I wish I could say my trip back to the states was uneventful and smooth. Unfortunately I can not say that. I will start this entry by giving you a little back ground on the Jordanian/US relationship. The United States has long been one of Jordan's biggest supporters and for the most part with good reason. Jordan is one of the most stable counties in the region despite a huge influx of refugees spanning back for over 50 years. To give you an idea of the refugee situation a Jordan Times article from December of 2015 lists about 1/3 of Jordan's total population being refugees. The United States has agreed to help support the Jordanian Government with about $1 Billion dollars a year in Aid for three years that was agreed to in a non-binding memorandum of understanding signed between the President Obama Administration and the Government of Jordan in 2015 and in fact Congress stipulated that Jordan receive no less then $1.275 Billion in aid in FY 2016 (https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33546.pdf) through the appropriations process. Now why is this all important enough to be put on a blog that normally sticks to homesteading or wood working?
Well I am currently assigned to the US Embassy in Amman, Jordan and hold a diplomatic passport that I use when traveling officially. Now as a diplomat we hold certain immunity in our host country but we are still expected to obey and follow local laws. It goes without saying we should be a good guest to our host countries and set proper examples. That being said we do hold certain privileges that are set forth though the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961. One of those privileges is that as a diplomat our persons and what we carry are inviolable meaning it can not be searched or taken from us. There is an exception when it comes to safety for transportation, meaning our bags get scanned or searched just like everyone else before we board a commercial air plane. And that after my long preamble is where this story starts!
As most of you know by now lately I have gotten into wood working and pen making and my last post talked a bit about my recent sale at the embassy. Well since I was coming back to the states I wanted to show off a little of my work to friends and family as well as I wanted to bring some inventory back home that people had expressed intrest in. The plan was I was going to bring one traveling pen cases home full of pens, a total of about 32 pens. The average cost of one of my pens is about $45-$50, so about $1500 in total value so it was decided that rather then put the pens in check baggage I would put them in my carry-on so that I could keep them on my person as I traveled. That apparently was a mistake.
As I was going through the screening process my back-pack was held up after going through the x-ray process for further screening, having already passed the x-ray screen myself and seeing how the back-pack appeared on the x-ray I must admit I think that was totally appropriate for them to want to see what was resembling 32 cylinders in a box! After the bag went through I opened the bag and pen case for their inspection and received a lot of compliments with other screeners even coming over to admire the pens. At that point I was asked to have a seat as they have some additional protocols they had to follow, again I could partially understand because some of the pens did have a "Bullet" tip. While waiting for the additional personal to show up who it appeared needed to see my pens I took apart a few of the pens to show that the tips where hollow and that they were all working pens.
A short time later a gentlemen showed up with an explosive swabs and passed them over all of the pens, during this time additional personal would show up to look at the pens. This went on for quite some time, finally just before it was time for my boarding the screener started removing pens from my case, counting how many he has removed and went on to tell me those pens were being confiscated due to having a "pellet" like appearance. Now keep in mind none of these pens violated any signs or prohibitions for flight. My case has a wide variety of pens in it yet almost the only ones they took where the high end pens and they did not restrict themselves to the "Bullet" type pens. The second picture below is the pic I took of the pens they took. The picture is not very good as I was so mad I was shaking. The other pic is a pic I took right before packing the pens. Of the pens in that picture all of them were confiscated with the exception of the 6th, 9th and 12th pens as you are counting from the left (The key pen, and the two "Phoenix pens"
Well I am currently assigned to the US Embassy in Amman, Jordan and hold a diplomatic passport that I use when traveling officially. Now as a diplomat we hold certain immunity in our host country but we are still expected to obey and follow local laws. It goes without saying we should be a good guest to our host countries and set proper examples. That being said we do hold certain privileges that are set forth though the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961. One of those privileges is that as a diplomat our persons and what we carry are inviolable meaning it can not be searched or taken from us. There is an exception when it comes to safety for transportation, meaning our bags get scanned or searched just like everyone else before we board a commercial air plane. And that after my long preamble is where this story starts!
