by R. A. Lang
My company contacts were tracking my progress from the moment that I was denied entry, and they were quite relieved to hear I’d landed back in Ghana. They booked me into the African Regent Hotel so I’d have a little luxury to recover from my ordeal.
The following day, I returned to our head office and told everyone what had happened. I mentioned that I needed another visa, and that it had to be issued from London as the United Kingdom was my point of origin.
Preparations were made, together with my agent back in Liverpool, and my passport was sent off via courier. After a few weeks had passed, my new, London-issued visa was safely in my hands for any future visits to Nigeria.
During months of assessing the project, I could see the need for a more formal control over the contractor’s activities. I made a presentation of my own copyrighted system and succeeded in renting my Q-Pack mechanical completions database, which I had pioneered back in 1992. The only requirement I built into the rental contract was that Izhar would administer my system.
My database rental contract was approved, so I called Izhar. My first words as he answered his mobile phone in Qatar were, “Hey, brother, it’s Andy in Africa. Quit your job and come over here. I have a contract for you.” After I had explained everything, Izhar handed in his resignation and joined me a few weeks later.
Izhar went directly to Nigeria to start his assignment, so I needed to drive from Ghana to meet up with him, which took me the usual three days.
Feeling quite confident on 15th February 2009, I drove up to the Nigerian border immigration zone from the Benin border, armed with my new visa.
As a further precaution, I carried my yellow fever vaccination card to reduce the reasons they might name for not allowing me into the country. I thought, what can they possibly do to me now?
All was fine when I reached the Nigerian border. I waited in the safety of my car as usual, out of sight of the Nigerian immigration officers whilst my driver took my passport to the Nigerian immigration desks for processing.
After a few minutes, he returned and said the immigration officers wanted to see my ‘yellow card’, as they called it. Feeling rather pleased that I had remembered to bring it, I handed the card to my driver. I figured that would be the end of my troubles – wrong!
My driver returned to the car after just a couple of minutes telling me that they wanted to see me. I knew the fun was about to start all over again.
I approached the desk, shook the immigration officer’s hand, and asked whether there was a problem. He explained that there was a big problem, and that he couldn’t process my passport because my yellow card didn’t say yellow fever. I found where the words were written, and I showed them to him. I explained that my card was issued in the United Kingdom by a competent tropical clinic.
Not to be outdone by solid facts, the immigration officer asked me for my meningitis card. I told him that no such card existed, and that such information was simply recorded on a normal vaccination card with other inoculations.
He wanted to see the card on which my meningitis data was recorded, but that was back in the United Kingdom with my other records, such as hepatitis A and B, cholera, typhoid, tetanus, and polio. I called the immigration chief who had given me his number before to ask where he was. He told me he was home in his village four hours away and therefore couldn’t get to me.
Here we go again, I thought. It was dash time all over again.
Carrying all those cards would have been a total waste of time in any case because it would just prolong the agony and force me to listen to excuse after excuse before I resorted to having to dash them in any case.
The only amusing part of the whole fiasco was winding them up to see just how far their excuses and imagination could stretch. Those guys had the patience and the power … and all day to abuse it.
My new brother of an immigration chief was useless, he didn’t want to deny his fellow brothers from making a score in his absence.
After I’d finished dashing them all, I returned to the safety of my truck before saying something that I might later regret. The truck was locked, so I had to wait outside in the direct sunshine until my driver returned. Bogus salesmen, currency dealers and other types of profiteers surrounded me whilst I continually guarded my pockets. They all wanted to sell me fake watches and used clothing, or just beg me for money and cigarettes.
After five minutes, I was called back to fill in immigration forms, which the driver normally did. Later, I was again called back so the officer who was sitting in a wooden kiosk could compare my face to the one on my passport.
Eventually, my driver returned with my passport, so we buckled up and started rolling towards the borderline. I’m free to go now, I thought. Wrong again!
Another Nigerian police officer stood right in front of my car and held an AK-47 directly towards my head to stop us. An official asked my driver to get out of the vehicle so he could show him my passport, which he promptly did. As soon as the official looked at my passport, he approached my window and signalled for me to roll it down. He introduced himself as a Nigerian Drug Enforcement Agency officer.
I’d just about had enough yet again, so I asked to see some ID. He produced his DEA card, which looked official enough, so I asked what he wanted. He ordered us to put the car in reverse, park up and bring my entire luggage to his shabby wooden desk so he could search through everything.
Everything he saw he liked, and he asked whether it was his present. I replied no, so he continued going through everything until there was nothing left to search. Surrounded by local onlookers, I had to cover my back pocket where my wallet was, plus keep an eye on everything in my small case.
He particularly fancied my shiny new mobile phone, which I had just replaced after the previous one was stolen two weeks before, along with my laptop, wallet, and a lot of hard cash, from the guesthouse I stayed in Accra.
I was also carrying a couple of dozen large Cuban cigars, which he was sure were a present for him. Luckily, I managed to hold on to those, too.
