Swiped Passport Causes Panic In The Congo
The Age
Saturday July 28, 2007
Check your pockets, says Vanessa Woods.
THE passport effect: the tendency of travellers to obsessively check for their passport. You know where your passport is. You just saw it. It's in the travel pouch with your ticket and your frequent flyer cards. But several times during packing, locking the house, and driving to the airport, you are seized with the feeling that your passport isn't where you think it is. I always thought the passport effect was ridiculous until one day, my passport isn't there. I tip out the contents of my blue travel pouch and look in all the pockets. I check the cupboard where my pouch was sitting. I empty my suitcase. I scan the shelves. I look through all my clothes. I ransack the joint, to no avail. Losing your passport is never good, but my timing is particularly bad. We are in the People's Republic of Congo and our flight is leaving the next day. According to the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs, if you lose your passport, you have to report it stolen then go to an Australian embassy to get a new one. There is no Australian embassy in Congo. There is no friend of the embassy, like Canada or England. There is not even a friend of a friend. Desperate, I call our secretary in Germany who calls the Australian embassy in Berlin. "How could she lose her passport in Congo?" says the Australian representative. "Is she stupid?"Apparently I have to call the Canadian embassy in Kinshasa, which is in the Democratic Republic of Congo (another country) across the river. They will mail a temporary passport to Pointe Noire. It will take weeks. Our flights are non changeable. Living the rest of my life in Congo is suddenly an imminent possibility.In a fit of panic, we drive to the last place I saw my passport - the airport. Jani, our Congolese friend, comes too. The Pointe Noire airport is more like a cowshed. We shuffle through a dirt floor to the wooden cubicle that serves as immigration. "Did you find a passport on 21 August?" says Jani to a sour-faced woman behind the desk. She doesn't even look up. "No we did not find one.""Please try to remember. This young girl left her passport. You must have a record."The woman stares hard at me. Then she turns to the man standing next to her and says in Babinga, a dialect from northern Congo,"I remember her. But I am not giving it back."Fortunately, Jani's mother is from northern Congo, and he yells at her in fluent Babinga. She yells back at him and they keep yelling until a gigantic Congolese man in a general's uniform comes over and asks what the hell's going on. Jani explains. "I remember this woman's passport," says the general. "I gave it to immigration. Follow me." I follow him like he is Jesus, hoping and praying he will save me. The general speaks to a man in another wooden cubicle who pulls out a gigantic stack of passports. There must be at least 50. I, who am stupid, have still not clued into the oldest Congolese scam in the book - steal passport from dim-witted jetlagged foreigners then sell it back to them. I see my beautiful blue passport with the golden kangaroo emu emblem and yell, "That's it! That's it." When I hold it in my hands I'm so happy I jump up and down and start singing. "A donation?" asks the immigration man."Yes, yes of course," I cry, and pull out 10,000 francs ($A20). And I am so giddy with freedom that as we leave I turn around, magnanimously sweep my arm across the room and say in French, "If I had one million dollars, I would give it to you, the wonderful airport officials of Congo!" I dance out of immigration, waving my passport around. I don't notice Jani tugging on my arm and telling me to be quiet."Now," says the general when we reach the arrivals entrance. "You must give me a donation.""What? I just gave you 10,000 francs.""That was immigration. Now you must give a donation to customs."Jani grabs my arm and walks me quickly towards the entrance. The general shouts, "This man is trying to cheat me! These rich white people I have made happy want to give me money and he is preventing them."A few of the general's buddies standing in a group with their AK-47s slung over their shoulders walk towards us. We break into a run. Lesson learnt: don't ignore the passport effect. It exists because unlike elephants, we sometimes forget.
© 2007 The Age