From Familiar to Foreign: DEPORTED BABY!

I recently read an interesting little book entitled, From Foreign to Familiar. Yesterday I experienced precisely the opposite. The day started out so well. On the flight from Lusaka I met a Zambian I'd come to know through my work here. It was a very pleasant surprise to find the Rev. Teddy Sakopapa sitting behind me. He said I looked familiar, which I almost immediately dismissed as a Zambian's typically friendly attempt to strike up a conversation. (I've heard that greeting more than a few times here.) As we talked we both realized he was right. Meeting this cheerful acquaintance made me feel like I had really become a part of Zambia.

It shaped up to be a relatively smooth day of flying. I was treated to a kind of aerial tour of African capital cities: Lusaka, Zambia, Lilongwe, Malawi, Nairobi, Kenya, and Yaoundé, Cameroon, all very nice. At the end of the day, literally, I ended up in Douala, kind of. Then just like that--bam--I was leaving. I could not believe it.

Here's what happened. The letter I'd received from the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Cameroon requesting that I be granted an airport visa (despite that Cameroon doesn't issue them), suddenly wasn't satisfying the Cameroonian immigration officials. Just after midnight I was told that my airport visa had to come from Yaoundé, Cam's capital--of all places, the last stop we'd made before Douala! I was hastily escorted back to the plane I'd just debarked and told I'd have to go back to Nairobi. The passengers on that plane couldn't have been too pleased. Their flight to Nairobi was delayed by at least three-quarters of an hour as immigration sorted though what to do with me, now perspiring profusely in the stifling Cameroonian humidity. It turned out that a woman at the jet way gate knew my Cam friend, but that didn't seem to bear me any fruit.
At one point, an immigration official took off down the wide corridor looking very purposeful--with my passport and the letter in question. When the airline ground crew tried to prod me on board the bird, I seized the opportunity to resist, asserting that I was going nowhere without my passport and letter, and especially not stepping foot inside that 737. I had a glimmer of hope that the airline would have to keep its schedule and leave in the interim, but this didn't pan out. Then there was that faint ray of hope that because I didn't have a return ticket to leave Cameroon, (since I'll be traveling overland through Nigeria), the airline wouldn't be permitted to let me go back to Nairobi. That hope also turned out to be short-lived. Suffice it to say that I ended up on a red-eye and found myself in Nairobi at sunrise, not feeling too fresh, and shall we say, more than a little disappointed and annoyed.

When I hit the tarmac in Nairobi I was abruptly met by a red-jacketed young man eager to keep tabs on my whereabouts and escort me, well, somwhere. It turned out that the Kenya Airways transit lounge has two things that are huge blessings that can never be taken for granted in Africa, or anywhere I suppose: a fantastic wireless internet signal and a table and chair next to a FUNCTIONAL electrical outlet INTO WHICH FIT MY PLUG ADAPTER! This enabled me to correspond with my Cameroonian friend as well as my bro Bill, twin sister Karen (who's celebrating a birthday today!) and my mom, who met me in Douala. After not seeing them for over a year, I was fortunate and thrilled to be reunited with them for about five minutes--before being whisked away like a criminal. The five-minute reunion itself felt a little like being a prisoner. From feeling familiar I now felt very foreign.

All I can do now is be a prisoner of hope. The visa is supposed to come through tomorrow, and now I just have to hope that the airline will let me travel to Douala with a visa. If all goes well, I'll be on tomorrow night's flight, once again touching down in Douala just before midnight. As Yogi says, "Déjà vu, all over again," right?-- only to a point, I hope. I figure there's a sermon or sermon illustration somewhere in this mess. And here I was thinking I had "the patience, flexibility, and humor thing" for travel down. Maybe this is another reminder that God isn't done with me yet. Stay tuned friends.