So, when last I posted, I was being detained at Barajas Airport in Madrid by Spanish Immigration and was about to try to get some sleep…
Fortunately I’m so tired and emotionally drained that I have no problem falling asleep on my bunkbed. Earlier Junior, noticing my tired appearance, found me a spot in a dorm room with an Ecuadorian named Ismael and his wife and son. I feel moderately safer knowing I’m in a room with Ismael’s “familia”. Junior has been very kind but this leads me to wondering in the back of my mind, despite the fact that I look like hell, if he might be a bit “rapey”. I’m feeling pretty vulnerable so I sleep fully clothed just in case.
I feel bad about having these thoughts but I’m locked up with a bunch of people I don’t know in a place where I can’t speak the language. I’m not freaking out in a major way but my brain always goes to a “worst case scenario” in most situations so having these thoughts is not so surprising. I sleep soundly and am totally unharassed except for the snoring of Ismael’s wife, which wakes me briefly during the night.
In the morning I call my mum again and have a chocolatey croissant thing for breakfast. It’s really nice but not very filling so I have the peach from yesterday that I’d tucked into my handbag. It’s delicious. The food has actually been okay. The social worker even asked if I was a vegetarian or if I could eat “normal” food. Mind you, the night before at the evening meal I had reason to wish I’d claimed to be vegetarian. That dinner had consisted of a slightly tough steak and chips, a small portion of casseroley type dish, the obligatory hard bread roll and bottle of water, plus a dish of something that was sliced chorizo sausage in an oily, tomato-y sauce with light-coloured slices of something indistinguishable. Since I’ve decided to eat everything that I’m given like a good little prisoner, I have a go at this last thing but find the texture of the whiteish stuff a bit offputting. It’s not unpleasant exactly but it’s a bit slimey. I just don’t know what it is. About halfway through I flip a bit over and see a texture on the underside that conjures up images of stomach lining. Not long afterward my fellow detainees engage in animated conversation about the meal and two of them point at the dish and gesture at their stomachs. Oh yuck. I’m not usually squeamish about such things but I decide not to eat any more of that particular dish so I entertain myself (and exercise my jaw muscles) by chewing on the steak…a lot.
I get up at about 7.30am and take myself off to the toilets to brush my teeth (without toothpaste – it’s been confiscated) and to wash my face with a flannel. I also give myself a “wet wipes shower”. There is a shower available but I don’t have a towel, nor do I have any shampoo. There’s liquid soap provided but I decide that since I will be leaving soon I can just wait until I get back to England. Still, my hair is pretty yuckily greasy. I know this because when I redo my ponytail without the benefit of a hairbrush (also confiscated), most my my wispy flyaway bits of hair actually stay down on their own, anchored together as they are by accumulated oiliness.
I kill more time by reading the latest issue of Marie Claire that I bought at Gatwick for reading on the plane. I’ve been rationing it since I got here and have been reading each and every page including photo captions to make it last as long as I can.
A plainclothes member of the policia comes in and calls my name and gestures for me to stand against the wall. He has a digital camera and takes a picture of me. I don’t know what it’s for. I don’t ask. I don’t have the vocabulary to. As far as I know it could be for the office Christmas party “Dumbarses of the Year” Powerpoint slideshow but I take this as a positive sign that they will be getting rid of me soon as they will be needing a reminder of what “that silly trout” looked like.
10am comes and 10am goes. I thought I’d be gone by now but then I was originally told that I’d be leaving the night before so I decide it’s not a big deal, probably just some kind of breakdown in communication. The next time the social worker comes through I ask her when will be leaving and she goes to check with the policia. She comes back a little while later to ask to see my documentation. The policia have given me copies of the documents that I signed the day before but I have barely glanced at them as they are entirely in Spanish. She then points out that one of them has the date 03/10/10 and the time “21.50 horas”. I’m not going anywhere until 10 this evening, not 10 this morning. When I was told “10” by the lawyer and interpreter I had assumed they meant the next 10. I don’t remember them saying it was 10 at night but then I was very tired and a bit overwhelmed so it’s possible that I misunderstood. I’m gutted that I’ll have to spend the whole day here. Plus, a goodly number of my fellow detainees have left now. I feel more than a little disappointed.
