Airport story: how we ended up in Morocco and missed a big party
Early July we were trying to go to Belgium for our annual leave. We’d chosen to fly Air Maroc because of three things: they were way cheaper (1500 dollars), they don’t bother much about you putting on a safety belt (whereas some other airlines really insist on that and would wake up a sleeping baby to force the thing on and then run away when the crying baby needs to be soothed), and last but not least, the stewards are usually in a good mood (because of all the frolicking that goes on in the back of the plane with their fellow colleagues).
Enfin, you see that I had some good reasons to choose this particular airline.
*12 PM: One rainy Friday night in July we checked into Abidjan airport just before midnight. We installed ourselves in the cafeteria and waited.
*1 AM: Some people in the cafeteria are ordering overwhelming amounts of beer – it seems some of them are gearing up for a big party upon arrival.
*2 AM: Beer is sloshing on the table next to us where a man with the haggard look of a clochard keeps gulping down ever new bottles of beer. He insists on joining our table.
*3 AM: The plane is supposed to come and get us around 3 AM. But all we see is some grey haired man (in what might have been a pilot uniform) being busy on a large phone while his hand keeps making circling movements.
*4 AM: We gather that the plane has not been able to land due to a big storm. This might be true; it is rainy season after all. We also gather that the plane has gone to land nearby, in Accra (Ghana) and will return as soon as the weather permits. The ‘pilot’ and the group of blue uniformed women around him dissolve mysteriously from the cafeteria. Niko and Remi are sprawled out on some chairs, sort of sleeping. Mr Clochard keeps chirping away about the nightlife in Ivory Coast, France and Germany whereas I wish he’d tell me how he got the money for his plane ticket.
*5 AM : We gather that the plane in Accra does not have enough fuel to return. The refueling point in Ghana airport opens at 8 AM.
*6 AM: The kids wake up and ask when we’ll fly to grandma and grandpa.. A little boy runs by and the three of them start playing together. Clochard offers them a sip of beer
*8 AM: Air Maroc tells us that the plane in Accra is still waiting for the weather to improve in Abidjan. Which leaves us a bit puzzled – why are all the other planes landing and leaving? We gather through the grapevine that the crew in Accra now needs a rest. Then Air Maroc announces proudly that we will get served breakfast.
*9 AM: A rather attractive African lady, clad in Prada, has joined the Clochard. Most of the passengers watch with disbelief and disapproval as the two of them exchange phone numbers and clear out more beer bottles and cigarettes.
*10 AM: By now almost half the passengers have been served a croissant and coffee. The other half are still waiting. It seems the two Ivorian waiters do not want to part with their croissants, nor their coffee. The Clochard, himself half Ivorian, yells: “Please give us two China man, at least we would have been served hours ago!” Then he runs up to the waiters and grabs two croissants off them (to the great indignation of the waiters, and Lady Prada).
*11 AM: We have been waiting for 11 hours. One man amongst us stands up. He is an Ivorian, dressed in a yellow costume. He says that it is not right, the way we are being treated. The crowd approves. He says we need to find someone from Air Maroc to tell us when we are going to fly. The crowd roars. They follow him as one man to the Air Maroc office. This is closed. Not a single Air Maroc soul to be found.
*11.30 AM: A luggage handler has been grabbed as he passed through the waiting room. Someone recognized him as a worker of Air Maroc. They force him to call his bosses, which he tries, many many times, but no one picks up the phone on the other side.
*12 AM: The luggage handler has gotten in touch with someone who has redirected our crowd to Air Senegal, to take care of us. The crowd moves into the tiny Air Senegal office and we can see the following: the Clochard passes out on a chair, too wasted to stand on his feet, while an older lady is getting difficulty breathing and faints on the carpet, while the mother of the boy starts yelling that her 18 month daughter is having diarrhea and that she needs diapers and water, quickly!
12.30 : Air Senegal decides to put us in a hotel while waiting for a plane. The passengers protest, they demand compensation in cash. Kamiel and I decide to leave the airport and return home. From the taxi window I can see Lady Prada strutting away on her stilettos, never to be seen again.
