A Glimpse Into Detainment

Part 1

Detained in an airport for 7 hours. Sounds like the perfect addition after having zero night’s sleep and a long two flights, I would say. I childishly thought that I could travel half way across the world and be a nanny for a beautiful family and have no problems whatsoever. About $750 in the hole and a passport that will now never let me into a country without a detainment or questioning, I am living the dream. Not. I am now into my second round of detainment, but little Alex is no longer in Frankfurt anymore, she is in the UK. Dear world, please give this wee tinge of ginge a break. Has she really done something so wrong as to be stuck in a room with people yelling at her for 7 hours telling her she’s a liar, to stop talking, stop crying, and to put her feet flat on the floor?

At this very moment I am sitting with a bunch of other culturally diverse people in front of the UK border waiting upon the verdict whether I will be let into the country of Budapest or not. I have been up for about 48 hours. Tears are unable to fall from my eyes at this point, and I am literally done travelling. Honestly, I do not want to see another airport for a very very long time. And I probably won’t be allowed to anyways because of that stupid stamp that those stupid German’s decided to press into my beloved and well-used passport.

Now, shall we get to the very beginning? Ya know, like how it all started? Well, it all started when I decided not to lie to the airport police official. I was asked why I was traveling to Budapest and I simply said that I was going to nanny for 5 months. She then asked for my visa, which I could not provide. I instantly was taken back to the federal internationals police office where my detainment began. They hardly spoke English. They spoke so fast and so harshly. I sat there and waited for them to talk to me. I asked if I could call someone and they said I could call when I was taken in for my questioning.

I was so confused at this point in time, not understanding why I was being held in this confined office space. I sat there for about a half hour with tears pushing through my eyes before I thought to turn on my phone and text my mother and Anett (my Hungarian host) about my current situation. Anett instantly called me and asked to speak to one of the police holding me. I asked the man to speak to her and handed the phone to him. He began to refuse, but I pushed the phone towards him further and told him that I needed him to talk to her. He took the phone angrily and started to talk to Anett. Throughout the conversation he repeatedly called me a liar telling them I knew the reason very well why I was there, but honestly I did not. By the end of the conversation, he hung up and began yelling at me. “You are a liar! You know why you are here!” I snapped back, which I shouldn’t have, but at the time I was so frustrated I could not hold my anger. I said, “Know I don’t, I do not understand you.” He began to accuse me saying that I fully understood him as he was speaking correct English, but I further informed him that it was not his English, but it was that I did not understand the situation. Once more, I was yelled at for being a liar and to keep seated until my translator came.

I bunched myself into a little ball on the chair of the office to hide the tears streaming down my face as I huddled it into my knees. Five minutes later I was yelled at to put my feet flat on the floor as I was being disrespectful to the chairs (they were ugly crappy chairs btw). So placing my feet flat on the floor and wiping my face I was faced to look through the glass windows towards the masses of people passing the revealing office doors. Many getting a good look at my red and puffy distraught face.

One officer bitterly told me to stop crying as this was procedure and I had no reason to cry. She grabbed a small tissue for my tears and walked over to me, harshly whipped it in front of me and once again told me to stop crying.

Soon my translator made it to the airport after an hour of me waiting in the main office. I was then taken back into a much smaller personal office area. Three officers escorted me into the room and sat me down. The questioning began. One hour passed. Then another. Then five hours passed. Throughout this time the phone was ringing off the hook, on the other end was my host family (Anett and Lorand) and an immigration lawyer that they had gotten from Hungary and another from Germany itself. I had so many people trying their hardest to get me out, but things were not progressing to get better in anyway. They finally came to the conclusion upon the sixth hour that I was either to be sent home, back to Canada, or if my host family were willing, I could get a ticket to London and then fly from London to Budapest (this being because of certain visa rules that could be slid past by going this route). As soon as Anett heard this she had already gotten me another ticket from Frankfurt to London and then from London to Budapest. I told the officers which they then said it was impossible for me to get on that flight because the flight was too early and they were not done questioning me. I had apparently misunderstood them when they had said I needed a flight to London and Budapest before 1 pm. They really meant that I needed a flight confirmed before 1 pm, but not a flight to leave before 1 p.m. The German airport officers had a flight back to Canada set up for me to leave at 1:30. I then tried to change my recently purchased ticket from Anett to a later flight, but they would not let me leave the office and would not take such things into consideration until 5 minutes before that specific flight was lifting off the ground. Once the flight was gone, Anett so kindly bought me another ticket from Frankfurt to London for 2:35 pm. She sent the officers an e-ticket confirming the flights, but they could not find the tickets in her email, but it was more like they were un willing to scroll down the email to find it, after I told them multiple times to scroll down. Three emails later, I convinced them to scroll down and they then found the ticket and its confirmation. We then waited upon the next ticket confirmation from London to Budapest, as they would not let me go until that ticket was confirmed and ready to be printed off. They told me that if they did not receive that ticket before 1 pm they would be sending me off on the plane to Canada. It was 12:54 and the ticket had not come in yet. I started texting both Anett and my mother, trying so hard to get the ticket confirmed. We finally received the ticket confirmation at 12:58.  But the ticket was not a printable one through the email yet. Luckily they waited for 10 more minutes. By 1:06, the ticket was in and we printed them all off.

