ridiculousness

There are numerous times throughout the week when I need to walk away from a situation because of its ridiculousness (in my mind) and my lack of patience with the way things work over here. It’s a culture that moves to the beat of a different drum, so to speak. Some days I can dance along and others I just have to walk away. I’m getting better at knowing when to do what. :-)

I have a week of leave coming up. Once my dates were finally approved by HR, I wanted to book my airline tickets as soon as possible. There is one airline in all of Mozambique. They charge ridiculous amounts of money to fly domestic and overbook flights, forget to have flights, change routes mid-air, and enjoy giving customers a hard time when trying to schedule flights. All these things they can get away with – they are the one and only airline.

To book your ticket you must first call one number and ask to make a booking. However, they will not tell you the price. After, and only after, you make the booking then you call another number to find out the price. You then have a few days to purchase the ticket and pick up the eticket at one of their local offices. So I called to book my ticket. They had no English speakers; I find someone in the office to call for me. The booking is made. Then we call on the price. Oh and the price changes too. If you go down to the office and talk to the right person, and pay cash, the price may drop. If however, you go to the office and you look rich, aka mazungo, the price rises. There is no set price for the ticket.

My tickets were booked and I wanted to purchase them before I lost the seats (which also happens frequently with this airline). I was told that it would be beneficial for me to send someone from work to go purchase and pick the tickets, as they may negotiate a lower price. Great! Saves me the trouble of trying to speak in broken Portuguese and hand charades. However, the local airline office only takes cash here in Quelimane. My leave money came in USD. So first it needed to be exchanged. Then the tickets can be purchased. All of this took a total of five days to do. Five days. Friday afternoon I left the office empty handed; still no tickets.

I was pleasantly surprised at around 6p when there was a knock on my door. A delivery man came with my tickets in hand! Yay!! A sigh of relief, the leave is actually coming! (I’ve learned not to get excited too quickly – a colleague of mine wasn’t able to take hers as immigration held her passport hostage for over a month!) I look at the tickets. My name is misspelled on both of them. And it is not spelled the same on either ticket. Two completely different names/spelling on two tickets that were booked, purchased and picked at the same time! One flight continuing the other.

Saturday morning I made a visit to the local airline office here in Quelimane. I need my name corrected and the tickets reprinted. I don’t want the hassle at the airport. I wait two hours to be assisted. There are two people in the office; one lady is completely useless. She does nothing. She won’t assist me. She’s not working. She just sits there. So I wait. The other man decides every other customer should be helped before me and even though I am standing directly in front of him, he still waves me aside and helps the other people first. He even waved people in off the street and helped them before talking with me! This is where my patience starts to disappear. After politely explaining my problem and asking him to please reprint the tickets, he replies with “no, no, no, no, no. This is a real problem! I cannot help you. You have to buy a new ticket.” And I reply with “yes, yes, yes, you will help me and I’m not leaving until you do!” He decided to try and justify his response of it being my fault that they misspelled my name. It’s a western name. When I made the booking, I was standing there while the person spelled out my name! With the Portuguese alphabet! This man was being ridiculous. He wasn’t going to help me. Luckily I had the number of the headquarters office in Maputo and called his boss! They seemed to think there was no problem and they could easily fix my tickets! The Quelimane man was not happy after I had him talk to the Maputo office. He hung up and then said “No problem! No problem! I can fix for you. I promise. No problem!” All with a great big smile on his face. Wonderful! Oh but wait…

It was 11:50a and the office closes at 12noon. They told me it was now closed and they could not help me. I was told to come back on Monday. I hung my head and walked out the door. I tried to smile. I really did. I know if you smile in these situations they tend to do what you are asking quicker. I just didn't have any patience left. I needed to walk away. The entire situation was so ridiculous to me.

I'm still waiting for my tickets.