Chapter 02: The Baggage
Remember I mentioned that my baggage didn’t get into the plane I missed? Well, when I took the plane to San Francisco, it was too late for my bag to follow me! I was told to fill a “baggage report” in the San Francisco airport; they’d send the bag from Vancouver to Sacramento on the flight of the next day, and then they’d ship it to the address of the place I was staying. Or so I was told.
When I got to San Francisco, I filled the report after a good deal of explaining to the lady. A first sign that it was going to be a long fight was that her computer told her my bag was actually supposed to be in San Francisco. Only after I went looking for it and confirmed her my bag wasn’t there did she believe it must still be in Vancouver, and let me fill the report.
The next day, I got a call to The Expanding Light (I was lucky I was at the reception at the moment) from the Sacramento Airport. It went something like this:
“Mr. Castelli?”
“Yes?”
“I have a baggage report of yours here; it was made in the airport of San Francisco. Is your bag in San Francisco?”
“No, it’s still in Vancouver. It should arrive to Sacramento today at 1PM”
“To Sacramento? If so, why didn’t you fill the form in Sacramento?”
“I missed my flight and had to go to San Francisco instead, but my bag couldn’t get into the plane with me, so they’re sending it to Sacramento, which was my original destination.”
“Alright, but you should have gone to the Sacramento airport anyway and fill your report there.”
“I was told to do it in San Francisco.”
“Oh… well, please wait fifteen minutes, someone will call you back.”
“Okay.”
Forty-five minutes later, the phone sounds again; the lady at the reception responds; it is for me: she gave me the phone, saying to the airport person: “Please, try to speak slowly: his English is limited.”
I took the phone and the airport person gave me the file number of my bag, which I wrote down. She also gave me a telephone to call to if I need, and asked me to confirm the time and plane in which my bag should be arriving, after which she asked to talk to the receptionist again (I wasn’t used to speak English then, I kept trying to speak in French; so, it was somewhat hard to communicate with me on the phone). After the reception lady hung the phone, she said to me:
“She told me they’d try to locate your bag and send it here; and that they’ll get it here tomorrow, maybe.”
“Tomorrow?!”
“Yes, maybe. That’s what I was told.”
I was dismayed. I thanked her, gave her the sheet with my bag’s file number, just in case they called again while I wasn’t here; and asked her if there was any place where I could buy clothes, a hair comber, a toothbrush and paste, etc, because everything was in my bag. Her response: the market is closed today. So, I was stuck there in my first day having barely slept five hours, without clothes to change; without even a means to comb my hair! About that time, a lady called Shankari walked in and was filled in with my problem; the reception lady and her told me they would try to get me as many things as they could so that I would be able to, at least, shower!
I wanted to go to the Sunday Service at the Hansa Temple, and then I had been invited by Nabha to go to a lunch at the Meditation Retreat; Shankari offered to take me to the temple for the Service and, after that, Anandi would take me to the lunch and back. Shankari also gave me a T-shirt she had in her bag, white and reading “Ananda” and “Rajarsi week;” I gratefully accepted it, that was a start!
When I got back from the lunch, the lady at the reception told me there were no news of my bag, but she had gotten me soap and shampoo; returning to my room I also saw a comber which I hadn’t noticed before (a really bad one, but I wasn’t about to complain! I don’t know where it came from). It was enough to shower: I could at least wash myself, change my T-shirt, go without underpants (no option), and with the same socks, hoping to survive until the next day! Something worth noting is that I broke several of that comber’s dents in my hair….
Monday morning I woke up and went up to the reception; Nirmoha (the guy with which I had been arranging my stay by e-mail) received me with the following announcement: “I got a message from the airport staff on the voice mail this morning. They tried to bring your bag up here, but they couldn’t find the place. They left a phone number; I’m going to call them so that I can give them more specific directions: people sometimes have trouble getting up here.”
He tries to call, but it’s busy, so he tells me he’s gonna keep trying. Okay! After a couple of hours I come back:
“I’ve been constantly trying to call and the number is always busy! I’m going to look up on the internet for another number to contact the airport, maybe we can get to talk to someone that way.” After a little, he finds a new number: it doesn’t work either; he finds another: this one works! Nirmoha then talked to some staff people, until he got to the right person and asked about my bag. What do they tell him? They need to know my bag’s file number! The very same one I had given the reception lady the day before, before I learned, too late, that she didn’t normally work there and that she had departed on vacation that very day! Nirmoha looked for the number everywhere, in vain.
I had the faint hope that maybe the number would be in my boarding pass: I remembered a little of it; so, I was sure I’d recognize it if I saw it. Unfortunately, the number wasn’t on my boarding pass, but I left it on Nirmoha’s hands anyway, telling him that maybe he can use some of the info on them to get the file number. Meanwhile, I told him, I had to go, because I was supposed to have lunch with someone.
After coming back from lunch, I went back to the reception, but Nirmoha wasn’t there. Jeannie, the other receptionist, gave me a paper from him, though: he had gotten my bag’s file number and yet another, different, phone number to call to. Deciding that he had already done more than enough, I decided to do the rest myself: I took the paper and called to the number written on it.
The result: I got to listen to an automatic responder, all of whose options didn’t have anything to do with what I needed, and without the option of just “talking to someone.” I just went for a random option and hoped I’d get to talk to a real person and… it happened! I got to talk to someone and tell to him about my problem; he then gave me (another!!!!!) a phone number to call to.
