US TSA, I want my peanut butter back!
Sep 19, 2006
To The US Transportation Security Administration (TSA), I want my peanut butter back. It has been almost two months since your New York agents seized my peanut butter at JFK Airport in New York.
PERSPECTIVE OF A UGANDAN IN CANADA
Opiyo Oloya
To The US Transportation Security Administration (TSA), I want my peanut butter back. It has been almost two months since your New York agents seized my peanut butter at JFK Airport in New York.
To be more exact, among the Acholi people of northern Uganda from whom I claim my heritage, we respectfully call it odii. It’s the stuff of life that sustains families in tough times and good times — and God knows northern Uganda has had its share of tough times lately. But not to wax philosophy, let me get right to the point. For the uninitiated, odii is what halal meat is to Moslem, and kosher food is to the observant Jew.
Beyond filling the stomach, it is an existential reminder of who I am, an Acholi whose taste may differ from others but who is alive now. Though living thousands of kilometres away from the ancestral land, nevertheless, it is the umbilical cord that connects me to the Luo roots. Take away my odii, and watch me arrive quickly to Jean-Paul Sartre’s conclusion that L'enfer, c'est les autres — Hell is other people. That’s exactly what some culture-challenged official in your department did on Thursday, July 27, 2006 — he or she swiped my odii.
I was returning from a successful journey to the Old Country, Uganda, something I do once every two years or so. My mother who is getting up there in age was delighted to see me. Before I returned, she carefully prepared groundnut and roasted simsim which my sister Acito prepared into odii.
The aroma-filled viscous liquid, the odii, was placed in a four-litre plastic container that formerly held cooking oil. It was tightly capped to prevent leakage during the long journey to Canada. So, here I was returning to my other world in Canada, with my odii, all nicely tucked in a bag that was checked all the way from Entebbe to Toronto. I imagined inviting to a cultural feast my Canadian friends who have never tasted the sour malakwang leaves in odii sauce or smoked salmon in odii.
This is how friends are made — you feed them odii, and they ask you what it is, and knowing you have a captive audience, you take your sweet time laying out an exposition longer than the US Constitution on the significance of odii. You tell them, let me put is this way.
Had Christopher Columbus been an Acholi, he definitely would have carried drums of odii on his ship Santa Maria in 1492 and perhaps saved his sailors from succumbing to scurvy and all manner of illnesses. You see, the odii has been the staple of the Acholi people for as long as oral history existed. In the old days when travellers set off on long journeys, odii was used as peke, the self-preserved food you carried along.
Hunters venturing deep into the wilderness were sustained by odii. In any event, I flew from Amsterdam to New York on Wednesday, July 26, and last I checked in New York, my odii was intact. On landing at JFK, there was a sense of foreboding in the air.
One hour in a snaking immigration line, another half hour in Custom line and yet another hour in security line, and I could not wait to get on the plane to civilised Toronto. But, once on the Toronto-bound plane, we sat on the tarmac for another good hour before the flight crew announced that the flight was scrapped, and that the next flight was at six the next morning, and the bus would take us to Ramada Inn. Some choice words surely escaped my mouth.
My odii was still intact before lights out at the hotel. The next morning, by the time the sun was licking the steeple of the CN Tower, our plane was nosing down for landing at Pearson International in Toronto. Oh, home, sweet home, I thought. Striding happily on Canadian soil, I went to get my bags. Except that the bags that I had personally checked in at JFK were missing. Alas, the Delta Airlines Missing Bag lady told me to file a missing baggage report. I wanted to scream, but did that later when I was alone in the car driving home.
The bag holding my odii went missing for two days, and was finally delivered at 12:32am on the morning of Saturday, July 29, 2006 by a very apologetic Iranian who barely spoke English. The odii, that very vital link to my heritage, was gone! A note attached to the bag bearing the emblem of the US Transportation Safety Authority announced cheerily that some agent had been through the bag. You bet I called your department immediately, asking for my odii.
The pleasant fellow who answered the phone suggested I file a missing item claim, stating the exact dollar amount. Okay, I said as patiently as I could under the circumstance, how do you file a claim for four litres of odii? What is the value of a four-litre odii to TSA agents at JFK? Seriously, did you consider the odii terrorist paraphernalia to be used against Americans?
