Here goes the confession of a terrorist
Thanks for the title Mr Slabs, if it sends me to airport jail by security next time I fly, you will be my phone call. But, there is not really a better title than this one. So here goes nothing……..
If you read this and you know me, you will already roll your eyes at the title, but the El Al people don’t know me, and apparently nerdy single people with certain stamps in their passports = terror. They thought I was up to no good.
Getting to OR
After a few weeks of not knowing if I will be able to make the flight I was cleared to go the day before and everything sort of passed in a blur. First hurdle passed, second was getting to the airport which feels a million miles away.
After driving the whole day to get to the airport, and getting lost on the highway (typical🤦♀️), I was finally able to drop off my car and breath a sigh of relief. I was early enough to get in a coffee, croissant and brain pain reliever with ‘Smarter than me’.
After she saw me off I finally, after so many ‘misfires*’ over the years, was able to stand in line to enter the Holy Land. Finally, I was able to relax and get excited……. But Murphy had other plans. I should have expected nothing less, given my luck with airports…….👇
*This was not my first attempt to enter the Holy Land
Reign of terror
I started at departures about 10th in line, but by the end of ‘questioning, I was almost last through security.
El Al has their own setup at the end of the departures hall, so there seems to be an office and podiums for ‘questioning’. But they should call a spade a spade. It is in-te-r0-ga-tion. When my turn came I was eager to answer my questions because my nerdy self had nothing to hide and the sooner it got done the sooner the adventure could begin. But here is what followed……
Good evening, I am from El Al security and just want to ask you some questions. Are you travelling in a group or alone this evening?
I am travelling by myself.
Just a moment.
With that, she took my passport and disappeared around the corner of their sort of office.
After a while she came back, but not to me, and she starts the whole process with other passengers. And so I stood passportless in departures with no idea as to why. It was like standing in no man’s land. Neither here nor there. After the lady helped a few more people she walked past me and told me:
Someone will be with you shortly.
Is there a problem?
No
And with that, she was gone once again.
Bringing in the big guns
While I was staring at the ceiling, the walls, the other passengers, two El Al security officers came toward me. At least I got to see my passport again, but double-teaming me should have already told me all that I needed to know about the interaction that was to follow.
Hello, we are from El Al Security, we would like to ask you a few questions.
That is fine.
We see you have been to Turkey.
As the words were spoken I could almost hear the sirens and see the red warning lights going off. I had no idea that Israel was at odds with, or suspicious of Turkey. But with that one sentence, I could see where this was going. I was not off to a good start. Or rather, I was already not off to a good start when they heard that I was travelling alone, so a Turkish stamp in my passport was just the cherry on my troubled cake.
Then they proceeded to pepper me with questions regarding my visit to Turkey. They did not care that I was there on a layover. They wanted to know if I met someone there if I still had contact with someone there, do I have friends in SA that are from Turkey. If Turkey was a layover, what was my actual destination, and why did I go there? So many questions!!!!! And apparently ‘no’ is not an answer, not one that they accept anyway.
When Turkey turned into a moot point, they skipped over to all the neighbouring countries and pretty much asked me the same questions. Do or did I know someone from Syria, Egypt or Lebanon? Have people from any of these countries asked me to take something to Israel? Did any of these people from any of these countries ask me to take something out of Israel? No, No and No. I think I developed new wrinkles after frowning so much over their questions.
I am the bomb!
After the 100th ‘no’, they moved on. Did you pack your own suitcase? Do you have explosives in your bags? They tested my ‘no’ by proceeding to call the bomb detection dog to sniff my stuff. Only after dog approval, were they satisfied that I was not an immediate threat. and even though the dog thought that I was no criminal, they were only warming with regards to my ‘questioning’. Knowing that I would not ‘blow a gasket’, they came at me again.
Why are you alone? (That is an excellent question is it not?). Tours are expensive and no friend could come.
How did you get this ticket? I saved for years and bought the ticket. So, nobody gave you this ticket? No.
How did you save? Do you earn a salary? Where do you work?
