I've said it once, but I think it bears repeating: Kotoka International Airport is a disgrace to this country. Over the course of the past two months, I've had several visitors from abroad. Each one, upon arrival, has complained bitterly about the state of affairs at the airport: the rudeness and lassitude of the staff, the disorganisation of the luggage retrieval system, and the arbitrary (if not utterly nonsensical) practices of customs officials. Annoyed and frustrated, my last visitor who arrived said, "Please tell me this is not a small taste of what I'll have to go through while I'm here." I laughed, not at what she'd said, but at the thought that flashed through my mind: if you think this was bad, you just wait until you try to fly out of here. Unless I'm the one leaving, I usually spare myself the ordeal of having to contend with the unbelievable mess that is at the International Departures Hall of our airport by having a driver take my visitors. Last week, however, I went along because it was my daughter who was travlling and I wanted to see her off. We parked the car, placed her suitcases on a trolley and walked up the steep hill. When we reached the top; near the entrance to the departures hall, we found ourselves in the midst of what could only be described as a mob. It was the height of chaos. There were no discernable queues, just a horde of people pushing and shoving their way toward the entrance, a set of double-glass doors that, I soon learned, also serve as the exit. . Because we had no other alternative, my daughter, K., and I each took a deep breath and joined the stampede. The men in front of us, each in an ill-fitting two-cedi suit, smelled as though they hadn't bathed in days. Every time the air stirred, the funk came downwind straight into my nostrils. I thought 1 was going to faint. The woman to my left was trying to negotiate her trolley while clutching an infant who'd apparently decided that my ear was the perfect receptacle for his high-pitched screams. Every time we were able to move forward a few paces, the woman behind me pushed her trolley so hard its base dug sharply into the back of my ankles. "Madam, please," I kept having to turn and say, in a pleading, nearly tearful voice. Finally, we arrived at the entrance where three guards wearing neon-yellow vests were standing. "Are you travelling?" one of the guards asked K and me. She said yes and showed them her passport. I said no and explained that I just wanted to help my daughter check in for her flight. "You can't come in," the guard said to me. At first this surprised me because I've entered the International Departures Hall numerous times before to see other people off. Then I remembered that the rules at Kotoka are never consistent; they're as slippery as the urine-soaked floors in the bathrooms there. What applies one day may not apply the next. Still, I didn't argue because the truth of the matter is that the "travellers only" rule is a legitimate one that is enforced at many airports throughout the world. K. and I said a quick goodbye; I told her to meet me at the car when she'd finished checking in and to phone me if she encountered any problems. I turned around to leave and there was the mob, the stampede, occupying every inch of visible space. Just as I was trying to figure out how to best manoeuvre my way through the throng of anxious travellers, the security guard yelled, "I say you can't come in. You must leave." But what else was I doing if not that? Surely he didn't think I was attempting to enter the place backwards. "That's what I'm trying to do," I told him, with my back still turned to him. "Go," the security guard yelled at my back. "You have to get out." Then he placed his hand just beneath my shoulder and pushed me. I bumped into the man in front of me. Everyone has a breaking point, and that was mine. Once I'd regained my balance, I turned on a pivot and stepped right in front of the security guard's face. "Have you lost your f*&%#@g mind?" I screamed at the security guard. I raised my right hand and pointed my index finger directly between his eyes. "Don't you ever touch me again. You have no right, no right!" One of the other security guards stepped toward us, his hand on his club. "Eh, the woman is wild," he said to his col¬league. I then turned to him. "Yes. If you treat people like animals, then they will get wild like animals. Idiots!" I stared both guards in the face, then I looked down at their clubs. Why on earth, I wondered, do the security guards at Kotoka International Airport even carry clubs? I imagine it's under the guise of protecting travellers-but from what? From whom? What can a club do in the face of a real threat, the sort that airports are confronted with everyday, threats like guns and bombs? I turned around once more to leave. The security guards wisely kept their distance. Maybe it was the rue in my eyes or the smoke of rage spewing from my ears, but the crowd immediately parted like the proverbial Red Sea and gave me way. As I walked toward the car to wait for K, I heard another altercation taking place in front of the entrance. I decided to stand in the VVIP car park while taking calls after calls from my daughter with complaints about the confusion, the lack of proper signage, and the uselessness of the uniformed employees whom she'd asked for assistance. The entire check-in process took K nearly three hours to complete. Thankfully, we'd arrived four-and-a-half hours prior to her departure. What truly made K's situation all the more disturbing to me was that as I was talking to her I watched as the Big Men and Big Women got out of their fancy cars, strolled up the steps to the air-conditioned, newly redecorated VVIP Lounge, where all they'd be required to do was wait until their flights were boarding. Talk about a tremendous disparity! How much would you like to bet, though, that if those Big Men and Big Women (starting with the head of the Civil Aviation Authority) were forced, just once, to go through what the average Ghanaian goes through to board a flight-a stampede of smelly people and screaming children; rough security guards with clubs; shiftless, attitudinal personnel; filthy toilets; and depressing, blank-walled waiting areas-things would start to change overnight?