After repacking my belongings, I was permitted to carry on, so we proceeded towards the borderline, when another Nigerian dressed in a police uniform appeared. She was a rather arrogant police officer who demanded to see all the papers for the car before we went another yard.
Fortunately, all the papers were in order, so we were finally permitted to cross the border. My armed escort had been patiently waiting for over two hours to escort me, but they were used to the tricks their fellow countrymen played.
The problems I encountered were everyday occurrences for westerners trying to cross the notorious Benin / Nigerian border. My British colleagues in the head office in Ghana refused to do the journey because it was becoming far too dangerous.
They had formed quite a corrupt little clique and as I was the new to the team, I had to go to all the places where they were too afraid to visit. They preferred to sit in the head office waiting for their ‘brown envelopes’ from contractors which I wouldn’t and didn’t fit into!
I do think, however, that I may have brought the wrath of the DEA upon myself by wearing a particular T-shirt. I bought it in Amsterdam a few days before on a business trip, and it had a large marijuana leaf on the front. The text of the T-shirt read: ‘Don’t Panic, I’m Organic’. I told the DEA officer, “Honestly, I only bought it because the colours went well with my jeans.”
I left the project in West Africa in March of 2009, and decided to return to a certain Caribbean island in the Dutch Antilles, just off the coast of Venezuela, to visit some friends I’d met there years ago when I worked in Venezuela.
Chapter 21
Caribbean
My intention was to visit the island in the Caribbean for three weeks and then fly to the island of Cebu in the Philippines and look for an apartment to buy there.
Because I was on a sort of holiday, I had a great time and went deep sea fishing twice a week. On my first fishing trip, I caught a ten foot blue shark. It was
quite a fight, which lasted over three hours. During the fight, a huge container ship was heading directly towards us as we were reversing our boat to regain some line that the shark had practically stripped from my reel. It was my first sunshine for a long time so I kept myself covered up while fighting the shark.
The ship was contacted by radio and asked to divert its course because we had a big fish on the line. To my amazement, the ship did exactly that. It was also the first time I’d gone deep sea fishing for a few years, so by the time I got the shark to the boat, every one of my fingers had a large blister ready to burst. The shark was spinning like a crocodile on the side of the boat while the deckhand grabbed a gaff to drag it onboard. The boat was far too small to accommodate the shark, however, so I instructed the deckhand to cut the line to let it go.
Seeing the island through the eyes of a tourist, I enjoyed the place and moved my return flight back another month. British tourists were only permitted to stay on the island for a maximum of thirty days, so I had to do a visa run every month. For my first visa run, I decided to stay on a nearby island called Curaçao for the weekend, and my hotel receptionist joined me for a break.
Because I was having a nice time and making new friends, or so I thought at the time, I changed my mind about buying an apartment in Cebu and started to look at condos on the island I was on.
My original plan was to buy a condo with some security guards, so I could just lock the door and fly off overseas to work. I was deterred when I found out I had to pay a maintenance fee of over five hundred dollars every month, which I thought to be quite ridiculous.
In the meantime, another thirty days was about to expire so I needed to make another visa run. I chose Havana, Cuba, or Habana as it is spelt in Spanish. There were no direct flights to Cuba from the island so I needed to change flights in Panama. Panama airport was quite impressive but I only had two hours there before boarding my Cuban flight.
At that time, bird flu was an international concern so waiting at the airport in Havana was a line of doctors waiting to question everyone entering the country prior to being allowed to proceed to the immigration desks. After passing through immigration were the drug sniffing dogs and then the wait at the carousel for my little case. Drug sniffing dogs were also paraded all around the hall and even over the baggage as it went along the carousel; all very impressive. I was only planning to stay in Havana for four nights, but regretted not booking the hotel for a full week.
Upon arrival at my prepaid hotel, I was made to pay the full amount again. The hotel manager was called and presented with the receipt, which included a paid in full stamp. That didn’t make any difference as the hotel manager claimed they hadn’t received anything so I went to the ATM and withdrew the cash and paid a second time. This wasn’t a good start, but I figured I’d reclaim my booking costs when I returned back to the island I was on.
I loved it in Havana and went everywhere as a regular tourist. Of course, my first places to visit were the cigar factories of Cohiba, Partagas and Monte Cristo, my favourite three brands. They were all just walking distance from each other and I hired a Cuban guide to show me around for the four day stay.
My guide was a young lady in her twenties who I’d met at a salsa club on my very first night. She spoke perfect English and took me to places a normal tourist would never find. Due to the communist rules existing in Cuba, she really wasn’t allowed to be with me. So many times, she had to avoid being noticed by the police as we went from venue to venue. It wasn’t possible to mention Fidel Castro’s name anywhere on the island. I once made that mistake at the hotel pool’s bar and the manager immediately closed it for the rest of the day!