So you do what?
They then took my passport again, disappeared around the corner and came back at me again with the same questions, plus some more. This time they want to know all about my job. I had to explain what we do, what I do, what assets we have. Then they asked me for the company website. They perused it and then asked how I communicate with my coworkers.
I told them that I have a work phone and that I don’t communicate with my colleagues on my personal phone. They rolled my eyes obviously not believing me and kept on insisting that I show them a WhatsApp group or something. They were not having any of that ‘I have a work phone ‘nonsense. Well, I have 2 colleagues’ number’s on my phone, but there is no ‘business talk’ on there. I told security about those names. What do they want? They want to see their faces on their WhatsApp profiles. 🤦♀️ I told them that one is a farmer and the other a fishermen so there are no faces, just a picture of a dam and a field.
I showed them the profiles. They looked irritated, took my passport and went around the corner again.
You lier
They returned, and although they did not outright say it, they did not believe that I worked where I said I did. In order to prove that I worked where I said I did, They wanted proof and asked me for my payslip. Who brings a payslip to the airport? They were getting more irritated when I told them that I did not have one on hand. There was a solution however, they wanted to look at my bank info. So I had to log into my banking app and search for payment of my salary (which they told me they would only accept if the company name is on the payment) and show them. This seemed to satisfy them.
On to the next point of business: Where?
After establishing that I am ‘not the bomb’ or have one, that I do in fact work at my company and get paid to do so, then we moved on to the next phase: Where are you going? I told them where I was staying and when. Gave them names and places and dates. Then, surprise surprise, they wanted proof, since I was being such a liar and all. I had to log onto my email and give my phone to them to scroll through.
Luckily I made a folder so everything was in one place. Unluckily, there were a few cancelled bookings in there when I changed my booking. ( I saved the cancellation confirmation so that no deductions were made, not a good idea in this instance). So again they were suspicious of me. This led to them asking me for my itinerary. I did not really have one. I only booked one excursion, the rest I was going to wing as I went (which by the way is very abnormal for me, I am much more of a planner and control freak, but I did not have the time to plan more thoroughly as I did with previous excursions, and I thought, ‘Hey, let’s try being more spontaneous’ I think this ‘interview might have cured me of wanting to try and be spontaneous).
Again they were getting agitated with me. So I showed them an app that I had on my phone with a lot of walking tours on it, which I intended to do. I told them that I am going to follow the app and see how it goes. They took my passport and left me again.
When they came back they said that they cannot accept my answer and I have to tell them in more detail what I was going to see. And they specifically asked if I was going to visit churches. I didn’t say it, but I wanted to say ‘Duh!’ But instead I opened the app again and scrolled through and said, ‘Yes, see there are churches on this app’.
Just shoot me!
By that time, departures at El Al was pretty empty, it was only the stragglers that still come to the line. All 200 or how many other passengers there were, have gone past me. Me, the ‘koek’, the ‘pliggie’. 🤦♀️🤔 At this point my brain pain from the day of driving was just exploding a little more with every heartbeat and I wanted to blurt out, If you are not going to let me through, at least tell me so that I can call someone to pick me up. Or just shoot me! But I did not, partly because I am a ‘pliggie’, and partly because from years and years of customs encounters, I know not to argue.
Customs are always right. I have been taught this since I can remember. Each time we did a border crossing, the parents would tell us to smile and wave no matter what. So it is what that age-old order in mind that I stood there passport-less being interrogated smiling and waving. Ok, I did neither of those things, but I did not react in some aggressive way which would probably end with me in airport jail. They were probably waiting for me to explode in a temper tantrum to prove that they were right about me.
Of churches and preachers
Back to the interrogation. After establishing that I am going to see churches, the questioning took a turn: Religion. What do I believe? Which church do I attend? Who is the leader of that church, what are the service times? What is the website? And they did indeed check all of my answers out on the web. Because by now they know not to trust a word that I say. Or they live by ‘trust but verify’.
