SELAMTA!!

Ok! It’s a beautiful day! Yes it is, despite the fact that Israel is taking some heat from the United Nations et al because of their invasion of the Flotilla (which I must say is baseless because which ship carrying ‘humanitarian aid’ will also have metal rods, stun guns, and pipes on it)? Let’s not even start with the disparity in the stories of the activists on board the ship.

It’s still a beautiful day, beautiful start to the first month this second half of the year, despite the fact that the 52 year old taxi driver in Cumbria, England woke up and decided to shoot and kill 13 people (including himself); despite the fact that BP’s latest plan to contain the mega oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico isn’t working; despite the fact that IBB (in his ‘wisdom’) said MKO should be immortalized; despite the varying levels of craziness going on in our world, it’s still a beautiful day. Want to know why?

It’s a beautiful day because you’re alive to see this! Are you not aware of people (who you may not be necessarily better than) who didn’t make it to today? Ok, even though they are alive, don’t have the presence of mind to read this?  Take a minute, and say thank you to the Fairy Godfather…have you? Good! Now we can move on. Another reason today’s a beautiful day? Well my cold is finally easing up (thank you FGF) and I’m getting ready for my Ndjamena via Addis trip later today, yay!

Ok, fast forward to after we had checked in, passed immigration and headed for the departure lounge (powered by MTN…believe me that’s what was written there)! To get to the lounge we had to do close to a 30minutes walk! Since this fairy is as fit as a fiddle, I didn’t feel a thing; I’ll just try not to do it too many times! We got there, I settled in and started replying mails, facebooking, etc and may I use this opportunity to thank everyone who chatted and kept me company, especially since the flight was delayed a bit.

The fun started after we boarded. Just for sitting I was given a glass of lovely orange juice. Minutes after we took off I was given more juice and biscuits and then the hostess brought the menu with a somewhat plastered smile on her face (by the way, Ethiopian ladies are pretty). While I was still deciding which would be the lesser of the many evils listed on the menu, another nice looking lady brought me a small bowl of very colorful food in a tray, ‘something to start with’, she said. I recognized items that make a salad in one of the bowls, tasted it and it was nice. I tried eating something else that looked like bacon (which I love) but alas! It was raw, fishy, and had a faint lingering taste of red wine. I would find later that it was salmon, yuck! Seemed like the worst ended with the starters however because I enjoyed everything else, especially the passion fruit mousse I had for dessert. Then they served fruits and minutes later asked if I wanted tea. No!!! Is this a flight or did I mistakenly board a mobile fattening room?

Away from food (one of my favorite topics), I noticed that one of the hostesses wasn’t wearing a uniform like the others but a white dress with something that looked like it was gotten from a pashmenya or aso oke at the hem on the scarf draped round her shoulders. Miss inquisitive asked what the separation was for and she said all the hostesses had outfits like that that they wore on days assigned something about showcasing their national colors and things. ‘Nice, I thought, Nigeria could do something like that; we’d just have to own an airline (and fully too)! Did I mention that Ethiopian Airlines is the single largest indigenous employer in the country, paying salaries of close to 6000 staff? And yes, its 100% government owned, not privatized or managed by foreigners!

Sometime during the flight the pilot came to the business class lounge to talk to someone; at that moment the person beside me woke up and asked; ‘is that not the pilot there’? I said yes and he said, ‘he should better go back to the cockpit o, who did he leave the place for’? Truth is, if he wasn’t white, I would have thought he was Nigerian; we’re the ones always abandoning our constituencies to frolic everywhere else.

I saw a lovely movie (Valentine’s Day) and boy was I grateful I didn’t pay to see it before I left! Just as I was getting done, it was to time to get down (meaning that we had reached Addis Ababa, and safely too)!

Big fast forward to the second leg of the trip (Addis to N’Djamena) where I’m praying that the loud mouth beside me takes the hint that I’m furiously writing and leave me alone! Where is peace and quiet when you need it?

To start with, I’m majorly pissed off that I’m flying economy (apparently everyday isn’t Christmas), I didn’t get the window or aisle seat and to compound issues, I’m starving and the guy has foul breath! By the way, have you ever been tortured by hunger and foul breath at the same time? It’s painful I promise you, the kind of pain you wouldn’t even wish an enemy! Did I mention that he didn’t know more than 50 words in English? And he wasn’t cute neither!

‘Leave me alone, I don’t want to chat’, for where? The son of God took the pains to tell me he’s a commissioner  in N’Djamena. A commissioner seated in economy? Yeah right. In Nigeria he’d buy the plane! Apparently sensing my unbelief, the man brought out a dossier from his portmanteau and flipped through the papers inside; taking care that I’d be able to see the Chadian logos splashed all over the papers (so yes I looked). Then he asked if I was Cameroonian; ‘no, I’m proudly Nigerian’ I said. I realized I shot myself in the foot when his face lit up at my answer and he started boasting about being in Nigeria our years ago to build the edifice that is the Embassy of Chad. Edifice? Pigs may fly too!

That’s when I started writing but no, Mr. Architect had sworn on his president’s passport that he wouldn’t let me be! He said he was going to N’Djamena for a meeting and then return to Addis, I nodded; he said he was tres tres busy man, I nodded; he said……. I said I wanted to use my headphones to find out what music choices I had, and he smiled. I chuckled inside me, sure that I was too fast for him to understand a word of what I said. That bought me like 20minutes, 20 uninterrupted minutes that I was grateful to the Fairy Godfather for. I was bobbing my head to something from Timberland; opened my eyes to catch my commissioner neighbor with his headphones on too, nodding to some music too. I was happy for him (thankful for world peace too) till I saw that he didn’t plug in the cord! My word! What was he listening to then? Did I have a good laugh or what!

Did I mention that my seat refused to recline? How much worse could things get? Fortunately, again I watched a couple movies plus the flight wasn’t too long so it didn’t hurt as much.

Before I forget, just before the plane took off (it was already taxiing as a matter of fact), another young man stood up and said he wanted to use the convenience. The person in the seat next to him told him to wait till we were in the air but homeboy refused. Two hostesses came, told him he had to wait and then he said he would stand by the toilet. Of course they refused, and got their supervisor to ‘usher’ him back to his seat. After we had steadied in the air, they came to tell him he could go but he said he wouldn’t because he was hurt. Hurt? People like this make me thank the FGF my dreams of becoming an air hostess haven’t come true (yet)!

I daresay the flight to N’Djamena was full of characters, almost felt like I was on Drama Central! Seated around me was a man I had heard shouting at one of the hostesses earlier; I found out he had paid for ten seats. Those ten seats catered to two wives, a grandmother, and over 50 children! I know I’m exaggerating but honestly I lost count especially since they all looked alike (facially and in stature too), didn’t stay in their seats (which I can bet they sat like 6 to 1), and didn’t speak a word of English! I imagined how much the trip cost him and I smiled; what if he had bought business class tickets for all of them?

By the way, selamta is Ethiopian for welcome………