13 August 2006
Knocking... -Coda-
LET ME GIVE YOU A USEFUL TIP TO ENTER CANADA. 'Books' and 'writing' are two words that you should avoid pronouncing at any rate, until you have left the airport behind you in a taxi. Yes, I finally made it to Toronto —where I went to attend the AIDS 2006 conference—, but those two words were a source of trouble and delayed my going through the 'welcoming' process. In fact, there are so many 'welcome-oh-we-are-so-friendly' signs in the airport that you start immediately wondering why.
I have been in a number of European countries —Germany, France, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, Greece— and also in the Holy Land of the United States, and never ever saw immigration officers checking passengers' passports at the end of the gangway —which is probably the closest they can do it to the airplane's door without posing a safety threat to the passengers. And —you will not believe this, I know, but it's nothing but the truth— the guy who checked my passport had no hair —round, shiny bald head— and a sing on his shoulder. It was done in some sort of metallic-like capital letters, and it read: ICE. No kidding, I swear it. No one of the following immigration officers —and there were three— who thought I was a good investment of their screening time had that sign on their uniform.
I passed that one without trouble, but the next one, after asking some questions, put some mark on my immigration form —a big long card that you have to show afterwards several times along the way, basically every time you see uniformed guys shouting 'show your cards, show your cards'. The first time I showed mine, it landed me on a side office where another officer —already the third one paying attention to my humble, rather insignificant person— asked me a number of questions. And it was then when I made my first mistake: in responding one of them I said I was going to do some writing... Suddenly the guy froze. Slowly, his eyes looked up for mine. "Writing? What sort of writing?" I explained I was writing articles on the conference. "Are they going to be published?" —he wanted to know. "Only on the website of my organization —I said, forcing just a tiny little bit the reality—, it's something internal." That seemed to calm him down and soon he was done with me.
He too must have put some mark on my immigration form, because I was again separated from the crowd at the next gate and sent to customs. I had with me my laptop, my camera, and a projector that I had forgotten to mention to the first officer. This officer —the fourth one— asked for the content of my luggage. And I made my second mistake. I mentioned the content of three suitcases without raising his interest. Then, pointing to the last one, I said "books". "Books?" Oh my... here we go again. "Ye...ep, educational material, about the work my organizations does..." He wanted to see them, and so he did. Fortunately, they seemed to be inoffensive enough, even for Canadian standards, so he allowed me to enter the country... with them.
When I was a teenager my country was ruled by a cruel dictatorship. Somehow expectably, they didn't like books and writing was certainly a dangerous activity. I am not sure what kind of concerns the Canadian immigration officers had, but they made me recall those long ago gone years of my life.