Luggage is a 4 letter word
Then finally after more than an hour, I got a sort of green light. They put a yellow sticker in my passport (all the other people got green ones) and I had to be searched. They let me sit in the search area while a man came for my things, one by one. He took them back into the ‘office’ and took everything out- and I mean everything- under what seemed like a camera. Brought the bag back, took the other one, and did the same thing. Then the other one.
There he was being told that I might be a terrorist and I can’t help but wonder what he was thinking as he opened this criminal’s carry-on because in it was a stuffed animal, RTD the Dassie my travel partner, a frilly hat and a colouring book with pencils. If that does not equal hard-core criminal, I don’t know what does. I could probably stab someone with my pencil, but not sure what evil I can do with my frilly hat and RTD.
I saw, that as the man was searching my stuff, he was also doing that drug-swipy thing. But as I could have told them, there was nothing to find. But from the ‘Do you have a bomb?’ episode, I knew that they will anyway check no matter what I told them. It was not like I had anywhere to be.
For some or other reason, I almost always get searched, and every time there is this moment where I think ‘What if someone put something in my bag’. So when no sirens went off, and no cops swarmed to tackle me, I could sigh a breath of relief knowing that nobody did something shady and that the whole thing should be over soon.
After all, was said and done, he came to me with stickers for my bags. As with the one in my passport, the other passengers did not get these. On it was a circled ‘S ‘ . In my mind, this ‘scarlet letter’ read ‘suspect/suspicious’. It does not really matter, because as I walked past, everybody working for the airline could see me coming and know to keep an eye on me. After being ‘lettered’ I was free to go to check in. (After all that, I have not even made it to the check-in counter)
Putting my suitcase on the conveyer belt, the operator there asked me if I have a camera in my suitcase and if I did that I had to remove it. (just a side note, suitcases are not allowed to be locked because they get searched before going on the plane, and if they can’t open your suitcase, you can’t get on the plane).
Then I had to schlep the suitcase back down and take out the camera. That action sent me back to the searching- for -trouble- in -a -bag -guy, who had to search my camera case and stick another ‘S’ letter on that bag. One more loose thing that I had to keep track of. OI! (Because of too many things, I left a bag at the Stuttgart airport once, so that incident flashed through my mind)
Finally, in the clear, I had to go through another check, but this time by the SA authorities on the way to passport control. They could not have cared less, and compared to the experience with El Al security, this was very Mickey Mousy.
Open the gate!
And there I was at the gate. It was still a while before we were able to board….. after a gate change. Go figure. And then when we were allowed to board, I was again given ‘special treatment’ because of the ‘scarlet letter’ I was wearing. 2 men at the gate were arguing it seemed about me, but I did not understand a word of course. I did have to take my glasses off a few times so that they can match me to my passport, they looked my bags over again. And not having anything more to say to me, they waved me through and for that moment, I could sigh with relief, even though I did not know what awaited me on the other side’s airport (which turned out to be nothing….on the side of customs, transport out of the airport was a whole other kettle of fish!)
The night did end very well though. I had 3 seats to myself and it was to most comfortable flight that I ever had. If I have to go through interrogations again to ‘earn’ 3 seats, I will gladly do it again.
All jokes aside
It was a degrading experience, and if you know me you will know that I will be the last person to be a terrorist. Having said that, I can also understand why they did it- not necessarily to me, but in general. They are protecting their own because they are always it seems on the defensive. And their airlines are some of the safest in the world because of their security and the fact they have missile defence systems on their planes. That is impressive. I googled the tags that they gave me to try and see what they mean, I did not find out, but I did find a lot of similar stories as mine. Some way worse. In the one Hostel was a girl whose ‘questioning’ took so long that she missed her flight.
Knowing how they deal with security made me feel safe, but they can definitely work on their bedside manner. Not just security, but also the hostesses were very blunt, or maybe they see it as ‘to the point’. Will I fly with them again? Despite all the drama, definitely. I don’t think there is a safer option for when you fly to that part of the world. And, my passport expires, so next time nobody will see stamps from Turkey.😉
