Bamako and Baggage
I arrived in Bamako last Sunday. I was only three hours late and I stumbled happily into the dark heat of a Malian night, pen ready for the forms they give you in a room without a biro in sight… the queues for a pen I could tell you about!
The other passengers drained away and the carousel creaked around the room like an arthritic snake. A couple of hopeful baggage handlers even gave up waiting for me. And when the conveyor belt stopped and people started climbing through the hole in to the airports back rooms my heart sank! No bags…
It has taken days of pestering, calling the UK and Libya, arguing in a Bamako hotel and, finally, employing the powerful persuasion of a call from the Evening Standard to get them moving… Big love to Ellen Widdup for this story.
The bags – which are full of toys, school stuff and football kits for the kids – are in Nigeria. A little solo holiday! They are on their way back to Libya tonight then they should arrive here tomorrow. But even as they promised that they finished with ’inshallah’ – God willing! No guarantees yet…
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