someone did ask him, how to exchange our hard currency and the official pointed to an abandoned counter at the end of the room and explained that we needed to fill a pink form each, wait for other officials to turn up to stamp our forms, and exchange our hard currency for Libyan money. So, we all dashed to the pink forms counter, which looked like it was hurriedly put together with cheap wood salvaged from an abandoned Victorian mental institution.
Finally, a team of four men in ill-designed and ill-fitting army uniforms arrived with two battered suitcases, walked behind the counter and disappeared from view except for the tops of their caps. The caps moved and shifted about but we were unable to see what the humans underneath the caps were doing. Finally, one of us braved it and went to have a look. He returned and reported the four officers were having their lunch! He need not have bothered, because the odour of their food was gradually wafting towards us and it was not a good smell, not for consumable food anyway. Fifteen minutes later, the same brave passenger went over and returned to report they were counting money now, which was a promising sign. 30 minutes, yes, 30 minutes after that, the four caps popped up and the humans beneath them emerged, fully lunched up and with cigarettes in their mouths. One of them, presumably the one in charge, defined to us the procedure thus:
Official in Charge: you will come one by one, hand your pink form to the two officials on the left side of the counter who will check and stamp it, then they will take $1000 from you and you must then come and queue on the right side of the counter to have your pink form checked for the stamp before you are finally given your ration of Libyan money.
The same brave passenger asked why we have to queue up twice and began to suggest a redesign of the procedure but he was cut short by the official who threatened to process him last of all if he did not shut up and follow the well thought out procedure. Our brave colleague was wise enough to switch from brave to compliant like the rest of us and we all rushed the counter with the enthusiasm of 6-year old children rushing out of school to the arms of their loving parents.
All went well and I was handed my wad of Libyan currency the size and weight of China’s telephone directory. I proceeded out of that room and searched in vain for a sign that might indicate where “Passport Control” might be. I roamed about aimlessly until I finally spotted the brave passenger with ideas on how to improve Libyan airport procedures, and like an eager puppy, I followed him. We went through a door and found ourselves in a very large hall with about 8 half glass, half wooden (yes, same kind of wood from Victorian Mental Homes Central), kiosks at one end and queues of people formed along each kiosk. Helpfully, there were signs above the kiosks which told you where to queue depending on your nationality and finally, my brave colleague and I agreed we belonged to a category called “Other Arab Nationals” which the officials helpfully provided two kiosks to choose from. Naturally, I Chose the slightly shorter one and my friend, not sure why, chose the other and so, we were set for an un-declared race as to who would be processed first. I thought: Life does not get more exciting than this!
Armed with my stamped pink form and Libyan currency, I was confident that the 12 or so people ahead of me would be processed without much trouble and soon after I would go through to Libya proper. I busied myself studying the process the official in our allotted kiosk was going through. He too looked scruffy and unhygienic; he too smoked while working; and he too was abrupt and unfriendly. His modus operandi was to roughly beckon the person next in line, whip the passport and pink form from his hand, scribble furiously for about 2.5 minutes under the counter, finally slap the passport on the counter and wave the grateful passenger through. It was a slow process but I was sure I had enough patience to deal with it and I also kept an eye on the other line to see how I was doing against my brave competitor; I was doing better!
As always, when things are going so well, something comes up and stifles one’s euphoria. That day was no different!
Out of the corner of my eye, a man in his 40s approached. He was tall, thick set and wrapped up in a very heavy overcoat that went all the way down to his ankles. He looked ashen-faced and very nervous. Not being wintertime, the overcoat did not make sense to me and my first thought was: “hell, he is a suicide bomber”! So, I began to think of survival tactics. He ignored the orderly line and went straight to the official in the kiosk where I was queuing, shoved aside the passenger being processed and spoke to the official. I was sure only someone who does not have long to live would dare do what he just did. When the official saw him violate half a dozen procedures in a single act, he went from a state of bad temper to a state of uncontrolled filthy temper in half a second flat. He told him to go and stand at the end of the line but the man insisted on being processed immediately. The official was screaming his orders and the man was responding barely audibly and doing so by bringing his face very close to the official’s face. The official kept on shouting at him to stand back from the kiosk window. I was waiting for the man to detonate himself and take us all with him to the afterworld I wasn’t ready to visit yet!