Hoping this would be the last stop, I called to the new number; when I was given the option on whether I wanted to talk to someone in English or French, I chose French: BIG mistake.
I go to talk someone whose domain of French was quite poor, and later I found out that so was his domain of English! He had, I thought, a strong Colombian accent, so I asked him if he spoke Spanish; alas, no such luck! Struggling to communicate, here’s a summary of how the conversation went:
“Hello, may I help you?”
“Hello,” I said, and I proceeded to explain what happened to my bag. “So, I would like to give you more specific directions so your people can deliver my baggage.”
“What’s your bag’s file number?” I gave him the number he asked.
Okay, I’ll look it up on the computer, one moment please.”
After a couple of minutes, he returned. “Well, here it is,” he announced, “It says the bag is in Sacramento, and it has to be delivered to this address, right?” He read the address of The Expanding Light.
“Yes.”
“Well, wasn’t it delivered already?”
“They tried to, but they couldn’t find the place. That’s why I’m calling, to give more specific directions.”
“Ah, okay, but that wouldn’t be to me. I’m going to try to contact someone else who might know what to do. Wait a minute, please.” Saying that, he put on music and left.
Ten minutes later, he came back, saying: “Yes, I wasn’t able to communicate, but why didn’t they deliver the bag to you already?”
“I told you: they couldn’t find this place. They asked me to give them better directions and gave me a number to call to; the number was a bad one, though.”
“What’s the phone number they gave you?” I gave him the phone number.
“That’s not an airport number. But I want to try to contact someone else to check what’s the current status of the bag. He’s not available right now, however, so it might take a while. Wait a minute please.”
“What? I just want to give you directions…”
“Yes, I’m going to contact someone to check what’s the status of your bag right now. It might take a while, wait a minute, please.”
“Do you want me to call back again later?”
“Yes, if possible, so I will have time to check on the status of the bag.”
At this point, I wanted to avoid hanging the phone as much as possible, since experience told me I would end up talking to someone else and having to go all over everything again. So, I hurriedly said: “As I told you, they tried to deliver it here today but they couldn’t find the place. That’s why I call, only to leave you more specific directions!”
“Let me look up for your bag again… okay, here it says your address is <my Canada address>, right?”
“Yes, but what does that have to do with it?”
“I’m just confirming your personal data.”
“But what does that have to do with anything?”
“If the bag couldn’t be delivered to you in your temporary address (the Expanding Light), we might have to send it to this address.”
“Listen, they left me a message asking me to call to leave better directions.”
“Yes, but if they couldn’t find it…”
“That’s because I haven’t yet been able to leave them directions yet!”
“Why haven’t you been able to communicate?”
“Because the number they gave me didn’t work, as I’ve said before.”
“Okay. Well then, if we do have to send the baggage to Canada…” I interrupted him.
“What do you mean ‘if’? I am going to stay here for a while and I have all my stuff in that bag.”
“I’m sorry; I meant to say we’ll send it as soon as we find it.”
“How long do you think it’ll take to send it?”
“I couldn’t tell, maybe a few days.”
“I can’t wait a few days; I have need of it as soon as possible.”
“Well, we could send it to you at once. We have a special service which will cost you only <exaggerate amount of money> and we could get it there by tomorrow.”
“What?” I asked. As a response, the man repeated himself over.
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s a service through which we could send you the bag really fast. Otherwise, it could take days.”
“Listen, I was told it would get here yesterday. This morning they already tried to get it here, and they called me so they could come again. All they asked was that I gave them directions.”
“Oh, alright. Can you give me the directions?”
“Wait a minute; I’m going to call somebody who can. He speaks English, though.”
“We can speak French, it’s okay.”
“No, I’m not the one who is gonna give you the directions, that’s someone else. But he only speaks English.”
“Alright.”
I went looking for Nirmoha; he was busy, so I went back to the phone.
“He’s on the phone right now,” I said, “can you wait a few minutes?”
“Sure, no problem.”
So, after Nirmoha finished his phone talk, I asked him to come over and give the man the so-much-needed directions, which he did. I still can’t figure out how my conversation with that guy turned in such a circle before I could finally make him understand the really simple thing I wanted. I must confess that I wasn’t completely reassured when Nirmoha came out telling me he’d successfully given all the directions.
Meanwhile, that day I met Marga and she let me enter into a used clothes shop (it was closed that day, but she borrowed the key to let me in) to borrow some clothes, and I could wash them and return them later. Due to some miracle, we found underwear for men (they normally don’t have those things), and I also picked up a couple of T-Shirts and socks, just in case I didn’t get to see my baggage before the end of my stay. At least now I had clothes to use!! I also bought a toothbrush and paste in the Market, which was open this day.
I didn’t have to wait much, though, because, fortunately, the story has a happy ending: the next morning (Tuesday), I went to the reception after breakfast, where Nirmoha received me with my bag! It took it quite an effort to make it there, though, as Nirmoha told me: Apparently, the car which was bringing my bag the night before broke in the middle of the road!!! They called Nirmoha to tell him this, but he insisted that the bag be delivered anyway, since there had already been too long a delay already. So, the airport people deployed a new car that encountered the first and got my bag delivered to The Expanding Light. Finally!!
Useless to say, I went gratefully at once to the house to shower, change, and comb my hair!
Jeannie, who gave me the fateful paper of which I will talk about later, and Nirmoha, the hero who fought half of the airport staff to get my bag to the retreat!
Previous: Chapter 01: The Trips – There and Back
Next: Chapter 03: The Dreams
