I'm leaving Bamako this morning. The flight plan is Bamako to Ouagadougou, to Lome and then to Lagos. My days here were beautiful, and I met many good people who loaded me with lessons in West African history and then on the struggles of family farmers to secure their right to land and an agriculture devoid of genetically modified organisms. My best meals there past few days have been fonio and vegetable sauce. The grains are smaller than those of millet and I can't stop imagining the labour it must take to harvest, clean and cook the sumptuous meals.
In my bag is a prized possession, a parchment from Timbuktu that fittingly celebrates that ancient centre of African culture. The inscription on it is in Arabic, and my friend, Seydou, offered a loose interpretation that I capture this way:
Salt is from the North Gold is from the South Silver is from the West But if you want to hear the word of God And nice stories you must go to Timbuktu
These words sum up the resource disposition of this lovely country. But do I have to go to Timbuktu for nice stories and to hear God? I must visit Timbuktu on my next trip. But not just to hear God. You can hear God everywhere and anywhere. I would like to hear nice stories at Timbuktu because all the ones I heard while in Bamako were tales of violence and destruction that accompanied the recent rebellion that raged in those parts. And then there are snippets of nice stories of heroism, organized communities and a keen sense of preserving knowledge, wisdom and culture.
As I got set to head for the airport this morning, I was ready for some nice stories and did not expect surprises. First, another close friend here urged me not to leave my hotel earlier than 7 O'clock this morning for my 8:40 am flight. Dashing for departure gates at airports never been my travel style, so I ignored this advice and left the hotel thirty minutes earlier. The hotel had promised to drop me at the airport but as I was checking out, I was told that the driver had gone to Togo. Gone to Togo? Sounded like a song to my ears. In a moment, I was in a cab and the silent drive to the airport was without any incident, and I arrived just before 7:00 am.
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ASKY airlines? Yes. I am flagged on to the boarding and immigration hall. Check-in is announced at about 7:15am and guess who was the first to reach the counter.
After exchanging greetings in French, one lady grabbed my passport, and the second one took my ticket. Two counters were attending to me alone. And the queue was forming behind me. Is this the beginning of a nice story?
"Lagos? Are you going to Lagos, Nigeria?" "Yes, that is my destination." "We cannot check you in?" "Why is that? My ticket is valid. My travel documents are all valid." "No problem with your documents." "What is the problem, then?" "ASKY has suspended all flights to Lagos and Abuja." "You must be joking! I never received any notice about this." "I am sorry, but we cannot check you in." "What do I do?" "You can call your agent to find a way out for you." "You have got to be kidding me. Where is your ticketing office? What alternative plans do you have for your passengers?" "Our ticketing office is Down Town." "Can you check me in, so I fly to Lome and then sort this out there?" "Yes, but you have to sign an undertaking that we can stop you at Lome today."
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I was determined to be calm through this. I need to fly to the East African country from Lagos tomorrow, and I couldn't afford to hang around Bamako or even make a detour to Timbuktu for some nice stories. And soon I was checked in to fly to Lome. Flying to Lome would take me a whiff away from Lagos, I thought. I could make it home by road or by boat from there. Yes?
Why would ASKY not fly to Nigeria? Would it be because their flights are often combined with their Douala, Cameroun and 'Ndjamena, Chad flights? Could the closure of borders by Cameroun, for fear of Ebola, inform such a decision? Would they now be flying over Nigeria from Lome or Cotonou to Douala? The cheek of Cameroun, after grabbing Bakassi! That would be cheeky of ASKY too - after all they conveyed Ebola into Nigeria in the first instance.
A look at my boarding pass and it dawns on me that the departure time had been moved from 8: 40am to 9:50 am.
Meanwhile, I have spoken with my wife about the situation. This reminds me of the days of the jackboots in Nigeria when it was always a prime duty to notify her as quickly as possible whenever I got arrested. She always knew what to do. Thank God for good wives! Married 27 years now and it is all like yesterday. Wink.
