Rumours of swine flu

I flew into Uganda on July 16th 2009 on a pretty rickety Kenyan Airways Boeing 737. It was one of those nights that the tropical heat hits you in the face like a wall. Tired, with my family in tow, we made a dash for the immigration desks.

This, for those who fly into Entebbe airport, is one of the most annoying times in ones travel to Uganda. Immigration staff just take forever to process anyone. The problem is further made worse by the fact that the airport is small enough for one to be able to see loved ones waiting the other side.

The end to one's journey, in many cases long haul flights, is near. Yet these servants of the state just slow down to a near halt!On this balmy evening, I had failed to appreciate the effects of swine flu and the coverage that it was getting in my adopted country, The United Kingdom.

> Thanks to Sky News - which is widely watched in Uganda - and other media outlets, travellers from the UK are viewed with suspicion. The growing perception even on the dusty streets of Kampala is that we in the UK are dropping like flies from this disease. Which actually makes for interesting observation because we in the UK, thanks to Sky News and other media outlets think that they in Uganda and Africa in general are dropping like flies from all manner of disease and poverty.

>Another layer of safety had been added to the defence of the Republic. Men with surgical masks corralled everyone off our flight into another corner so that we could fill out a form on whether we had had the symptoms or not. I actually wonder who admitted to having had them.

>I could see a flurry of Bic pens quickly ticking the "no" boxes. The lines grew longer as these men with the masks milked the situation, making us more irate. They too were asking questions which I thought would normally be asked by immigration staff only.

>I could see the immigration desks empty with two bored looking officers waiting for us. Their sole purpose, I suspect, to make our journal longer! I wondered what they would do if this airport were to suddenly get two large plane loads of passengers.

Fourteen years previous, I had landed at Heathrow airport fresh from a long haul flight from Muscat. Our GulfAir plane had touched down on time. The flight though uneventful, had seemed to take forever! I had watched as The Bosporus, Greece, Switzerland and all of Western Europe lazily float bellow us at a painfully slow pace-or that is what it seemed.

We had taken such a long time to arrive in London that I started thinking that either London did not exist, was moving further away from us or the pilots had missed a turning somewhere and were now hurdled over some atlas thinking "that place down there looks really iced over".

We got off that plane and I thought that I would rush to immigration as I do at Entebbe, clear with them and collect my luggage and hey presto! There was Diane and Harold! Little did I know that, I had entered what seemed to be the largest building I had yet encountered.

How long does one have to walk from an aircraft to those immigration desks? For a while I wondered whether I had indeed left Heathrow (and London) and was probably heading for another country still in one building. We turned left, turned right and the fear that I had encountered before of pilots missing London altogether started to creep over me.

I wondered whether those arrows pointing me in the right direction were actually not intended for me anymore. My assurance was that I could still see that lady who was looking after me. She too was following these arrows with a grim determination.

Then I hit the lines. I had never seen so many people of so many different nationalities in one place. A family in front of me clutched American passports. I was privately satisfied that they too were here lining up, waiting for their turn. A group of South Americans, or so I thought as they spoke Spanish, nervously thumbed through their passports making sure all visa stamps were correct and glued in.

Then I panicked! For at this moment it dawned on me that I had not looked at my passport again in the preceding 24 hours! Where was it? I could not even find my chequebook sized air ticket.

I was carrying enough junk on me as hand luggage to fill up a council tip! I even had the in-flight magazine on me. Who ever carries those off a flight? After a brief "pit stop" on the side, where everyone kindly waited for me to regain my position in the line, I had the offending items.

I rejoined the snaking lines to immigration where my nightmare begun.As I was travelling solo, having been invited for a summer holiday at two addresses, I had not carried much money. In Uganda, for one to go and spend a holiday with someone in their home means strictly that.

One stays at home. And if your host were to be so kind as to take you see a place, they foot the bill. So, I arrived with a paltry £50 in my wallet for a ten week stay. I approached that desk as the lady who was looking after me approached another one.

I thought we were going to be waved through together. She was. I was not. The interrogation started. Same questions repeated over and over again. Thankfully, I had memorised exactly what I had written on my visa application form. Any diversion from what I had written I politely corrected the immigration man. Any question as to why some information that I was providing at the moment had not been disclosed earlier I defended myself that it had not been asked of me in that application form.

>An hour into my interrogation, my suitcase was given to me, taken to a separate room and they proceeded to search it. It was an old leather case that my father had been using and regarded as an important family possession.

>I was horrified when these two burly looking men appeared with a pen knife and proceeded to cut the bottom out of it. I was distraught. I knew nothing would be found and indeed nothing was found.

>My toothpaste tube was emptied completely and a bag of millet flour spread out on the table. Still nothing was found.Two hours into the ordeal with I no wiser as to what they were looking for, I saw Harold and my sister being marched into another room.

Friendly faces at last. The immigration officer returned with both of them to me, took my passport and endorsed it with a six month tourist visa. I protested! I wanted only ten weeks not six months. Not after his shoddy treatment.

He mumbled something about procedure, let me through and wished me a nice stay. A nice stay? I could have decked him! I was furious, tired but happy that at long last I was on British soil. I broke down and bawled like a baby.

My sister who does not do emotional stuff just walked ahead of me. Harold, who I was to learn later did not also do this kind of emotional stuff, stiffly put an arm around me. I was to learn later on that that £50 was my undoing.

They thought that I was coming to work illegally.After that two hour delay at Heathrow I take the delays at Entebbe with mild irritation. An acceptance that these defenders of the state have a job to do.

That man at Heathrow (whom I would love to meet in a dark alley with no witnesses) had a duty to question my £50 pocket money. I will also one day ask Harold and Diane what the total parking bill for them was on that day.