1 PM: At home we shower, put on fresh clothes and have a meal before ordering a visit from our massage lady.
3 PM: Halfway through the massage, a fellow passenger whom I’d given my number, calls to say that he was transferred to the hotel but has now been brought back to the airport. So we return to the airport, excited about the prospect of flying to Belgium.
4 PM: Back in the airport Mr Yellow Costume gives me an update: we are not going anywhere anytime soon. Because yes, a plane has arrived but meanwhile another problem has arisen: the mother of the boy and baby girl has been thrown in jail. He suggests that even if we were allowed to board, we should refuse in order to put pressure on Air Maroc who then might put pressure on the police to free the woman. Most of the passengers agree.
5 PM: It seems that the police is asking a lot of money to free the woman. Yellow Uniform suggest we all chip in some money to free the woman. Not everyone agrees - loud discussions ensue.
6 PM: The plane is being cleaned. Some Lebanese passengers suddenly decide to run to the plane and board it themselves. Ten minutes later they reappear, rather angrily, being chased off the plane by a security guard while Clochard, slumped over in his chair, is pointing at them, laughing out loud.
7 PM: Suddenly Headbut Woman walks back into the waiting room. Loud applause. Her boy runs to my girls while she sits down to wipe her baby girl clean. She tells me that around 12h30, after Kamiel and I’d left, she was waiting near a shuttle that was going to take them to a hotel. As most people refused to get on board (asking for money instead), some police were to shove them on board. She says that suddenly she felt a big shove in her back, where she carried her baby girl. When she looked back she saw this police man, and then fell into a blind rage. She took her girl from her back sling, handed her to a random passenger, and gave the policeman a head but, ‘Coup Zidane’, she said. The man fell to the ground and had a cut above his eye. Next thing she knew they’d thrown her in jail and demanded a lot of money to let her go (200,000 CFA – for a lot of Ivoirians more than half a year’s pay). It took her hours to find an uncle who had some money and would come depose it and promise to pay up the remaining sum. Only then the police let her go. And having gone through all that, she now did not want to travel anymore.
8 PM: The husband of Headbutter calls and she’s passed him on to me. He, a French man, explains that his Ivorian wife has never travelled out of the country before, and that he’s heard that she has had trouble and now refuses to travel anymore, but if I could please please help get his wife to France because he hasn’t seen her and the kids for nine months and is waiting for them in Paris. I tell him I’ll try my best, if only the plane would leave – which it doesn’t as now the crew seems stuck somewhere in a traffic jam.
9 PM: The crew has arrived and we are boarding!
12 PM: Arrival in Casa Blanca, Morocco. All connecting flights are missed, of course, but Air Maroc announces happily that they will provide us with accommodation for the night.
3 AM: It took us three hours to get through the immigration lines and do the queue in a tiny office to obtain a hotel voucher. Mr Clochard was widely awake and when he tried to jump the queue and got rebuked, he started shouting again about the need for ‘China men’ and how much more quickly we would all be served then.
4 AM: After waiting some more for the shuttle to the hotel, we have finally arrived in our room. The kids are excited to be staying in a ‘real’ hotel (where you need to swap a card to open the door). Kamiel and I are happy to take a shower, even when we cannot find any towels and have to use a spare blanket.
7 AM : We get up to get some breakfast and rush back with the shuttle to the airport to try to get on the 9 AM flight to Brussels. In the shuttle we find some old friends – Clochard with a fresh bottle of beer and Mrs Headbutter with her two kids in tow.
8 AM: We have been waiting for half an hour in the immigration line and when it was nearly our turn, the immigration official’s stamp suddenly died. He walks away to get it repaired and never shows up again. The whole line keeps waiting in disbelief.
8.50 AM: We had started queuing in another line and are now in front of another immigration official. Kamiel hands him our 4 passports. The man looks and asks where the papers are. Which papers?
9 AM: In our zombie-like state we’d forgotten to fill out the immigration papers. Kamiel runs to the airport entry to get them and to fill them in.
9.15 AM: We finally reach the plane for Brussels which should have left already, but which is, surprise surprise, delayed.
