Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here

If you are familiar with Dante, you will recognize this as the saying inscribed on the Gate of Hell that the condemned pass through on their way to eternal damnation.  But, I bet you didn't know this is also the saying inscribed above the entrance to the Customs Office at Soekarno-Hatto Airport in Jakarta--the place where my three suitcases have been held for 15 MONTHS now.

Though I haven't provided you any details of my visit to the Customs Office today, I think both the headline and the first paragraph qualify as textbook examples of foreshadowing and you don't need to have ESP to have figured out how our expedition turned out. 

I was accompanied by Tasya (she is picture here dressed in camo, though her battlefield attire was of no use) and Gigih, the poor souls in HR, who have inherited this mess from the previous souls in HR, who no longer work at SU.  They escaped before they had to pass through the Customs Office Gates. I will not bore you with details of the three offices we visited and the Kafkaesque beauty of this particular bureaucracy. Bottom line: if the Customs Department does not respond to our lawyer's letter within 90 days, then they are obligated to hand over my suitcases. It is a rare instance when an agency response will be a worse circumstance than total indifference. So, another birthday will have passed in January of 2022 before there is any chance of seeing my suitcases at all. No one can tell us exactly what has caused this epic delay--perhaps the previous agent responsible for retrieving my luggage made a clerical error in his earlier paperwork, but this hasn't been established for sure. 

Even more fun were our efforts to exit the Customs Compound.  You will see the man in the booth who would not let us depart.  It turns out they have a new procedure for paying for parking and cash is no longer accepted. Only one type of payment card is allowed and, of course, driver, the two from HR, and me, did not possess such a card, and none of us ever had.  After a 10-minute standoff, the man in the booth finally lifted the gate. Perhaps he was a bit unsettled being shouted at by a woman wearing both a hijab and camouflage, but I really have no idea. 

After escaping out through the parking gate of hell, I returned to my apartment after the four-hour journey only to find cascades of water pouring from two of my four AC units.  This is the second time this has happened in my Jakarta apartment, not to mention the times I was inundated by water when I lived at UCA in Kyrgyzstan. Maybe the fact I was born under Aquarius, the sign of the water bearer, means I must make sure I am more prepared than most people to handle the currents, the ebb and the flow, and the tide.

The technicians have stopped the flood in my apartment and cool air has returned, but the heavens have opened and the tropical downpours have returned for the day. I've decided all that can be done is stick my head out the window and receive a drenching of refreshing rain and focus on the downpour of blessings that shower me each and every day instead of the surreal episodes that soak me to the skin.