Before long, there were many other scruffy officials milling around and they all kept a respectful distance form the man, which surprised me as I thought they would charge him to the ground and pulverise him or something. It transpired that the man was very sick and he needed to go through urgently so he may get medical attention and looking at his terrible state, the officials had no trouble believing he was very ill but they did not want to catch whatever he had so they gave him plenty of room. The officials on the outside begged the kiosk official to process him but the man had his principles! Not wishing to appear inflexible to his very flexible colleagues, he compromised. He said:
Kiosk official: go and ask each and everyone in the line if they mind you jumping the queue and if they are all ok with it, I will process you.
Relieved that the man was not a suicide bomber but a walking plague nevertheless, none of us liked the idea of engaging in a conversation with a man who at best had flu and at worst had a rare and highly contagious disease. So, as though we rehearsed this a few times that day, we all waved to him that it was perfectly ok with us. The kiosk official did what he was not trained to do or brought on this earth for; he changed his mind and waved to the dying man to approach the kiosk.
What we all witnessed then was something I will never forget for as long as I live. The man walked up to the kiosk put his hand in his heavy overcoat pocket and produced his passport to be stamped. All of us, including the kiosk official, uttered our individual sounds of shock and disgust. The passport was literally dripping and oozing some sticky, yellowy, drippy stuff, which I could only guess where it came from, and what it contained. The official, who probably had minimal acquaintance with personal hygiene, was now in a state close to hysteria. He asked him what the stuff all over the passport was and then he told him not to explain, then he ordered him to clean it and when the man proceeded to wipe the passport on the lapels of his overcoat, he told him to go to the bathroom and have it cleaned properly, then he shouted for other officials to take the unfortunate man to the nearest toilet and the officials stood around reluctant to do anything and we were all staring at the scene with our mouths open and wondering what to do next. Finally, the eldest of the officials and therefore, the one with the least number of years left to enjoy on this earth ushered the man to a room on the side presumably to help clean his passport to a sufficiently presentable state for it to be processed by the hapless kiosk official.
The next few minutes were the most tense of my life. I was willing the queue to proceed fast enough for me to be processed before Mr Plague returned; I did not wish to be processed after him even if it meant leaving the country on the next flight out. One by one, the people in front of me were processed slowly and agonisingly. I was sure all of them had the same thought as me. There were 8 in front of me, then 7, then 6 and I kept glancing at the side door, willing it to remain shut, there were 5, then 4, and then 3. I was oscillating between optimism and pessimism that he will or will not emerge before my turn to be processed. I wished then that I did not give my consent for him to go before me. Finally, there was one person in front of me and I began to relax. Then it happened!
The side door opened and the sick man emerged with a relatively dry passport, or at least, non-drip one. He headed straight to the kiosk as the passenger before me was given back his passport. I almost fainted. He handed his passport to the official, who reluctantly accepted it and began his 3 or so minutes of processing, he was then going to call me over and take my pink form and passport, he is going to handle my passport and I was going to take it form him, I was then going to forget and wipe my face, scratch my eye or touch my lips with the same hand, I was going to ingest something and 72 hours later I was going to be in ICU running a fever and then die a horrible death in a strange and dangerous country. I had to think fast and act faster. There was only one thing for it.
I left my queue and went and stood in the other one, which had about 20 people ahead of me. This extra delay was a small price to pay for the chance to live longer.
I wish I could conclude by saying my short stay in Libya was a pleasant or productive one after that; to put it mildly, it was horrible!
