Angella Johnson: VIEW FROM A BROAD
There are many clubs for travellers. There’s the mile-high club, that exclusive group of people who have copulated 10 000m above ground. Then there are numerous frequent-flyer clubs. Well, I’ve just joined what should be called the deportation club.
It was not by choice and certainly does not have any cachet. My Christmas present from the Mozambican authorities was the indignity of being forcibly ejected from Maputo soon after flying in for a five-day visit.
While I’m sure Robert McBride may wish they had done the same to him instead of incarcerating him in jail for six months, it was an ignoble end to a holiday, before it had even started.
I had been looking forward to my four-day stay at the palatial Polana hotel (which serves the best pastries on the African continent), and had dreamt for days of gorging myself on succulent queen prawns.
Sure my travelling companion Suzanne Goldenberg did not have a visa. But, as the former Portuguese colony does not have any representation in Delhi where she lives, a senior official at the Johannesburg consulate told me one could be obtained on arrival in Maputo.
“Of course there will be no problem – it’s done all the time,” assured Roberto Tauzene. “Just go to the airport my dear,” he said blithely.
I should have been more sceptical in the light of rumours, which turned out to be correct, that false visas were being sold from inside the consulate.
Another hint that normal behaviour could not necessarily be guaranteed in some quarters came when I had to bribe an official at the consulate with R20 to bypass a long queue (women were screaming in the line and fights broke out as bodies got crushed at the front) of people waiting to collect their passports.
One woman, dripping with sweat after her three-hour ordeal, emerged triumphantly clutching her passport only to discover a strange man’s picture staring up from the page.
Yet we clung to Tauzene’s information, refusing to think it erroneous, even when we arrived at Johannesburg International airport and Suzanne had to sign a document absolving South African Airlines (SAA) of responsibility should she fail to get into Mozambique.
“Passengers without a visa usually come with a letter from the consulate to show us,” said the check-in woman. “They can be very strict on these things.”
Honestly, you would have thought the war-ravaged country would be begging tourists to come and spend some real money to assist their impoverished people. This is a place that makes Bangladesh look like an economic miracle.
Not so. Our reception in Mozambique was less then welcoming – actually it was downright awful. We were verbally abused and manhandled in an appalling display of petty bureaucracy that perplexed even the security chief from the Polana.
“I’ve never seen them so adamant,” he said after a futile attempt to intervene on our behalf. “If you had called us before flying we would have been able to sort it out, but now they are digging in their heels.”
Suzanne and I even tried to offer a bribe to an obese pop-eyed immigration official in too- tight dark trousers, who waddled over to escort us back on to the southbound SAA flight.
His opening price was $500 (I assumed this was irony as it’s probably more than the average annual income), but he later screamed that no amount of money would get Suzanne (and me) into the country.
“This would never have happened in India,” complained Suzanne, after the angry official grabbed her by the bra strap in an attempt to drag her on to the plane. “No male official would handle a woman this way.”
And a white one at that. I dread to think just how rough he would have been had I been the target of his anger. As it was he did tell me to “fuck off” when I tried to reason with him.
There is clearly no love lost between Mozambicans and their South African neighbours.
“Go back to Johannesburg,” spat the rotund official as we boarded the plane (clearly forgetting that I’m a British citizen and Suzanne is Canadian).
Further embarrassment followed when on our return to Johannesburg International we were “escorted” off the plane by an airport official who immediately assumed that I had been the illegal.
The following morning I contacted Tauzene who was adamant that his advice had been correct, though he expressed concern about getting into trouble if I published his name.
“This should not have happened. I’m very surprised that they did this. Maybe they were just having a bad day, but these people should remember that without travellers like you they would have no jobs.”
When I called the consulate’s Pretoria office this week to ask what the procedure was for someone living in India who wanted to visit Mozambique, I was initially told by someone called Joel: “Your friend can go to Japan or China – we also have a consulate in France.”
Now that doesn’t sound very practical.
Another official, who refused to give his name, insisted that Suzanne would have to get a visa from either Johannesburg or Pretoria.
Finally I was passed to the vice- consul, Octavio Sores, who informed me that it was impossible to get a visa at the airport – and that they certainly did not give letters to assist in the process (contrary to what I was told by officials at Maputo airport).
“Your friend must fly here and then come to Pretoria where we will give her a visa in just a couple of minutes.” Now I know that could not be true because the form-filling alone takes at least 10 minutes.
For the record, there is nothing wrong with a country demanding that visitors acquire visas. It was the lack of clarity in this instance that threatened to ruin our holiday.
Fortunately, we are not the kind of women you can keep down – or in this case, out. The day after our deportation we “persuaded” Tauzene to issue us two free visas within 30 minutes and drove eight hours (with one hour spent negotiating our way through the border post).
Maputo, I’m happy to report, was a great place to spend Christmas.