The Potentially Disastrous Thing I Left Behind
What really stressed me out in the run up to a big trip is the fear that I'll forget something absolutely mission critical. Most things it would be inconvenient to have forgotten, a charging cable or a tooth brush, but ultimately you can replace them. Compared to showing up at the airport without a visa or say proof of covid vaccination or such like seemingly increasing number of vitally important ancilliary documents. I have this almost superstitious belief that I _will_ forget something and am always relieved when it turns out to be something relatively unimportant, like, in this case, a neck pillow. And then I naively think that I'm all set thats the only thing I've forgotten and I can breath a sigh of relief. Well. It wasn't just the neck pillow this time.
So for this, my longest continuous trip in Africa at nearly 60 days, one would think I'd have been stressing and preparing for it well in advance, but as covered in previous entries, I was almost entirely preoccupied with resubmitting the documents for Cristina's visa until just literally yesterday (now all filed thank god!). Then I could finally start thinking about this trip.
I still needed to book my outbound flight out of Africa, so I did that yesterday evening among other things. I've got my passport(s!), and I even still have half a million francs from last year! Multiple passports and half a million francs makes me feel like a secret agent! Never mind that that's like forty bucks. I still had my covid vaccination certificate from last year, printed out the proof of visa approval (which had taken mere hours to get, sorted two weeks ago).
Then around 12:30 today, an hour and a half before my planned departure from my house, I actually began packing (: (in my defense I was waiting for the laundry to finish). For a 9:15pm departure, I planned to be at the airport at 5:00 -- that would give me an hour buffer to be there three hours before the flight. Which meant I'd have to take the airport shuttle leaving Geelong at 3:15 arriving at the airport at 4:45. My dear friend Billie was keen to meet for dinner during that extra hour I had besides. I'd park my car at work at 2:55, which meant leaving the house at 2! crazy how it all adds up.
I had just left the house when I realized I'd forgotten my neck pillow. But I'd already locked up and given the key to the neighbor so getting back in would have been more involved than just running in. Arrived in town with plenty of time (1:30!), so got clif bars from the grocery store which is something I'd wanted to do but not had time. Got to work at just right on about 2:00 and bossman was ready to immediately hop in the car and take me to the shuttle bus stop, great!
Turns out I had miscalculated here. It wasn't 10-15 minutes to the shuttle bus stop, it was half an hour. Arriving fully 15 minutes after the scheduled shuttle bus departure it of course wasn't there. Thank god I built an extra hour into my schedule! Dinner with Billie was out though.
But it was then that with a feeling of dread I realized what I didn't have. And it is a lot lot worse than a neck pillow.
I don't know what triggered me to think o it, but suddenly I reached for my passports and desperately leafed through the US one. There should have been a well worn folded yellow document, my yellow fever vaccination record, required by most countries in Africa. It wasn't there. It is "supposed" to always been be in my passport but at some point, probably scanning it or the passport for visa stuff, it had evidently failed to return to the passport.
It was still only 3:30, my flight is at 9:15. I quickly calculated, if I could drive hell for leather back home, grab it, and straight to the airport, that would get me there maybe 2.5 hours before the flight. If there were no delays. If I could somehow do something with my car at the airport end of things. If I could promptly get from this bus station to my car, and if my neighbor was still home to give me my keys .... basically only in the most theoretical sense was this possible.
This was/is the most bowl-shaking nightmare circumstance I dread, the epitome of the possibilty that haunts me in perparation for flights, the vague idea of which causes stress and anxiety, now a reality!
Well they've let me through the gate checks and I'm waiting at the gate now. What I'm hoping, the one glimmer of hope I have, is that because I _did_ scan it for a visa, I have the image of it on my computer. I've now emailed that to myself so I have it on my phone. I have a feeling the mere image of a legal document is not entirely satisfactory (fun fact, apparently yellow fever vaccination records are "the only medical record that is also a legal document" or something. Well I was told that years ago the covid vaccination record is probably in the same category) ... but this being Guinea where the officials all seem to be absolutely rapacious for bribes, the official on the other end will probably recognize the insufficiency as a reason not to turn me around but rather, with a avaricious gleam in their eye to demand a bribe from me. And I'll be admittedly a bit over a barrel this time.
I was thinking, as I stressed about the vague possibility of some problem like this, that once I was through airport security I could at least relax for the next 27 hours, but now this upcoming confrontation at the Guinean border will be looming before me
In other news they charge $30 for these god damn neck pillows. The first one I found was $70 and I nearly had a heart attack.
Also in lighter news, the humorous comedy relief sub plot of the week has been that I found myself with far far too many sausages ater buying more last Friday when I evidently still had some. Being gone for the next two months obviously I've got to eat them first so I've been stuffing myself with sausages for every meal. Would have liked to eat out one last time with western food before going to Africa, nope I've had sausage eating responsibilities to attend to.
But seriously though the lack of this yellow fever certificate is seriously no bueno. It's required for Ghana as well, where I'll go after Guinea. If they do let me into Guinea I think I'll see if I can get the vaccination all over again to get a new certificate.
-7:24pm - at the gate