Cape Town – Travel Day to Luanda

I am terrible at finishing up blog posts about our trips. If you look at the posts from our RV trip you’ll notice that there is no post about us actually getting home. My goal was to wrap up our trip to Cape Town… and boy, do I have a story.

When we woke up on Tuesday at our airbnb we thought we were in a pretty good spot. We had packed all our groceries and really only needed to load up and head to the airport. Unfortunately, Lucy’s iPad wasn’t charging and wouldn’t turn on. We definitely weren’t interested in tracking down an iPad in Luanda so we went back to the VA Waterfront to an electronics store. No iPad. They sent us to another store about ten minutes away. They, too did not have a new iPad, but they did have a used/refurbished iPad. So, we bought it. It wasn’t able to download any information before we got on the plane, but at least we had one.

Getting through the airport in Cape Town was a breeze other than our flight being delayed about two hours. We saw our friends in the security line. We grabbed some food to eat on the plane. I alerted Emerson, our driver, that we would be in late so that he wouldn’t have to wait too long at the airport in Luanda for us. The flight was easy. Lucy sat with Jordan this time and they played games. I read and Hudson alternated between watching downloaded movies on his iPad and asking me questions he knew I didn’t have the answer to. For example, “what is the distance between the sun and Mars? (The answer is 142 million miles). He has recently decided he is going to be an astronaut and now, we have space trivia all the time.

We landed in Luanda. You would think if you had a seat at the front of the plane you would be one of the first off, but no. They unload from the back of the plane so we were the last people to disembark. This also meant we were in the back of the line for covid testing, although since we had kids they did let us skip a bit. It also meant we were some of the last people to go through immigration. This is where our night started falling apart.

A quick background about Luanda and visas. Jordan entered the country on a border visa. This means he couldn’t leave the country, but as soon as he arrived Chevron begin the process for him to receive a work visa. The kids and I entered the country on tourist visas. Once Jordan had his work visa, then we could apply for the dependent visas that let us be in the country for one year. The process for us to get our dependent visas was taking longer than expected (everything takes longer than expected in Angola) so Chevron applied to have our tourist visas extended. That extension was approved. Before we left for Cape Town, Jordan confirmed that we were OK to travel to another country on a tourist visa. We have the email that confirms we are all good to travel March 2-8 in Cape Town, South Africa.

Back to Tuesday evening. The immigration officer checked Hudson’s passport and put it aside. Then he checked Jordan’s passport. All of the sudden, someone else came to us and told us that we didn’t have the correct visas to enter the country. We looked at him confused. One, because he was speaking Portuguese, but two, because we confirmed that our visas weren’t an issue. Jordan asked, “so what do we do?” and he replied “Apply for another visa.” The first tourist visa took three days to be approved so I was thinking… ummm, what?! There is a number that Chevron employees have to call during emergencies or situations like this. I told Jordan to call immediately. They told us to wait and that they would send the “travel guy” to the airport. We made that call about 8 pm.

At 9 pm we still had no clue as to what was going on. Jordan would get phone calls that basically said “just wait.” At 9:30 the kids started getting panicky. They were asking if we were going to have to sleep in the airport. I said no, but I wasn’t certain. At 10 pm, they were both so thirsty, that I asked a security officer using broken Portuguese and hand gestures for bottled water for the kids. I’m so thankful he found some. At 10:30 the kids were asking me if we were going to have to take a plane back to America. I once again told them Chevron would get all of this figured out, but I really didn’t know what was going on. We were tired, thirsty, hot, and stressed.

At 10:45, Jordan was finally called back to pay for another round of tourist visas for us. He did and at 11 pm we were finally walking out of the airport. It was a little creepy because there was absolutely no one else in the airport. Our luggage was sitting on the baggage claim carousel. There was no security there. Only Emerson waiting in the area outside baggage claim. He had been waiting just as long, if not longer, than we had! Three hours of being detained by immigration in Angola is three hours too long. I was so thankful to be headed to our house.

I don’t know where the breakdown happened. The HR guy that gave us approval to travel out of the country on our extended tourist visas adamantly claims immigration should have let us in, but others have told me that they had similar issues when traveling on an extended tourist visa. No the tourist visa itself, just the extension. The good news is that while we were in Cape Town, our dependent visas were approved. Our passports were picked up Wednesday morning so that the visa could be affixed properly. Hopefully this means we won’t have any issues when we travel in April. It is also not lost on me that we had to pay for another round of tourist visas after our dependent visas were approved.

I let the kids sleep in Wednesday morning and took them to school late. I, personally, felt like I had an emotional hangover all day. I tried my best to not look afraid or too worried in front of the kids Tuesday night, but being told by officials in a foreign language that we couldn’t leave the airport and go to our house was really upsetting. I seriously thought about refugees and how lucky I was to have a number to call when we were in a bind. So many people are leaving their homes with limited resources, scared children, and heading into countries where they don’t speak the language while war is going on around them. I can’t imagine how hard it is for these mothers who are trying to keep it together for their children.

The night we got home I had a dream about our house in Sugar Land. I was decorating it just like I wanted to and had a distinct feeling of being cozy and safe. I woke up wanting to be home. I know these feelings come and go. I know that in a couple of weeks I will decide I could live as an expat for the rest of my life. But Tuesday evening and Wednesday were hard. Hard days are going to happen. No one said this was always going to be easy, and yet, even in the challenges I know how fortunate we are to have this experience. Although I don’t need to experience being held at immigration in any country again. That box has been checked.

Until next time…
Sarah