Flying to Lagos

This has not been an easy trip, but the chatty petite French guy next to me from Paris to Lagos (a mere 5 or so hours - I managed to sleep at least 3) tried to let me know all about his amazing insights about the strengths of British colonies vs. French ones: basically, the British did education right and the French didn't. And on and on, with him talking closer than even the Body Shop lady and with a really outrageous French accent. I managed to avoid conversation through most of the trip especially after he twisted his water bottle into a chap-stick size blob, broke all of his plastic table ware into bits (I plucked a fork tine from my hair later in the bathroom),and obsessively blew his nose, inspected closely, dusted off his hands and arms with that same paper napkin, etc. Too bad my social psych skills were off-line due to lack of sleep.

So, we land at Lagos, get off the plane, and must show our boarding passes to get OFF the plane and step down onto the jetway. Weird. Having dug out said document, we enter the airport and proceed down many cramped, unlabeled halls and corners, to reach the top of an escalator with several Nigerian men standing around it; none are in uniform, which should have told me something. As requested, I handed my passport and itinerary to one man, who shoved it back and demanded my yellow card.

Fish - I don't have a yellow card that proves I've been immunized again yellow fever. Nick does, but it's 3 years old.

Happily, 2 other (white) people are having the same trouble. None of us knew we needed this darn thing and none of the visa services we used or the various travel web pages happened to mention this as a current requirement. We are sent to talk at a side table with another Nigerian man, who is clearly not interested in our story: "too much talking and talking." We slowly realize that we have not showed enough gratitude for this man's possible willingness to overlook this government rule; a $20 "gift" seems to show sufficient thankfulness from our hearts (which line we were each required to repeat with the others as witnesses). Having demonstrated our gratefulness, we went through another line where our passport and visa were checked, then another line to have our passport and visa and customs declaration checked. One woman asks me if Nick is my husband and, when told yes, whether we were having problems. No, no, I assured her, wondering whether I'd need to come up with another gratitude gift (or whether she just wanted HIM as a gratitude gift). We passed to the baggage conveyor and none of our 4 checked bags (including all the conference materials and my clothes) made an appearance. So, we get sent to several different places around this dim, run-down, very humid, poorly-labeled airport to track down our luggage and driver, and $10 seems to smooth the way to using a Delta desk attendant's cell phone and his promise to look for our baggage on the next flight. We are definitely not in Kansas anymore.