back to the airport

as i was leaving the jaro airport i thought to myself 'this is probably one of the many trips i'll be making to and from this airport over the next year'.  well, i didn't think that i'd be back two days later.  i left my office number with the baggage claim group since i didn't have a local number yet.  after a 3 or 4 different stories from baggage claim in the next two days, including:

'we have your luggage'

'we are sending to your luggage to Moshi'

'it will be delivered to the Moshi office today'

then the office takes a call and they say i must pick up the luggage because customs wants to go through it and i must be present.

so, off i go with the driver back to the airport to pick up my luggage which is sitting in the customs office.  i'm really annoyed and it doesn't get much better.  i stand quietly by as they pull most of my bag apart asking 'what is this?' and i reply as appropriate, 'those are tampons', 'that is asprin', 'that is an electronic power supply'.  for me, as people in third world countries touch me or my things... it's always in the back of my mind that they don't use toilet paper ... so i cringe a bit when they are touching my personal items.  

eventually they get bored with me and the game of 'what is' because i make them repeat everything twice even though i understand them and i do my best to ignore them by writing email on my phone.

i'm 99.9% sure that Ethiopian Airlines didn't want to pay for or be responsible for the transition of my luggage to Moshi so they just handed it over to customs.  i F*&K$ng hate customs. 

afterwards, talking to a hardcore NGO employee, even they said, 'yeah, we don't fly Ethiopian - don't they suck?'