By Edmund Smith-Asante
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| I flew in a similar Turkish Boeing aircraft back home |
It is 7:39 am European Time and I don't know how to describe how I am
feeling right now.
Should I be angry or happy?
Well I guess a mixture of the two, since I am finally leaving for home
after about a week's sojourn in Europe on official duty. As a matter of fact I
am writing this piece tens of thousands of miles above sea level, on board Turkish flight TK 1942 from Brussels to
Istanbul, where I would connect a flight to Accra.
to Istanbul enroute to Accra. Me a drug courier? Preposterous! This is what I need, after so much wahala in Brussels where I covered the 4th EU-Africa conference.
Do you want to know how I got that tag? Then come with me to the end as I
recount some of my sweet and sour moments in Denmark and Brussels.
How it
all began
Twelve African journalists, including five Ghanaians were selected by
International Media Support (IMS), an organisation headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark, to
take part in a week-long Green Growth Study Tour of three Danish cities - Copenhagen,
Aalborg and Aarhus, from February to March 2014.
Indeed those times would always be remembered as one of the wonderful
moments of my life, as we learned a lot and had some fun touring those three
beautiful Danish cities.
It was as a follow up to that visit, that two out of the team, Janet
and I, were invited once again by IMS, barely a month afterwards, to meet with
some Danish key officials and also get the opportunity to report on the two day EU-AFRICA Summit in Brussels,
Belgium.
Although preparations were a bit hasty because there was not much time,
both invitees were able to secure visas for the trip.
So it was, that the two of us landed in Copenhagen for the second time
in a month, on Sunday, March 30, my colleague from Kenya arriving first. We both checked in at
the same hotel (First Hotel Twenty Seven), thus bringing back fond memories from the
previous visit.
My wahala begins
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| Onboard the Turkish flight to Copenhagen. Little did I know that my luggage was not on board |
But despite the smooth flights I enjoyed from Accra to Istanbul and
from Istanbul to Denmark, I was to receive the rudest shock of my life on
arrival at the Copenhagen Airport - my luggage was nowhere in sight.
After a flight delay of an hour, I had to spend another two hours at
the airport checking and rechecking that indeed my luggage did not come with me, and finally
lodging a complaint and filling a form. This was after I had joined a fairly long queue of
people who had also suffered the same predicament.
So how was I going to cope with the situation? It was not my first time
though, but it had been a long time since I last lost my luggage.
Thankfully, when all was done and it was certain that I was going to
live my first or maybe all
days in Denmark without a change of cloth, I went out to meet worried
Hanne (pronounced Hannah) my host, still waiting to pick me up to my hotel.
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| First Hotel Twenty Seven |
Thanks Hanne. It might have been double agony or tragedy if I had
missed you on top of it all after my almost 24 - hour travel. I left home on Saturday March 29 at
6:15pm and arrived in Copenhagen after 6pm and the hotel at about 9 pm. It was quite a wonder
that all my senses were working when I entered my room at the First Hotel Twenty Seven.
No change of clothes
Work began in earnest on Monday with a visit to two NGOs - one in the
morning and the other later in the afternoon.
But there was still no news of my luggage by evening and I still had on
the shirt I wore from home on Saturday. Did I have a choice? I guess not.
Thankfully though, I was able to get a shirt and underwear with the little money I was given for my meals and got a
toothbrush from the hotel, so I was ready to go and I braced myself for the
worst.
Next day we were leaving for Brussels and still there was no news from
the airline on my luggage - Na wa oh!
To be
continued
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