One of the places I desperately wanted to visit was a bar called ‘La Bodeguita del Medio’. It had been Ernest Hemingway’s local bar while he stayed in Cuba. When I entered, I could see a wall full of his ‘scribbles’, which had been preserved behind glass picture frames. La Bodeguita del Medio was also the bar which was famous for inventing the mojito cocktail, or so it was believed. The mojito was a particularly refreshing drink in the heat of the Caribbean and consisted of sugar, lime, mint leaves, rum and soda.
The mojito’s exact history is still arguable to this day. It did originate in Cuba and is one of the most popular cocktails, like the Cuba libre, ‘libre’ meaning free. Some historians believe the mojito was invented in the fifteenth century when Sir Francis Drake landed on the island, to get everyone drunk to steal the city’s gold. An associate of Sir Francis Drake, named Richard Drake, had tried to make a version of the mojito called ‘El Draque’ out of an early form of rum, which didn’t really make it into popularity.
Some people believe African slaves working in the sugar cane plantations invented it. Mojito is believed to come from the African word ‘mojo’ that means to place a spell on someone. Wherever it came from, it’s delicious in any case.
One day I went for lunch with my guide and listened to a live group playing and singing in the background. They were so talented I sent them a round of drinks in appreciation. In return they all came over to my table and presented me a gift of their music CD, which they normally sold. They had even taken the trouble to sign its cover, which made it an extra special gift, but was sadly stolen from my island house later. I loved Havana and the people living there, but my four nights went like a flash and before I knew it, I was travelling back to the island.
Rather than continue to look for an apartment, I was advised to buy a house, which I eventually did, which turned out to be an even bigger mistake. On the island, there were two types of property: lease hold and property land. With property land, you fully owned the land, and there was no planning permission as such required for building, altering, or extending your property, which seemed like the best option.
A Colombian girl, Lisa, who I’d met in a bar where she worked, offered to help me find a house, as I didn’t know any of the areas on the island. Lisa was great company and also the lead dancer for the island dance group.
The real estate company was owned and run by a Dutchman and his Colombian wife. His wife drove Lisa and me around a few properties until I saw a house that interested me. With just a three minute walk to the ocean, I thought it would be a good choice.
I chose to live away from the main tourist area because prices were too high in that region. I also wanted to get away from all the noise and bar culture. After viewing several more properties, I decided to buy the three bedroom house on property land, which was about a thirty-five minute drive from the tourist area, down the southern end of the island towards Venezuela.
Once a deal had been agreed upon, I negotiated with the owners to include the entire house contents as it stood to make the place liveable until I was able to buy things that better suited my taste.
The Colombian woman from the real estate company was supposed to return later the same day to take photos of the contents of each room so that all the main items would be left there as agreed.
She didn’t return to take the photos for five days, so it gave the owners plenty of time to remove most of the furnishings before any photos could be taken. The owners were going through a divorce as the husband was in jail for being a paedophile.
As my luck would have it, I needed to return to the United Kingdom for a month, so I had a Dutch waitress who was recommended to me to housesit while I was away. She was also going to continue living in my house when I returned to work overseas, and assured me she’d take care of things whilst I was away.
After transferring funds to the local notary, I was told it would take around five or six weeks to complete all formalities and receive the keys.
The first thing I noticed when I eventually received the photos of inside the house was that there weren’t any photos of the bedrooms. When I asked why, I was told that the rooms had all been emptied, so there was nothing to take photos of.
I didn’t make too much of a fuss because even though I’d paid for the beds and other contents, I would
have replaced the beds at the earliest opportunity in any case. I later discovered that the washing machine had also been taken, along with the stereo system and all the contents of the kitchen.
The owner’s excuse was that those items didn’t belong to them, but they failed to mention that when I bought everything. I was later to learn that it was typical of the people on the island.
I gave the house sitter money to buy new beds and a few other things so I would at least have a bed to sleep on when I returned.
The Colombian real estate company informed me that their surveyor had been to the house and found everything to be fine. They told me that the house had even been rewired. I later found out that it had not been rewired and still had the original, eighty-year-old wiring throughout.
The purchase took ten weeks to complete, so I waited in the United Kingdom to avoid the expense of staying in a hotel room for the final few weeks. When I returned to the island as the new owner, the horror story really began.
In addition to the money I had left with the waitress to buy beds, I supplied extra money for her to continue buying bedding, kitchen utensils, and other necessary items. I also provided the funds to pay for the electricity, water, gas, and cable TV.
After just the first two days of living in my house, the waitress started to make me feel terribly unwelcome, which created a really bad atmosphere. She shouted her objections to my plans to build a fourth bedroom with en suite at the back of my house. She also rejected my idea to add an additional air conditioner to cool the kitchen … as well as many other plans to improve the property.
She was taking over as the owner of the house, and even began dictating what she wanted. One such demand was a twenty foot container from Holland which would be permanently parked on my back patio.
She told me I had to help her by paying for its shipping, and that she would pay me back later. I knew what that meant – up until then, I had never met an honest person on the island – so I refused her request. We went shopping for all the new things, and each time she took me to a shop, she spoke only Dutch. Without me realising at the time, she had every receipt made out in her name when I handed over the money.
