I don’t remember ever having such smooth flights as these two were—no turbulence at all worth mentioning. I was also on the receiving end of another nice surprise—a voucher for two meals at a hotel in Addis Ababa. Those were Wednesday’s highlights. Read on for more details.
A fellow SIL member who works at JAARS just like I do volunteered to drive me to the airport. He showed up on time—was actually just a few minutes earlier than the 3:30am time we had agreed on. There was little traffic on the roads at that time of the morning, so we made the trip to the airport in about 45 minutes.
I had a trunk to check and a backpack and my computer as carry-ons, plus I was carrying my pillow. (I don’t sleep well if I don’t have the right kind of pillow, so I bring my own.) There was no line at the check-in counter, so I went straight up and set my trunk on the scales, where it weighed in just a pound or two shy of the limit. I was soon checked in and ready to go through security. That, too, went smoothly, and I was sitting at the gate where my flight was scheduled to leave from, with lots of time to spare.
I was a little concerned about my backpack because, technically, it was 5 pounds overweight. If they decided to weigh my carry-ons, I might find myself needing to decide what to leave behind. But they didn’t, and I didn’t. However, I did have to gate-check it, since the overhead bins in the plane we were traveling in were “the size of a glove box,” according to one of the passengers who had boarded the plane and then squeezed his way back off, against the flow of those moving on. So I made a quick decision to check mine at the gate. It was about two minutes later, after my bag had already been carted off, that I thought about all of the things that were in that bag that I might need during the flight—like tissues in the event that my nose started bleeding again. But by God’s grace, I was able to make it through the short flight using tissues that I found in the plane’s restroom.
When I arrived in Washington, DC, I had to collect my trunk that I had checked, then get it to the Ethiopian Airlines check-in counter in order to check it the rest of the way to South Sudan. (That was because I had two separate tickets, so the trunk could not be checked all the way through to my final destination.) I did not know how the Washington-Dulles airport was set up, so stopped to ask at an information counter how best to do what I needed to do.
First I went to pick up the trunk at the baggage claim, but in spite of the fact that our plane had arrived nearly half an hour before I got to the baggage claim, the trunk was nowhere to be seen. There was a man with a uniform standing near the baggage claim, but he was talking on his radio about a problem with someone else’s luggage, so I had to wait until he was finished talking before I could ask him about my trunk. He told me to wait a bit longer, as it sometimes takes quite a while for the bags to get there, since those dropping them off have to make several other stops—to drop off special items at other locations—which delays them.
While I was waiting there, I seized a moment where the man in the uniform was no longer occupied with someone’s crisis and asked him (in French) if he spoke French. (His accent when he spoke English sounded a lot like that of French-speaking Africans I’ve been around, so I suspected he was from Africa.) He looked a bit startled, but then replied (in English) that he did, in fact. Then someone contacted him on his radio again, so I said no more. When that question was answered or crisis resolved, he turned to me and began talking to me in French, explaining that he was originally from Togo, but had made his way to the US and had managed to get a job at the airport. I then explained how I had come to speak French and where I was going and why. Then my trunk arrived. He graciously helped me get it onto the baggage cart I had rented, and when I asked him how to get to the Ethiopian Airlines check-in counter, he started to explain where I needed to go, then abruptly said, “Here, I’ll show you.” And off he went, and I obediently followed. We got to an elevator, and he told me to take it up to the next floor, where I would find all the airlines’ check-in counters. I figure I got the personal service to the elevator because of having spoken to him in French. Language and people’s view of it can be a powerful tool!
So it turned out that the baggage claim and the check-in counter were in the same building—something I hadn’t expected. I thought I’d have to somehow transport that trunk down sidewalks, along alleys, dodging traffic—well, I really wasn’t sure what I might have to do to get to where I needed to go. But it turned out to be relatively simple.
I waited in line for a while, then got my bag checked in, went through security, got on the train that runs between buildings at Dulles airport and made my way to my gate, all with plenty of time to spare. Everything went very well, and everyone was very polite and friendly to me. My trip was off to a very enjoyable start.
When we boarded the plane that would take us to Ethiopia, I discovered that I was in a front-row seat, with lots of legroom—and with a family with a toddler and a baby. I love those front-row seats with seemingly infinite legroom. And I don’t mind traveling next to a family with children. I know they’re going to have some unhappy moments and some “really mad” moments, but I remember all that the other passengers put up with when they traveled on a plane with our family about 20 years ago, and I extend grace to families with young children now as others did to us back when ours were very small.
Prior to takeoff, a steward came to me and handed me a piece of paper, which he explained would entitle me to breakfast and lunch at a hotel in Addis Ababa, due to the long layover scheduled between my Ethiopian Airlines flights before I could continue my journey to Juba, South Sudan. Ethiopian Airlines would pay for these meals. That was a nice surprise!
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