Half an hour later we do take off.
1 PM: Arrival in Brussels. Rather happy to be home and also to have missed the in-laws party the night before – some might say that all the hassle was just worth it!
END
Enfin, you see that I had some good reasons to choose this particular airline.
*12 PM: One rainy Friday night in July we checked into Abidjan airport just before midnight. We installed ourselves in the cafeteria and waited.
*1 AM: Some people in the cafeteria are ordering overwhelming amounts of beer – it seems some of them are gearing up for a big party upon arrival.
*2 AM: Beer is sloshing on the table next to us where a man with the haggard look of a clochard keeps gulping down ever new bottles of beer. He insists on joining our table.
*3 AM: The plane is supposed to come and get us around 3 AM. But all we see is some grey haired man (in what might have been a pilot uniform) being busy on a large phone while his hand keeps making circling movements.
*4 AM: We gather that the plane has not been able to land due to a big storm. This might be true; it is rainy season after all. We also gather that the plane has gone to land nearby, in Accra (Ghana) and will return as soon as the weather permits. The ‘pilot’ and the group of blue uniformed women around him dissolve mysteriously from the cafeteria. Niko and Remi are sprawled out on some chairs, sort of sleeping. Mr Clochard keeps chirping away about the nightlife in Ivory Coast, France and Germany whereas I wish he’d tell me how he got the money for his plane ticket.
*5 AM : We gather that the plane in Accra does not have enough fuel to return. The refueling point in Ghana airport opens at 8 AM.
*6 AM: The kids wake up and ask when we’ll fly to grandma and grandpa.. A little boy runs by and the three of them start playing together. Clochard offers them a sip of beer
*8 AM: Air Maroc tells us that the plane in Accra is still waiting for the weather to improve in Abidjan. Which leaves us a bit puzzled – why are all the other planes landing and leaving? We gather through the grapevine that the crew in Accra now needs a rest. Then Air Maroc announces proudly that we will get served breakfast.
*9 AM: A rather attractive African lady, clad in Prada, has joined the Clochard. Most of the passengers watch with disbelief and disapproval as the two of them exchange phone numbers and clear out more beer bottles and cigarettes.
*10 AM: By now almost half the passengers have been served a croissant and coffee. The other half are still waiting. It seems the two Ivorian waiters do not want to part with their croissants, nor their coffee. The Clochard, himself half Ivorian, yells: “Please give us two China man, at least we would have been served hours ago!” Then he runs up to the waiters and grabs two croissants off them (to the great indignation of the waiters, and Lady Prada).
*11 AM: We have been waiting for 11 hours. One man amongst us stands up. He is an Ivorian, dressed in a yellow costume. He says that it is not right, the way we are being treated. The crowd approves. He says we need to find someone from Air Maroc to tell us when we are going to fly. The crowd roars. They follow him as one man to the Air Maroc office. This is closed. Not a single Air Maroc soul to be found.
*11.30 AM: A luggage handler has been grabbed as he passed through the waiting room. Someone recognized him as a worker of Air Maroc. They force him to call his bosses, which he tries, many many times, but no one picks up the phone on the other side.
*12 AM: The luggage handler has gotten in touch with someone who has redirected our crowd to Air Senegal, to take care of us. The crowd moves into the tiny Air Senegal office and we can see the following: the Clochard passes out on a chair, too wasted to stand on his feet, while an older lady is getting difficulty breathing and faints on the carpet, while the mother of the boy starts yelling that her 18 month daughter is having diarrhea and that she needs diapers and water, quickly!
12.30 : Air Senegal decides to put us in a hotel while waiting for a plane. The passengers protest, they demand compensation in cash. Kamiel and I decide to leave the airport and return home. From the taxi window I can see Lady Prada strutting away on her stilettos, never to be seen again.
1 PM: At home we shower, put on fresh clothes and have a meal before ordering a visit from our massage lady.
3 PM: Halfway through the massage, a fellow passenger whom I’d given my number, calls to say that he was transferred to the hotel but has now been brought back to the airport. So we return to the airport, excited about the prospect of flying to Belgium.
