Lost Luggage & "Facilitation Payments" (wink, wink)

Hello Friends,

We have had a number of interesting developments in the past couple of days-- and to inform you all of them, I am going to hand things over to Christen Bloomfield.

"Twenty or more hours of flying. Too many airplane meals. One person sick. Luggage Missing. THANK GOD we’re finally here!

Carolyn had her luggage misplaced somewhere between London and Johannesburg, Africa. Yesterday after lunch and trying to strategically trying to figure out the flying schedule at Lusaka International, Carolyn and I with our faithful escort, Uncle G, headed to the airport to see if her luggage had miraculously shown up.
Right outside the airport, we approached a security hut (seriously, it was a hut with guards carrying guns from like the first world war…). We were motioned to pull over and told that the sticker on the vehicle had expired. Although they allowed us to continue to the airport, Uncle G was forced to give up his driver’s license.
Carolyn and I went into the airport alone while Uncle G parked the vehicle. We first asked an African man working for the airport where we would go and he pointed to one of the many hallways against a far wall. When we found the office, there was another man closing a door to a room chalk FULL of luggage to the ceiling. I’m not sure if he didn’t understand us or if he just didn’t want to help us, but he pointed to left and said “Go out der, to de office….” We walked outside to a scary, creepy alley way of the airport. Walking down the alley, passing door after door, we finally saw this tiny sign that said “South African Airlines.” We walked into yet another office full of luggage and crammed with people. Still unsure if this was the right place, we waited five minutes in a muggy, smelly office until we spotted a lady in a side office and decided to ask her. She told us to follow he and off we went on quite the adventure through the behind the scenes of the airport, we ended in a side room with literally three semi-trailer trucks full of luggage. There were two African men asking to see our luggage claims. I’m fairly certain that they didn’t even look at the tags, because ever since we entered the airport we kept asking if someone – ANYBODY- could just scan the bar code to find the luggage. We were only allowed to stand behind and look into the trailer to see if we could see the bags and wait for the “big boss”. We were looking for ONE black piece of luggage in a sea of black bags and box .We were told not to touch or go near the bags darn near impossible, I tell you. As we waited, the guard continually told us hello as if flirting. We were ready to give up w hen we were told to go through another door into the main part of the airport. Magically, Carolyn’s luggage was lying alongside a random wall with a handful of other pieces of lonely luggage waiting to be claimed. It was a total miracle that it was ever found at all.

As we left the airport, we needed to report back to the guard to pick up Uncle G’s driver’s license. We learned the way things worked in Zambia, as we paid off the guard with 50,000 kwacha (about $17) and drove off. We were really pumped – we bribed our first police officer!
With a scary, but highly exciting, adventure behind us, we headed to the marketplace where we continued to master our bargaining skills. We will continue to retell (and probably embellish) this story. It was well worth having the lost luggage!

Miss and love you all,
Christen Bloomfield"