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departure note I WAS very young when I left Guyana. Living
abroad for more than 26 years, my
husband and I decided it was time for us to
bring our two children, 12 and 10 years
old, home for a visit. We arrived
in Guyana on March 2/07. We
stayed in Berbice most of the time and
spent a few days in Georgetown. We
were in Skeldon when the President
visited the sugar cane estate in Skeldon. Our
vacation was very good; our kids saw
where we grew up, we explained the
things we did as kids, etc. To
this point I thought Guyana was getting
better, until we got to the airport
to depart. The
airport tax G$4,000 or US$22 or CDN$32
that had to be paid at departure. I
was definitely not expecting that as I
thought all airport taxes are built into
the price of the airline ticket. I
was also disappointed with the airport
baggage handlers (the people who are
putting the baggage on the plane). It
went like this -- we checked in, four of
us, only 7 pieces of luggage; nothing
was over 50 lbs. We
did bring back about 10 lbs of frozen
fish wrapped in newspaper and again in
towels to avoid any leaking. We
went through immigration fine but as we
proceeded to the last leg, almost to the
boarding gate, my husband was told
to go see a baggage handler. In
all the years and places we have
travelled, we have never been asked
to see a baggage handler. I was stunned! The
baggage handler then told my husband he
had to pay him (a baggage handler)
US$100. We are Canadians. My husband
asked why and was told it was because
we had frozen items in a suitcase and if
it leaks, it will damage other people's
things. My
question is how will taking money
prevent damaging other people’s
luggage. My
poor husband agreed because he was
concerned that these baggage handlers
would deliberately misplace our baggage
or worst. How
many other people this has been done to?
I bet if I put an ad out there I would
have a lot of responses. It
is a shame this is still happening. If
the Guyana Government wants foreigners
to visit, something must be done to
rectify this problem. This is a real
problem. You
can't imagine how sick to my stomach I
was. Friday, May 04, 2007
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