4 PM: Back in the airport Mr Yellow Costume gives me an update: we are not going anywhere anytime soon. Because yes, a plane has arrived but meanwhile another problem has arisen: the mother of the boy and baby girl has been thrown in jail. He suggests that even if we were allowed to board, we should refuse in order to put pressure on Air Maroc who then might put pressure on the police to free the woman. Most of the passengers agree.
5 PM: It seems that the police is asking a lot of money to free the woman. Yellow Uniform suggest we all chip in some money to free the woman. Not everyone agrees - loud discussions ensue.
6 PM: The plane is being cleaned. Some Lebanese passengers suddenly decide to run to the plane and board it themselves. Ten minutes later they reappear, rather angrily, being chased off the plane by a security guard while Clochard, slumped over in his chair, is pointing at them, laughing out loud.
7 PM: Suddenly Headbut Woman walks back into the waiting room. Loud applause. Her boy runs to my girls while she sits down to wipe her baby girl clean. She tells me that around 12h30, after Kamiel and I’d left, she was waiting near a shuttle that was going to take them to a hotel. As most people refused to get on board (asking for money instead), some police were to shove them on board. She says that suddenly she felt a big shove in her back, where she carried her baby girl. When she looked back she saw this police man, and then fell into a blind rage. She took her girl from her back sling, handed her to a random passenger, and gave the policeman a head but, ‘Coup Zidane’, she said. The man fell to the ground and had a cut above his eye. Next thing she knew they’d thrown her in jail and demanded a lot of money to let her go (200,000 CFA – for a lot of Ivoirians more than half a year’s pay). It took her hours to find an uncle who had some money and would come depose it and promise to pay up the remaining sum. Only then the police let her go. And having gone through all that, she now did not want to travel anymore.
8 PM: The husband of Headbutter calls and she’s passed him on to me. He, a French man, explains that his Ivorian wife has never travelled out of the country before, and that he’s heard that she has had trouble and now refuses to travel anymore, but if I could please please help get his wife to France because he hasn’t seen her and the kids for nine months and is waiting for them in Paris. I tell him I’ll try my best, if only the plane would leave – which it doesn’t as now the crew seems stuck somewhere in a traffic jam.
9 PM: The crew has arrived and we are boarding!
12 PM: Arrival in Casa Blanca, Morocco. All connecting flights are missed, of course, but Air Maroc announces happily that they will provide us with accommodation for the night.
3 AM: It took us three hours to get through the immigration lines and do the queue in a tiny office to obtain a hotel voucher. Mr Clochard was widely awake and when he tried to jump the queue and got rebuked, he started shouting again about the need for ‘China men’ and how much more quickly we would all be served then.
4 AM: After waiting some more for the shuttle to the hotel, we have finally arrived in our room. The kids are excited to be staying in a ‘real’ hotel (where you need to swap a card to open the door). Kamiel and I are happy to take a shower, even when we cannot find any towels and have to use a spare blanket.
7 AM : We get up to get some breakfast and rush back with the shuttle to the airport to try to get on the 9 AM flight to Brussels. In the shuttle we find some old friends – Clochard with a fresh bottle of beer and Mrs Headbutter with her two kids in tow.
8 AM: We have been waiting for half an hour in the immigration line and when it was nearly our turn, the immigration official’s stamp suddenly died. He walks away to get it repaired and never shows up again. The whole line keeps waiting in disbelief.
8.50 AM: We had started queuing in another line and are now in front of another immigration official. Kamiel hands him our 4 passports. The man looks and asks where the papers are. Which papers?
9 AM: In our zombie-like state we’d forgotten to fill out the immigration papers. Kamiel runs to the airport entry to get them and to fill them in.
9.15 AM: We finally reach the plane for Brussels which should have left already, but which is, surprise surprise, delayed.
Half an hour later we do take off.
1 PM: Arrival in Brussels. Rather happy to be home and also to have missed the in-laws party the night before – some might say that all the hassle was just worth it!
END
posted by Griet at 11:20 AM
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