DIA

Being forced to traverse the Douala International Airport is something I'll not wish on my worst enemy. It had been a while since I last travelled and I guess I had all but forgotten the notoriety of the Douala airport authorities. My memory was severely jogged when I had the misfortune of setting foot at the airport for a trip not quite a fortnight ago. I was in for a rude awakening.
In all my travels (and I have travelled some), I've never come across a more chaotic airport. I swear, it has to be seen and passed through to be believed. It is that bad. I was laughing at this fellow's experience at the infamous DIA, little knowing that I was going to fall victim in the near future.
Where do I begin with all that is wrong and incomprehensible about that hellhole which has the temerity to call itself an airport, international airport no less? Hogwash!

Within minutes of leaving the air-conditioned car which brought me to the airport and entering the DIA, I was drenched with perspiration. The airport is packed full of people. The place is unbearably stuffy. Ventilation is non-existent. There are no air conditioners. No surprise there. For as long as I can remember, there has never been a single AC at the DIA. Not even when it was newly built. The overhead fans which had been functioning in the airport's heyday had long given up the ghost and they were never replaced nor fixed; Very typical. Zero maintenance is our middle name.
I proceed towards what I assume is the entrance to the check-in area. There are no signs in any shape or form to point out where one can find what. So one just has to move with the flow and hope that one is doing the right thing. Anyhow, before I could reach the doors, I was rudely stopped by two uniformed men who seemingly materialised from nowhere and blocked my path. Passport! One of them said. A little ticked off by their aggressive manner, I nevertheless, reached into my bag for my passport and handed it to him. I am thinking, in which other country does passport get checked in the middle of a gangway, with no visible post or desk or even sign to alert people to their presence. After flipping through several pages of my passport, he finally handed it back to me and motioned for me to pass through. No sooner had I let out a sigh of relief than I was again accosted by another duo. This time around they yelled for me to stop and asked me where I thought I was going to. In my head I was like duh! But of course I didn't vocalize my thoughts. I wisely didn't utter a word and struggled to keep my expression free of any emotion. They ordered me to come hither with my luggage. My bags were opened and upon seeing a single food item, I was promptly informed my bags had to be sealed. Okay, this is a first, I thought. When did this one start? My sentiments must have showed on my face (in spite of my best efforts to remain expressionless), ‘cos he started yammering on about some new rule to seal all bags containing food items in order to prevent contamination of yadda yadda and with that he set about wrapping my travelling bag with some clear plastic paper. I shrugged my shoulders; so long as I'm not the one doing the wrapping, I couldn't care less. Imagine my surprise when upon completing his exercise, he extended his hand and claimed I owed him 2500 frs for his trouble. I was speechless. Say what? Surely he must be jesting. Alas no, impossible as it seemed, the dude was dead serious. I considered refusing to comply. On second thoughts, I came to the conclusion it just wasn't worth the trouble. Knowing my country people, the chap would have no qualms detaining me for hours, effectively causing me to miss my flight and that was something I didn't wish to happen. I angrily counted out what I 'owed' him and finally I was allowed to go through the door leading to the check-in area. I threw a glance at the piece of crumpled paper I was given as receipt. Boldly printed on it was 'Ministry of Livestock, Fisheries and Animal Industries'. WTF? What kind of a name is that for a ministry? Whatever happened to good ole Ministry of Agriculture?
But I digress.
Luckily for me, there were not that many people waiting to check in at my airline (as opposed to the very long queue at the Air France check-in) and I relatively breezed through the check-in process. Phew, the worst was over, or so I thought. Next stop; Payment of Airport Tax. I'm as clueless as the next person. What exactly is this additional airport tax for? My guess is as good as yours. The only airport taxes I know of are the ones already included in your ticket fare. Cameroon is the only country I know of that imposes the kind of airport tax that you must pay on leaving the country via the airport. And it is by no means a negligible fee. It is all of 10,000 FCFA for international flights and 1,000 FCFA for internal flights. But how many people travel by air internally? Short of Garoua and Yaounde, which other airports do we have where commercial planes actually can land on? So the bulk of the passengers that pass through DIA pay 10,000 FCFA per head. Imagine how much this amounts to in a day, a month, a year, and you will not be able to get your head around why an airport like the DIA cannot afford to have air conditioners installed or why they cannot have simple things like clocks that work. In any case, I pay the fee required of me and then make my way towards police control. There is already a queue as long as the River Nile. People are sweaty, cranky and cantankerous. Who wouldn't be in temperatures nearing 40 degrees with relative humidity in the 70s? I reach my turn, and I hand in my passport and ticket. The lady takes them from me and starts filling out a form, taking details from my documents. She doesn't volunteer any information and neither do I ask for any. All the same, I'm thinking, what exactly is the point of this ridiculousity in the name of exit forms? Can someone help me out here? In my opinion, they are a colossal waste of time full stop. No wonder the unnecessary queue. Shouldn't there be scanners that accomplish the job, faster and more effectively?
Furthermore, there is no differentiating between nationals and non-nationals (just go to any country in Europe and see the larger than life signs 'EU Nationals' and 'All Others' or something to that effect), we all have to go through the same process. She hands me back my documents. Thank goodness, I'm finally done, but no. My passport hasn't been stamped yet. There is another post just a few metres away where my passport will be stamped. WTH? Why two posts a few metres from each other? Why not just do both in one go i.e. fill the form and then stamp the passport and voilà! Less hassle, less stress? But as you and I know, we as a people have never favoured the path of least resistance.
I stand in line for the passport check (another queue has formed in the process). The police dude is taking his merry time in checking the passports I notice. Again, it reaches my turn. He takes my passport. Turns it this way, turns it that way. Dude, don't you know what a Cameroonian passport looks like? Jeez! Unfazed, he opens all the pages of my passport one by one, at a snail's pace. At this point, I come to the conclusion, he's doing this deliberately. I don't know why an official will choose to act this way when he sees a long line of people standing in front of him, some of them on the verge of missing their flight as a result of this same sluggishness with which civil servants in Cameroon are prone to. The guy behind me is not as patient as I am. Not being able to bear it anymore, he shouts at the police guy to hurry and stamp that passport, doesn't he see the number of people waiting in turn? At this rate people will miss their flights, he ranted on. Unconcerned, the official continued with his slow perusal of my passport. Finally, when he was satisfied, he stamped my passport and I could go through. As for the guy behind me, I turned in time to see the police officer ignore his outstretched passport, and cool as you please, asked for the person standing behind the unfortunate fellow to step forward. I guess that was his reward for all his trouble. I don't know how it finally played out with the chap, but I have a good inkling he may have been the last to be attended to as punishment for his audacity to talk rudely to a man in uniform.
As for me, I was just happy to have passed through this mockery of an airport and come out in one piece. As I said at the beginning of my post, having to travel through the Douala International Airport is not something I would wish on my worst enemy. I dread the day I will have to make another such trip.