Blue morning, blue blue day

With credit to a song from Foreigner in the title ...

And they're off ... Melaku and I were picked up at Bilo's around 9AM for the next trip to customs to retrieve Dell laptop. We go to the Bole sub-city police station near Bambi's. We are frisked on the way in and told to go to a certain office. In that office, we show what we have, including a letter Melaku wrote and I signed at the airport on Saturday. We are told the letter we have is not good enough, and one needs to be produced that was type-written :). It is suggested we go somewhere, then the clerk mentions something to Melaku in Amharic. As it turns out we can go across the street to get the required format for the correspondence.

We cross the street and end up speaking with a man who comes out of a hut. He leads us to a bench, protected by a tarpaulin, which is his office. No sign of the typewriter (yet). As it turns out, the clerk at the police station was giving us a "heads-up" that the wording of the letter is crucial, and the outlet across the street was staffed by someone who knows how to word it properly. He readies his pad of paper and carefully places the carbon-paper underneath and begins to write. I sign the letter and give the guy 20 birr. We go to see the same lady as the one that sent us across the street. There is a long conversation between the clerk and Melaku and he tells me to sit a minute and disappears. Upon his return he has another chat with lady, and disappears again. He comes back, and we go next door to the adjacent office and see someone else who writes a few things and signs the letter. We then return to see the original clerk and yet again, Melaku disappears on his own. He returns and the clerk writes and notarizes a new letter for customs. We thank all, after parting with 50 birr for the new letter, and head off to the airport. Ferenge is not too confident that it will go well at the airport.

We get to the airport, and pay the 3 birr entry fee, then the 2 of us go to customs. At first the guy there does not want to let Melaku in, but between him and another customs guy, permission is granted for the 2 of us to proceed. Considering the huge amount of discussions that followed between Melaku and customs personnel, I could not have done it without habesha. We discovered after about 30 minutes that since the police kept the photocopy of the customs document, we need to go back to the station and retrieve it. Melaku and the driver do that while I find my way to closest cafe for coffee.

My first stop is at joint that is closed, initially looking like the only watering hole ... oops there's another one on the horizon and I head there for bunna. It seemed silly that we needed a copy of the customs form because the letter from the police would not have been written without the copy of said form. Thus, the existence of the letter from the police was evidence that the copy had been produced. So why did we need to produce it again? Welcome to Ethiopia ...

Melaku returns and we go back inside customs, with ease accompanied my Melaku. Conversations heat up again. The head guy on shift scribbled something on the back of the letter, and off we go to the cashier to pay 10 birr for not having the original customs form, and the privilege of using the photocopy. We go to the cashier and after 15 minutes Melaku re-appears. We now need to go to a desk where the computer can be retrieved now that signatures and payment of fine has been completed. Not so fast ... we are also missing the receipt that customs gave me as they confiscated the Dell. Back to the guy, more writing, and another 10 birr fine for the privilege of using a copy of that receipt so nicely copied by one of the agents for 1 birr. They now decide we need to pay 2,000 rather than 1,300 birr. The reduced taxes owing are since the Dell is used. Used computer duty is reduced 35%. We get back to their agreeing on 1,300 and Melaku heads off to the in-airport bank to get a money order; monies owing in excess of 1,000 birr cannot be in cash.

I am left on my own and observe some pretty amazing events while waiting the hour for Melaku's return, a sample of which are ...

1) Two ladies disembarking from a Yemen flight saunter between 2 customs desks (unoccupied) and leave the secure area without having their luggage x-rayed; nobody from the authorities intervenes even though they could not have missed what just happened.

2) Lots of habesha try to walk into the secure area as if it is un-protected. They could not be bothered to stop and speak with the customs guy at the door. They are motioned over to customs guy by police officer on duty. The amazing part is some habesha stroll into secure area and are not challenged by anyone.

As Melaku returns, he saunters over to the cashier, joining a waiting crowd of about 10 people! As you walk up to the cashier you place your forms at the bottom of the pile. If you do not police this pile, some dickheads put theirs on the top 'cause they are so special and must be served first. I then see something more amazing than what I have seen up until then. Someone strolls beside (not through) the x-ray machine with a very large checked and a few small pieces of hand luggage. She stops and speaks for a moment with the honcho that we had been working with all day so far (#2 in command at customs this shift), then leaves. Luggage not x-rayed even though customs guy know it ... did not say anything!!!!

I now see Melaku strolling around and I approach him and he mentions the systems are down. Nothing can be processed until they come back up. I had visions of their telling us the fixer-person will be on sight by Friday, hopefully sooner :). It's now 12:40 and we have been here for close to 4 hours. We got "permission" from the #2 guy for me to leave. I thought "I have heard that before" so the guy assured me it was OK to go, and Melaku said #2 will make some notation on the forms that I left with his go-ahead. We came to the airport with 3 pieces of paper and now have close to 10. Hey that's not bad ... close to 2.5 pieces of paper acquired per hour and still no DELL!!!!

I received a call from Melaku about 2:15PM sating he has the computer. It's now 3:30 and I have not seen it yet. This should be interesting. The bill for the retrieval of the computer is as follows:

- Melaku's time 500 birr
- my time 6,000 birr
- drivers' time 200 birr

So for a grand total of 6,700 birr (~ 500USD) and 18-20 hours of person time, we have back a used 7-year old computer. By the way, while we were at customs, someone successfully brought in a gun with a barrel the size of the cardboard tube inside a roll of toilet paper, the gun standing over 5 feet in the air. I wonder if it was loaded too??