Todd Cummings Family

This is Todd and Rex with just some of our luggage. We checked in 18 pieces of luggage. Unfortunately we left the airport with only 17 pieces. It has proven quite an ordeal to track down the missing bag.

When you enter the baggage claim area there are Indian men offering to help you gather your luggage (for a fee and tip of course). We picked one and he brought along his large wheeled cart to load our bags.

We had marked each bag with yellow and orange tape to make them easy to identify. As we would point out one of the bags he would throw it on the cart. If we even looked at a bag for too long he would throw it on the cart. A few times he had to take luggage off the cart that didn't belong to us.

Once it was all on the cart we tried to count it to make sure it was all there. It was difficult to count because of the way it was stacked. It seemed every time we counted we came up with a different number. Todd even counted all the bags once they were loaded into the 3 cars (he and two friends came to pick us up at the airport). Todd counted twice and came up with 17 the first time and 19 the next time so we assumed they were all there. The worker kept repeating to us "18 bags. 18." Eventually we took his word for it and that was a mistake.

Three times we've been back to the airport since and we still don't have the missing bag. The first time was the very next day and this particular airline's baggage claim was closed. The second time was when Todd took my dad back for his flight back to the states. Todd was being sent in different directions and didn't have the patience to figure it all out. The third time was Thursday when Todd's friend, Marwa and I went to find it. Marwa speaks fluent Arabic so we were hoping that would help. I won't go into details because I'm sure you've all had the experience where you're sent to one place and they can't help you but they send you to a different place that they're sure will be able to help. When you get there, they can't help but send you to another place they're sure will help you. And so it goes.

I left the airport with a phone number. The office I was calling was closed by the time I actually got the phone number. I'll try calling tomorrow (as today is Friday, the Sabbath). This bag has some paperwork we'd like to get back as well as some dirty laundry that I'll probably want to throw out by the time I get it back, if I ever do.