I take myself off to my bunk and lie down for a bit and to my great surprise manage to nod off. Quite unusually for me I’m able to fall asleep in unfamiliar surroundings with quite a bit of background noise and the lights on. I must be exhausted on a whole new level.
In the afternoon more of the detainees leave but a young woman and a father and son arrive. Again, none of them speak English but I’ve become quite good at pantomime and explaining about my pasaporte going missing. I utilise the international sign for “and then it disappeared into thin air” in which I flick out my fingers like a magician and go “pff” and then look confused.
Finding ways to fill the hours is pretty challenging. If I had a pen I’d probably spend my time happily writing, which is something I can do for hours on end. But my pens have been confiscated and I only have a notepad. Wait, I have a notepad! Origami! I only know how to make paper cranes but that’ll definitely kill some time. I sit myself down and make one big crane before using smaller pieces of paper to make five little ones. In between I make a paper airplane and in a gesture of friendship, I throw it in the direction of the 8- or 9-year-old boy who is in here too. He sees it but doesn’t pick it up, but once his dad grabs it and throws it at him he loses his shyness and throws it about for a bit.
Later on I decide to watch some more television. There’s a fashion makeover show starring a woman with an intimidating bob named Fiona which I can pretty much follow without understanding what’s being said. And then we hit the jackpot with Extreme Makeover Home Edition (the Spanish version). Trust me, crying and home improvements look exactly the same wherever you are. No translation is required. There’s the bus and the megaphone and the Spanish Ty Pennington even has stupid spikey hair (which I personally feel is rather too slavishly sticking to the format… but whatever).
Other than that, it’s pretty boring. I try not to think too much about what I will do when I “get out” just in case this is delayed again but I do know that I will check into a hotel. I do know that I will have a glass of something alcoholic and that I will be washing my hair as soon as possible. I don’t really want to think beyond that though in case something else goes wrong.
Around 9.30pm I start to get a bit twitchy. I’ve gathered up my things and rearranged the stuff in my case so that I can repack my confiscated items easily. I have no idea what the process will be for getting me on the plane. Will I have to go through security or will they take me straight to the plane? Will I have a chance to use my phone before I get on board or not?
At 9.40pm the policia come for me. I wave “adios” to the father and son who are still in custody and from there I’m taken out into the foyer and am given my bin bag of belongings back. I put everything, bar my phone, back into my case and then follow the two officers out the now unlocked doors. It’s raining, which I hadn’t expected. The windows in the holding facility are frosted and I hadn’t noticed the weather had changed.
Criminally careless with documentsI’m taken downstairs in the lift, through a couple of corridors and out a door directly on to the tarmac and up a set of stairs that connects with the airbridge. The English-speaking pilot arrives but seems flustered. Apparently his crew are AWOL and have somehow become lost in the airport. One of the policia who has reasonably good English explains that the envelope he has contains documents that I will have to show to passport control at Gatwick. I can see that the photo that was taken earlier is attached with a staple. These are given to the pilot, who will pass them on to me when we arrive in London.
I really, really want to get on the plane. I want to leave this country (that I’ve not officially entered) ASAP. We have to wait about half an hour at the door of the plane before the rest of the crew arrive, running down the airbridge towards us towing trolley cases behind them. In that time the English-speaking policia has warmed slightly and makes conversation with me. When I explain that my passport was found on the plane but only once it was back in London he remarks that it is “a shame” that I haven’t been able to have my holiday in Madrid. I agree, even more so since my lawyer informed me at my interview that because I have presented at Spanish immigration with no documents, if I wish to travel to Spain again, I will have to be officially invited by a Spanish resident and will be allowed to stay for only one week. Since I don’t know any Spanish residents, the chances of me ever visiting this country again are slim. Once the crew are on the plane, then I am allowed on too. I’ve never been the first person on an empty plane before. It’s a bit eerie.
