The Purple Mango Pandemonium

Musings of an unapologetic, natural, smart, left-handed woman navigating this thing called life.

Brazil World Cup 2014

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Here we are. 4 years later and it’s World Cup time again. What did United States do to have to play Ghana again? Third time is a charm? I think not. Already I’m excited. Netherlands showed Spain, the 2010 Cup winners, yesterday with a 5-1 win in their opener game. Oranje!

So I’m currently on the bus from the new Natal airport to my lodging. Who opens a new airport days before a major international event? At least the bus is a free shuttle provided by the airport. Good thing I found out about it here.

My travel plans have been delayed by, well, delays. I should be warm and settled already. It’s been raining here in Natal, and even though it’s dark, I can see that the roads are flooded in some areas. Again, good that I’m on a bus.

This trip has given me the largest headache any trip I’ve ever taken before has. It almost got to the point where I asked myself, “and what am I going to Brazil for again?”

Craziness.

Of course the idea came and planted itself neatly in my mind in 2010. Football? Brazil? World Cup? Of course I’m down.

But South Africa World Cup 2010 is already proving to be a far better experience. For one, not that many people wanted to be there, making tickets not that difficult to get by.

Tickets for this World Cup, though similarly priced, went in the flash of an eye. Seriously. How many countless nights did I spend trying to score a game ticket?

Plane tickets were ridiculously expensive. Games are scattered across the country requiring several internal flights. And housing? Let’s not talk about housing just yet. Ugh!

And then there was the passport and visa situation. I had two blank pages left in my passport and though Brazil just needed one page, I didn’t want to chance it. So in December, on my last weekday off before my work schedule changed to no longer provide weekdays off, I travelled to New York to get a new passport at the Ghanaian embassy. My mother came with me, which was fortunate, because she did all the necessary name-dropping,brown-nosing, and begging to get me a new passport vite vite. Alas, I learnt that I would need to get myself to Ghana to get the new version passport because none of the consulates abroad had the capability to take bio prints. Oh Ghana! Seriously?
Rules for obtaining a Brazilian visa were not clear either. I kept waiting for directions to pop up on the Brazilian consulate in my jurisdiction’s website and nothing. I called them, emailed them. Nada! So finally, using guidance from a different Brazilian consulate website I gathered the necessary documents. I requested urgent half-day and wrangled with the boss for it.  It’s as if his main goal in life is to make things difficult for everybody else. It was mid-May already. I needed that visa. I woke up extra early to get there and found myself waiting in a very long line. But amazingly, the line moved rather quick. It took seconds to drop off passport and FIFA ticket confirmation email in exchange for a receipt to pick up passport two weeks later. I’m not kidding. I don’t think I spent longer than 20 seconds with the agent behind the glass. I got back to work and luckily it had not been a busy day. Soon afterwards I got sick with the most dreadful cold whose cough I’m still battling today.
Passport pick-up also proved to be a hassle. It had to be afternoons and it had to be in person with the receipt in hand for the assigned date and time. I knew there was no way I could get another half-day from the miserly boss, so I asked a sister who worked in the city to pick it up. When the day came she was unable to do so nor able to find out information for next steps and subsequently I felt like my passport was gone forever, abandoned, lost, and with it any plans to go to Brazil. What was I to do? The consulate still didn’t answer phone calls nor return voicemail or emails. And there still were no directions on its website. Luckily, another sister was going into the city the following day and she was able to do the pick up.  Luckily I say because this is how the text message exchange went: 
Me: are you working tomorrow?
Her: No. But have things to do.
Me: Can you go into the city for me 2:30-4p?
Her: What? To do what?
Me: I need my passport picket up from Brazilian embassy near grand central
Her: You’re lucky I’m going to the city tomorrow anyway or else the answer would have been no.
Then there was that little matter with my boss. I had told him when I interviewed for the position in 2012 that I was passionate about traveling (he asked) and that my next big trip would be World Cup in Brazil in 2014. Throughout the first year of my employment I made references to the upcoming trip. In late August 2013, I asked him flat out face-to-face for the last two weeks in June 2014 off for the tripand got a “I don’t see why not” which of course in my book is a yes. I sent him reminders when Ghana qualified, a couple months later when I got game tickets, and a couple months after that when I bought my round trip ticket to São Paulo.

So imagine my annoyance when he came out of nowhere this February with “this is the first I am hearing of this…it might be a problem…call me tomorrow.” Obviously, I was livid. I did not call him the next day. In fact I never called him. I just sent him a disapproving email a week later that essentially said “World Cup 2014 trip has been in existence since before you and I am going to be there”. About a month later, while on the phone discussing a clinical matter he asked me for Brazilian autographs and that was how I knew he had accepted the fact that I would be in Brazil come rain or shine these last two weeks of June 2014.

Still shaking my head.

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THE PURPLE MANGO PANDEMONIUM

A lover of mangoes. A woman - smart, without pretense, lefthanded, Afropolitan - navigating this thing called life. An unapologetic believer in social justice and karma. Choosing to radiate positive energy and be true to myself. Here, my musings.

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