Throughout the questioning I had to sign many documents and give multiple statements that were then read word for word, over and over again after each round of questions. I even received mug shots for their system.  What a shame that I do not get to share those horrifying pictures with you.     

With little time to spare, I was rushed to get my luggage changed over and my ticket checked in. Then we rushed to my terminal, skipping past security and passport checks. I was taken to the front of the line to get on the plane and was left with the plane stewardess to wait until the plane was ready for boarding.

Once in London, I got in the line for the UK boarder, knowing I needed to pick up one of my suitcases at the baggage claim (the other being lost at this point in time). Once I got to the front of the line and handed my passport and ticket to the lady, she flipped through my stamped pages to find a stamp left by the German airport police. It was a stamp indicating that I was denied entrance into their country. I was asked for reason as to why I had such a stamp, but my explanation was not good enough to get past. I was then put in a roped off box to sit and wait for questioning. 

20 minutes in and they finally decided to come get me.

                               

                             

Part 2

Picture a white walled room. There is a payphone in the corner by the door that only allows incoming calls but no outgoing. There is a girls, boys and family bathroom. Each all small little cubicle stalls. There is a small bookshelf on one wall with novels of sorts. Next to the bookshelf is a desk which contains a container of biscuits (really just packages of cookies) and a bowl of oranges and apples. The room is filled with rows upon rows of black plastic chairs. Two of the walls in the room were full windows so officers could sit and watch and monitor anything and anyone in the room. This was my home for the next 24 hours.

Prior to being put in this room, I was questioned, fingerprinted, got mugshots, and was once again officially interviewed. The officers here were not as harsh as the German police officers, but still were not very kind. After my interview I was taken to get my luggage. Everything I owned was searched. My clothes were gone through and my journal was read. Nothing was left untouched. I then was taken to the detainment room where I was to put my belongings in a room to be held. I was body searched and then placed in the white walled room to sit and wait. I was allowed no cell phone as it had a camera on it. Before entering the room I sent a quick text to my mother of the number in which she could reach me on the pay phone.

I received calls from my mother, father, Anett, and a British cop in London who was family to Anett and Lorand.  I had so many people trying their hardest to get me out, but all efforts seemed to be ineffective at this point.

Kindly enough, I was fed by the kind officers who worked in the detainment center. They may have only had rice and chicken sauce frozen meals and packaged sandwiches, but it was better than what the German’s offered me, which was literally nothing! I was so scared of the German officers that I didn’t even want to ask for a drink of water.

Sitting in the detainment center, I was able to make friends with two girls, who were in the same sort of visa situation as myself. Dominique from Oregon, and Nicky from Toronto. We bonded over our stories and made the best of the situation we were all in.

Later the officer who was on my case came to get me. She brought me into the office to break the news that I would be sent home the next day in the evening at 6:30.

That night I showered my body with the baby wipes that I found in the family washroom and slept on a lounge chair next to Dominique. We were provided with a cotton blanket that felt more like a curtain for your windows and a flattened pillow used by many heads before us. At this point in time, I could care less what I was using. I was so emotionally broken down that the germaphobe in me was lost for the time being. If you don’t believe me, let me also tell you about how I sat on a public toilet for the first time since I was a child. Appalling. I know.

I slept a total of maybe 3 hours fully. We all were awake around 6 am as some people in the detainment room were getting ready for their early morning flights. I was then given a packaged sandwich for breakfast, as it was my top choice between that and rice and chicken.

Around 11 I was informed that my flight was no longer possible with British Airways, as I had originally been with Air Canada. I was then taken to an international phone where I made multiple calls to the company I bought my plane ticket from as well as my airline, trying to change my flight for that day. Nothing was working. I was then taken back to my detainment room where all my friends that I had made the day before had left on their flights, leaving me alone with a new batch of people. I curled up on a chair and let the tears well up in my eyes. The fear of being transferred to immigration or the embassy in England, after my 24 hours were up, filled my thoughts.  You never really appreciate the ability to freely call your family until you are unable to. I stared at the phone waiting for my mom to call, hoping she would be awake in the middle of the night and think to call me.

An hour later, the immigration officer who was working on my flights came in and told me that I would just stick with the same flight from British Airways at 6:30.

5 o’clock came around and one of the nice officers who worked in detainment the day before was back and got me to get my luggage all ready for my flight. I left at 5:30 for my security and luggage check. I was then taken on a personal shuttle to my plane. I was able to walk on to the plane before anyone else. I sat in my seat and waited for boarding.

After a 9 hour flight, we finally landed in Calgary. The fears of passing the border and showing my infected passport began to bubble up into my thoughts again. Once at the border entrance, I was again questioned, but in a much kinder manner. I explained my predicament and was on my way. But was it all over? Ha! Not with the luck that I seemed to carry with me! I handed an officer my claim of goods card and was sent to the luggage search, this being because of my claim of $0.00. There my things were gone through one more time. I was again questioned one last time and then sent on my way. I sped walked out of the airport and to the arrivals entrance and into my mother’s arms where I began to drench her shirt in my tears.

After a full 33 hours of detainment, it was over.

I came out of my expected adventurous trip with only an emotionally and physically broken down body, a denied entrance into country stamp on my passport and a package of biscuits I smuggled from the detainment center in London.

In the words of Anett, given to me by my mother when I was held in Germany, “When bad things happen, you come out better in the end.”