She has activated plans, and I will likely fly ASKY to Accra from Lome and then hop on a Nigerian airline to jet home. As I write this line, I am not sure whether I will spend the night in Lome, Accra or Lagos.
Perhaps I should just have gone to Timbuktu for some nice stories. And what if I had gone with the hotel's driver to Togo?
8:30 am. No ASKY plane in sight. Only two aircrafts have pulled up at the arrivals since I got to the departure hall/gate. One had a United Nations's inscription on it, and the other had a World Food Programme label. I see a couple of light aircrafts landing and taking off. And my mind went to the many private jets zipping through the Nigerian skies.
Except for sounds from the television set, the departure hall is quiet. A look at the arrival screen indicates that the plane that would fly us out would be coming from Conakry. That is Guinea! Would ASKY fly to Guinea but not to Nigeria? If the problem is over Ebola, then their argument would be untenable. It would be good to figure out what is going on. That plane, I now see, would arrive Bamako at 9:00am.
By this time, I have information that ASKY flew into Lagos earlier today. This means the lady at the check-in counter may have given me false information and could have stopped me from flying out with this flight. I recall that boarding passes for connecting flights are often handed out at the Transit Hall at Lome. I hope this will be the case today. Glad I have not lost my cool. Your cool is one of anyone's most prized possessions. Believe me.
The plane touched down by 8:50am. A small propeller affair. Now I fear my hand luggage may not fit into the bin. We will see. As we board the aircraft guess who is at the foot of the steps? The lady who had informed me that ASKY flights to Lagos had been suspended. She maintains that she is correct. I hope she is not.
As expected, my luggage wouldn't fit the overhead compartment. But I could shove it under the seat in front of me. 9:40 am, and we are into the sky. Not a word of the flight being routed through Ouagadougou. We are flying straight to Lome. Will I fly east to Lagos or west to Accra from there? We will soon know.
35 minutes into the flight, the pilot announces that we had left the Malian airspace and had just entered the airspace of Burkina Faso. We would also traverse that of Ghana and go on to touch down in Lome. No touching down in Thomas Sankara's country. Well!
The descent into Lome commenced 25 minutes to touchdown. A full 25 minutes ahead of the original schedule. At the Transit Hall and we are all on the usual long queue. Names called, and boarding passes handed out. Everyone that came with me on the flight got a boarding pass to fly on to their next destinations. Except me.
"Are you flying to Lagos?" I asked one of the ASKY officials. "Wait" was the response.
Wait? This was getting interesting.
Soon I was showed into another room where passengers whose boarding passes for connecting flights were not ready waited. A lady was working away at a computer, and churning out boarding passes for passengers on newly arriving flights. Occasionally someone among those already waiting in the hall gets called and handed a boarding pass. The queue I was on was not moving, and the folks couldn't be bothered. But I was. I whispered to a lady whose voice as she read out names was barely more than a whisper.
"I'm heading to Lagos and I need a boarding pass." " Where did you fly in from?" " Bamako. " " Follow me."
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What did this mean? In a moment, I was ushered to another space where another lady manned a computer and beamed a smile from behind a face mask. I could tell by the twinkles in her eyes. This reminded me that there had been no Ebola temperature gauges at departure at Bamako. None here too. In a minute, I got a boarding pass to fly to Lagos. And I am writing this at one of the boarding gates. You never knew which gate you would board from until boarding is announced.
Baring any dramatic turn of events, the flight to Lagos and arrival procedures there should be a breeze.
But there was more drama to come. ASKY was not flying to Lagos. Unless we agree that even though they put us all on Ethiopian Airways fought, we were still flying ASKY.
Now I start to think that the ASKY official at Bamako was not really wrong. But I could not help but keep wondering what would have been the case had I been detained in Bamako because of this apparent lack of clarity. Perhaps I would have ended up going to Timbuktu to hear some nice stories.
