1.2
| c1 | c2 | |
|---|---|---|
| Background key points | ||
| Where? | Why? | Travel issue |
| Ethiopia | One week project meeting. | Tourism visa vs Business visa. |
A professor of the University of Mekelle, who was there to pick her up, accompanied her and acted as interpreter with the local authorities of the airport, explaining that she was there for a project meeting at the university, and that it was not in her intention to enter illegally the country.
The local officer granted to Sarah the permission to enter, but kept her passport to send it directly to the visa office in Addis.
She received, as a substitute, a paper written in Ethiopian which allowed her to pass all the controls, to stay in Mekelle for the remaining part of the stay, and to take her flight back to Addis, as scheduled.
She would have collected her passport the next Saturday during the return travel directly at the visa office, open 24/7 in Addis airport, to eventually fly back to Europe.
In the chaotic moments of her arrival she forgot to change money. It was Saturday late afternoon and the banks and changes would have opened again on Tuesday, because Monday was a national holiday.
She therefore relied only on her credit card. At the check-out at the supermarket she discovered that the credit card was not working. It was weird, because she used it at the airport in Rome, in fact.
Fortunately the professor was still with her and offered to cover her expenses.
The same scene happened again at dinner, in the restaurant, and once more she tried to withdraw money from the ATM.
She thought about some restriction set out by her bank, therefore she tried to get in contact with the bank with many phone calls, but the bank confirmed that no restriction was active.
Fortunately on Tuesday she could finally change her money, and luckily the hotel was already paid by the project. Otherwise, she wouldn't have had enough liquidity for all the expenses she had to cover.
She would then discover that the magnetic stripe of her card was demagnetized, but she never realized it while in Italy because it was working on the microchip that, unfortunately, was not in use in Ethiopia at that time.