The flight is further delayed because of the bad weather but on the upside the pilot allows everyone to use their mobiles for a while since we’ll be waiting for at least another half an hour. I put in a call to Fringa’s mobile, which some quirk of telecommunications has prevented me from getting through to on the payphones I’ve had access to. The last she heard from me was a text saying I would be leaving at 7.15 the night before. She is completely shocked to learn that I’ve been at the airport this entire time and am only just leaving, having been in the country for about 36 hours. It’s good to hear her voice and her concern. I feel better and wish her a happy birthday for tomorrow.
During the flight I put some of Navigator-Jane’s Euros to good use and buy a gin and tonic and a packet of mini jaffa cakes. The stewardess informs me that they have no ice, do I still want the gin and tonic? I say yes, please. At this point she could have informed me that the gin is infected with Ebola and she can only serve it to me in a gumboot, I still would have nodded and happily slurped from the boot. I don’t finish the jaffa cakes. I barely finish the G & T. I’m so tired I very nearly fall asleep. I don’t sleep on planes, usually.
When we arrive, I wait until all the other passengers have left so that I can go and collect my documents from the pilot. He asks me if I speak English and if I’m a British national. I find that despite the fact that I am now conversing with a fluent English speaker, I am still answering in monosyllables. In fact, I have to force myself to say “yes” instead of “si”. I gratefully accept my deportation documents and walk down the airbridge towards the airport. Just one more hurdle, British passport control, and I’ll be back in somewhat familiar territory. I brace myself for being given a hard time, despite the fact that my situation has apparently been explained to them by the NZ consulate and that they have my passport in their possession.
I get in the queue for the non-EU passport holders, having filled out my landing card. I feel a bit dishonest putting Madrid as my last port of diembarkation. Technically I was never in Madrid. I was in the airport at Madrid but that’s not the same thing. I was in un-real Madrid (just a little football reference for those of you who are so inclined).
While in the queue I am approached by an immigration official who asks if I have my passport and I am just about to go into a lengthy explanation about why I don’t have it when I look down and see a passport in his hands. It is in a special passport cover that has kiwis on it that my mum bought for me. I squeal “that’s it” and he passes it to me. I make this kind of high-pitched noise like a small animal being uncomfortably squeezed…except happy. He gives me a smile and seems highly amused. I kiss my passport and clutch it to my chest like it’s wine on a Friday night.
After that I breeze through passport control like it “ain’t no thing”, baby. Then I pick up my Kathmandu pack from left luggage, and trudge off in search of a hotel. Fifteen minutes later I’m unpacking in a twin room at the London Gatwick Hilton and marvelling at the flatscreen TV and Crabtree & Evelyn complimentary toiletries like they are most beautiful things I have ever seen. Because they are. By 3am, I’m tucked up into one of the beds, though I’m surprised to note that a mattress at the Hilton can be noticeably less comfortable than a bunkbed in an immigration detention facility at Madrid airport. Which is not what I would have expected.
And that was pretty much the end of my “ordeal”. It’s definitely not something I would recommend but at the same time it’s a vastly more interesting story than anything else that has ever happened to me…except for maybe that massive earthquake last month. I understand that all these experiences are “character building” but I can’t help hoping that the near future is a bit less dramatic. Seriously, if I build any more “character” I’ll develop multiple personalities. I only hope that one of them speaks Spanish…
Here’s hoping next week’s jaunt to Scotland doesn’t involve me being set on fire…or drowning in a vat of haggis fixings, or something equally ridiculous. Wish me luck.
First published on Stuff, 6/10/2010