Imagine those al Qaeda terrorists laughing when they find out that Americans confiscate peanut butter because they think it might explode — al Qaeda would think Americans have lost their marbles and running scared. Let’s get serious, TSA. I want my odii back. Today.
opiyo.oloya@sympatico.ca
Opiyo Oloya
To The US Transportation Security Administration (TSA), I want my peanut butter back. It has been almost two months since your New York agents seized my peanut butter at JFK Airport in New York.
To be more exact, among the Acholi people of northern Uganda from whom I claim my heritage, we respectfully call it odii. It’s the stuff of life that sustains families in tough times and good times — and God knows northern Uganda has had its share of tough times lately. But not to wax philosophy, let me get right to the point. For the uninitiated, odii is what halal meat is to Moslem, and kosher food is to the observant Jew.
Beyond filling the stomach, it is an existential reminder of who I am, an Acholi whose taste may differ from others but who is alive now. Though living thousands of kilometres away from the ancestral land, nevertheless, it is the umbilical cord that connects me to the Luo roots. Take away my odii, and watch me arrive quickly to Jean-Paul Sartre’s conclusion that L'enfer, c'est les autres — Hell is other people. That’s exactly what some culture-challenged official in your department did on Thursday, July 27, 2006 — he or she swiped my odii.
I was returning from a successful journey to the Old Country, Uganda, something I do once every two years or so. My mother who is getting up there in age was delighted to see me. Before I returned, she carefully prepared groundnut and roasted simsim which my sister Acito prepared into odii.
The aroma-filled viscous liquid, the odii, was placed in a four-litre plastic container that formerly held cooking oil. It was tightly capped to prevent leakage during the long journey to Canada. So, here I was returning to my other world in Canada, with my odii, all nicely tucked in a bag that was checked all the way from Entebbe to Toronto. I imagined inviting to a cultural feast my Canadian friends who have never tasted the sour malakwang leaves in odii sauce or smoked salmon in odii.
This is how friends are made — you feed them odii, and they ask you what it is, and knowing you have a captive audience, you take your sweet time laying out an exposition longer than the US Constitution on the significance of odii. You tell them, let me put is this way.
Had Christopher Columbus been an Acholi, he definitely would have carried drums of odii on his ship Santa Maria in 1492 and perhaps saved his sailors from succumbing to scurvy and all manner of illnesses. You see, the odii has been the staple of the Acholi people for as long as oral history existed. In the old days when travellers set off on long journeys, odii was used as peke, the self-preserved food you carried along.
Hunters venturing deep into the wilderness were sustained by odii. In any event, I flew from Amsterdam to New York on Wednesday, July 26, and last I checked in New York, my odii was intact. On landing at JFK, there was a sense of foreboding in the air.
One hour in a snaking immigration line, another half hour in Custom line and yet another hour in security line, and I could not wait to get on the plane to civilised Toronto. But, once on the Toronto-bound plane, we sat on the tarmac for another good hour before the flight crew announced that the flight was scrapped, and that the next flight was at six the next morning, and the bus would take us to Ramada Inn. Some choice words surely escaped my mouth.
My odii was still intact before lights out at the hotel. The next morning, by the time the sun was licking the steeple of the CN Tower, our plane was nosing down for landing at Pearson International in Toronto. Oh, home, sweet home, I thought. Striding happily on Canadian soil, I went to get my bags. Except that the bags that I had personally checked in at JFK were missing. Alas, the Delta Airlines Missing Bag lady told me to file a missing baggage report. I wanted to scream, but did that later when I was alone in the car driving home.
The bag holding my odii went missing for two days, and was finally delivered at 12:32am on the morning of Saturday, July 29, 2006 by a very apologetic Iranian who barely spoke English. The odii, that very vital link to my heritage, was gone! A note attached to the bag bearing the emblem of the US Transportation Safety Authority announced cheerily that some agent had been through the bag. You bet I called your department immediately, asking for my odii.
The pleasant fellow who answered the phone suggested I file a missing item claim, stating the exact dollar amount. Okay, I said as patiently as I could under the circumstance, how do you file a claim for four litres of odii? What is the value of a four-litre odii to TSA agents at JFK? Seriously, did you consider the odii terrorist paraphernalia to be used against Americans?
Imagine those al Qaeda terrorists laughing when they find out that Americans confiscate peanut butter because they think it might explode — al Qaeda would think Americans have lost their marbles and running scared. Let’s get serious, TSA. I want my odii back. Today.
opiyo.oloya@sympatico.ca