I just remembered this very strange exchange I had on my way to Bangui.

Just a little background, in order to get to Bangui, you either need to fly Air France (French, $3200) or fly Afriqiyah (Libyan, $1000 – $1500). There are other airlines, but they’re not recommended (Air Chad and Air Cameroon) — and I imagien that’s for good reason.

So, if you fly Afriqiyah, you need to go through Libya on your way to C.A.R. I was looking forward to this because I don’t know many people who have been to Libya and, although it sounds stupid, it seemed like it might be nice to see their airport, even if that’s all I would have the ability to see.

Libya’s Airport. YAWN.

One question: sign language support for the sermon? Wow.

So, I bought a Sprite ($2!), sat in the “cafe” and waited for about two hours. Unfortunately, the video doesn’t have high enough resolution to show what I could see from where I was sitting at the time: a beautiful portrait of Mohammar Qaddafi, under whom was written in English “the Libyan people are not slaves to wage labor” (or something to that effect). It was an interesting first intellectual glimpse of a place about which I know little.

Eventually, we were directed to our gate, where there was a security screening, if you want to call it that. Some passengers walked around the metal detector, laughing with the “security guard” dressed in a golf shirt and faded dark blue slacks, then taking their seats in the gate’s waiting area. Others walked through, setting off the metal detector with virtually no reaction from the guard, other than to smile and wave them past.

Then it was my turn. I put my bag through the baggage scanner, handed the guard my ticket and passport on the other side of the metal detector and then started through the metal detector with the rest of my body. Of course, I set both off. He laughed, looked at the man watching the x-ray of the bag and he said:

fshhsdhf “battery” asdffds “american” asdfsaf “bomb”

To which the other guy laughed, looked at me, and then looked at the x-ray operator and said:

adsjghuer “battery” adsfffd “terrorist” jfgfiuinm “American” fdshdskas

And then looked at me with a big smile on his face and said, in Arabic:

“Role reversal”

Or at least that’s what it seemed like to me, because all three of us started laughing. And then he asked me to open my bag and show him the batteries. I did. We all smiled and had a good laugh, and then I was on my way.

All I can say is, you can’t make that joke in an American airport.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 1st, 2008 at 3:24 pm and is filed under Red Hot CAR. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.