As most of you know by now lately I have gotten into wood working and pen making and my last post talked a bit about my recent sale at the embassy. Well since I was coming back to the states I wanted to show off a little of my work to friends and family as well as I wanted to bring some inventory back home that people had expressed intrest in. The plan was I was going to bring one traveling pen cases home full of pens, a total of about 32 pens. The average cost of one of my pens is about $45-$50, so about $1500 in total value so it was decided that rather then put the pens in check baggage I would put them in my carry-on so that I could keep them on my person as I traveled. That apparently was a mistake.
As I was going through the screening process my back-pack was held up after going through the x-ray process for further screening, having already passed the x-ray screen myself and seeing how the back-pack appeared on the x-ray I must admit I think that was totally appropriate for them to want to see what was resembling 32 cylinders in a box! After the bag went through I opened the bag and pen case for their inspection and received a lot of compliments with other screeners even coming over to admire the pens. At that point I was asked to have a seat as they have some additional protocols they had to follow, again I could partially understand because some of the pens did have a "Bullet" tip. While waiting for the additional personal to show up who it appeared needed to see my pens I took apart a few of the pens to show that the tips where hollow and that they were all working pens.
A short time later a gentlemen showed up with an explosive swabs and passed them over all of the pens, during this time additional personal would show up to look at the pens. This went on for quite some time, finally just before it was time for my boarding the screener started removing pens from my case, counting how many he has removed and went on to tell me those pens were being confiscated due to having a "pellet" like appearance. Now keep in mind none of these pens violated any signs or prohibitions for flight. My case has a wide variety of pens in it yet almost the only ones they took where the high end pens and they did not restrict themselves to the "Bullet" type pens. The second picture below is the pic I took of the pens they took. The picture is not very good as I was so mad I was shaking. The other pic is a pic I took right before packing the pens. Of the pens in that picture all of them were confiscated with the exception of the 6th, 9th and 12th pens as you are counting from the left (The key pen, and the two "Phoenix pens"
Repeatedly I asked for the names of the security personnel who were taking my pens and repeatedly I was told that they were Military Police who where doing what they were told to and that was all I needed to know. After they took my pens I refused to go to the boarding gate without my pens, that appeared to make them very nervous to the point that they went to get a ticket agent from the airline to help convince me to head to my gate or I would miss my flight. Repeatedly during this whole process I identified myself as an American Diplomat and reminded them they were not allowed to take my items and that my pens did not violate any laws or travel polices. After discussing the situation with the American Embassy I did finally head to my gate, only to find my flight had been delayed (something that the ticket agent conveniently did not mention as they were trying to get me to leave my pens!). The security personnel did attempt to get me to sign a document for the confiscation however most of the document was hand written in arabic so I refused to sign something I could not read. Personally my belief is my pens were stolen rather then confiscated. The fact that the "Victorian" pens that the female screening agents seemed to appreciate more where taken when there is nothing military or bullet like about them contributes to that belief.
There is much more I would like to say but I will let my readers draw their own conclusions. Of course this all happened at 2 AM after a full day without sleep, for the 4 hour flight that followed I was still so pist off I could not sleep. When I finally got to Germany and after 3 hours, about an hour before my flight was scheduled to take off I found out that flight was also delayed, it was three hours late before our flight left Germany.
I had a 4 hour layover scheduled in Chicago however the delay in Germany meant that by the time I landed I only had 1 hour to clear customs, recheck my bag, change terminals and go through security for the third time this trip (just a note my pens did not trigger any other issues at US or German Airports). Despite the delays I should have been ok because when I talked to the flight attendant before we landed in Chicago I found out the flight to Fargo was delayed by 30 min and 1.5 hours would be plenty of time to make my transfer. I was never so happy to hear of a delay! Of course it was not really delayed, not sure where that breakdown in communication was but the flight was on time and I barely made it!
All in all a pretty frustrating time. The US Embassy is still trying to get my pens back and I think they probably will be able to. As a whole the Jordanians are great people and outstanding hosts, but for some reason these guys must have lost their freaking minds!!!
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