Bittersweet Return

Our return to Conakry hasn’t been too painful, but rather bittersweet. After three weeks of living in suitcases, we were glad to be home, but understandably sorry to have left our families and friends…especially after spending the past 5 weeks building fantastic memories with our kids. Life continues to be good to me.

Immediately upon arrival, there was a bit of comforting familiarity with the place. The heat that hit us as we walked off the plane was the most welcoming part of our comeback. After three weeks of weathering drizzly cold overcast Vancouver, the 31 degrees of Conakry felt good.

What had appeared unusual and had been a big deal to us just barely 18 months ago had become rather ho-hum. Even the spectacle of the ride from the airport didn’t faze us, with the people dashing across the road, the multitude of people on the side of the road hawking miscellaneous wares and food, from phone cards to cows’ feet (supposedly they make some kind of soup with these), and the sporadic goat munching away at whatever he can find alongside the road, and of course those packed run down dilapidated held-by-duct-tape cars whizzing by, usually topped off with layers of ‘stuff’. Come to think of it, I may have flinched at the sight of that woman selling her cow’s feet...but then, this lady with her bucket of cow’s feet on her head always creeps me out even on good days. I was happy to be back; not sure if it was happy to be back in Conakry, or just happy to be back where I would sleep in my bed, sit on my crapper, and shower in my shower.

We arrived with only one of the four pieces of luggage we though we had left Paris with. Supposedly Air France had forgotten 40 pieces of luggage on the tarmac in Paris, so we weren’t the only ones with missing luggage. One can well imagine what kind of mess ensued at the baggage claim desk at the Conakry airport. This is a confusing, crazy and chaotic place at the best of times, even when there are only a few errant pieces of luggage to deal with. Let’s just say that what was going on there as I penetrated deep into the throngs of a group of very irate, tired and especially very vocal fellow passengers, was a spectacle in itself. After all, my fellow passengers and I were well primed to be irritable. A mere 6 hours earlier, we had all suffered and barely survived the torment and turmoil that one can only experience by going through the much maligned and hellish Paris’ Charles Gaulle Airport (voted by the way the most hated airport in the world) http://www.cnngo.com/explorations/life/10-most-hated-airports-324645?page=0,1

Tempers all around me were well beyond frayed, to say the least. I, on the other hand, took it in stride, (thanks no less to that wine I had on the plane...no I wasn't corked, but it did help keep things in perspective...) and after a few long minutes of enjoying the huffing and puffing and hyperventilating into a stupor happening around me, I decided to screw it and go home sans luggage. I would come back the following morning to make a claim.

I did the Math and figured that, by the time my turn would come up, we would well be into tomorrow afternoon. Let's not forget, we are not in Canada ...hence, there is no patiently and orderly standing in line here, or taking a number and waiting one's turn... and, above all, let's especially not forget that we are talking about an Air France plane having just landed in Africa... combination of heat + fatigue + Frenchmen + chaos = a whole lot of pushing, shoving, yelling and screaming, you know, the usual scene you get at the exit door of a kindergarten classroom when you get 30+ ADHD nursery kids who have not been given their Ritalin lined up to go play on the 1 set of swings… and someone forgot to ring the bell. Besides, I really didn’t think the content of the three suitcases would be worth all that time waiting…so what if I had to wait a few days for those 3 containers of Kraft Parmesan Cheese, or that neat Jimi Hendrix t-shirt I got for a really good price at Value Village. My time is my time.

We left the airport without our suitcases, which in a way was a good thing because it meant less hassle from the custom leeches. This one custom lady did however strike up a conversation with us, quickly asking us if we had a cadeau for her, to which we said no, and then in the same breath asked us why we were here. After learning that we both worked at the American school and without missing a beat, she asked us if we would take her kids. I, also without missing a beat, said nope. Slightly different conversation to the one I had with the gentleman at Canada customs at Vancouver airport.

Got home, took a shower in my shower, sat on my crapper just for the sake of sitting on my crapper, and slept in my bed.

So life goes on in Conakry…at least for another 6 months (23 weeks) (158 days) …but then, who’s counting?