Jun 25

Written by: reh
6/25/2008

June 25, 2008, Wednesday

6:00AM Fernando, Kristi, Jessica, I left for El Salvador International Airport.

9:30AM Having breakfast at a cafeteria within the airport compound. After breakfast, Kristi and Jessica walked over to the terminal to process baggage in, get boarding passes, then see if they can find pail of vitamins.

11:00AM I was going to go check up on Kristi when I met Jessica. A customs officer wanted documentation for transport of “medicine”. Vitamins are not regulated as “medicine” and there is no restriction on quantity, nor is there and documentation required. I know that from 4 years of transporting vitamins. The customs official was a kind of macho guy who had made a mistake. By the time I got there he had dug his heals in. He was insisting that Kristi take them back. There is no way that pail would find its way back to a plane from the customs side in one hour. I said they are not going back and sent Kristi to her gate not realizing she had left her driver’s license with the guard at the terminal door.
I explained that vitamins are not regulated as medicine and they are not going back. Either release them or give me a receipt and keep them.
Kristi returned. The line at the door where she left her license was a mile long and she will never make her plane. I sent Jessica with her. I didn’t need good Spanish. We had made our position pretty clear and Kristi needed immediate assistance. Jessica and Fernando went with her. Jessica got her to the front of the line and into the terminal. Fernando stayed with her till she cleared security.
During this time another inspector had brought a brochure and was reading about transporting “medicine”. I told him vitamins are not listed as “medicine” and are not restricted; he should look on his unrestricted list for vitamins. He took his guidance documents back to his room not to appear again. By this time the documents required had changed 3 times. Unfortunately, I brought none. Finally, the original customs man brought a signed receipt to impound the pills. I said I wanted a written list of the precise documents I must bring. He didn’t know what was necessary but he wasn’t going to release them. He told us to go to a certain office and they would tell us what to do. I put my hand on his shoulder and said, very calmly and clearly “because of your mistake, a thousand malnourished children will go without a vitamin for a month.” He walked away.
Kristi had made it through security by now but her plane was still on the ground so we went to the customs building as instructed by the inspector. We explained to the secretary that the inspector impounded our vitamins but couldn’t tell us why or what we needed to bring. After some more discussion about 6000 limit and her realization that vitamins are not listed as a “medicine” she showed us to her boss. As we walked through a maze of offices to get to the supervisor, I noticed that absolutely everyone was carrying an arm load of papers-not a good sign. The supervisor listened then said “you go to the El Salvador Health Department and get a signed letter stating that you have authority to transport vitamins (why would anyone give me a letter authorizing me to do anything?), leave your customs receipt with me, I’ll attach a letter of explanation. Once you have the authorization, go to the airline carrier to arrange transport of the vitamins, at your cost, to an airport in Honduras. If there is anyone reading this that believes this can be accomplished and has a use for 25,000 children’s vitamins, you have my permission to retrieve the vitamins. At this point the ever infleccable Jessica was exasperated. I picked up my receipt and we left. Even with all the modern polo-shirt uniforms, computer print-ours, and electronic gadgets, Central American Customs agents are still the same effete, poorly trained, little Napoleons that have always earned the distain of any sensible traveler.

1:00PM Kristi’s plane was gone so we headed back to Honduras. Uneventful trip.

4:30PM At the motel. Fernando will take our Honduras permit documents with the custom receipt to some people he knows at the El Amatillo checkpoint one day next week and see what he can do.

6:30PM End of day.

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