The Highland Run - part 3
How it came about
When I arrived at the airport at nine, I went to the entrance where all travelers were going through. Before the entrance, someone demanded to see the travel ticket. I showed him a printed page, which he scrutinized, then shooed me on. Straight ahead, a sentry instructed us to remove all metallic items from our pockets and put them on an open plastic tray, which were available for picking. Then all hand luggage and tray contents were passed through the scanner. We were asked to remove laptops from their bags and put them on trays, as they passed through the scanner.
“Beep beep,” I heard the beep when I attempted to pass through the entrance, even after emptying my all through the conveyor belt to the scanner.
“Step back,” the sentry ordered, “Confirm that you have no metallic object on your pockets”
I rechecked and for sure, there was nothing, absolutely nothing, in my pockets. Even my passport, flash disks and cash had been part of the contents on the tray through the scanner.
“Remove your shoes, put them on the conveyor”
I thought that I did not hear right.
“What?,” I asked, more of “Are your serious” tone, than “What did you say” question.
Without even looking at me, he repeated, “Remove your shoes and put them through the conveyor”
With lots or reluctance and disgust, I removed my shoes, put them on the running conveyor to the scanner, and walked on bare socks through the entrance. This time there was no beep, but my temper had risen a notch. I reassembled my luggage at the other end of the conveyor, put on my shoes and stepped onto the check-in lounge. It was about 9.15pm. There was no one to show us where to go, nor any directional signs. Travelers just guessed where to go. I went to a place marked 'Immigration', after wondering aimlessly for about two minutes.
“I am traveling,” I informed the person, with a badge, stationed near the entrance.
“Do you have a boarding pass?”
“Boarding pass?”
“Yes, you need to get one. Which airline?”
“Kenya Airways,” I responded.
“Queue there,” he pointed to his right.
I joined a queue that was surely headed to counters marked 'KQ'. There were about eight other travelers ahead. The queue moved fairly fast, with three counters in operation. At the counter, I presented the computer generated e-ticket and passport. The lady handed back the passport without any look and studied the ticket.
“Had you checked in?”
“No, I have just arrived”
She fingered her computer keyboard, then, “You had already been checked in,” she looked back at me, as if searching for answers.
“I was booked through our corporate travel agent. It is possible that they finalized the process”
The answer was good enough, since she proceeded to give me a ticket and asked me to move on, even as she affixed a tag on my suitcase and let it slide away behind her sitting position.
At 'Immigration' I saw people filling in 'Entry declaration' forms. I thought about it for a moment, wondering why folks were filling in entry forms on a departure lounge. To conform, I filled in the blue card, which required details such as name, passport number, county of issue and country of intended travel. I joined another queue to a counter marked 'Kenyan citizens'. The other counters were marked 'East African citizens' and 'Other travelers'. During my turn at the counter, the immigration officer pushed my passport though a scanner, then asked, “Where are you traveling to?”
“But this was written on that blue card you just shoved away under the table?,” I thought of saying. Instead, “Ethiopia,” I answered.
“Mbio wanatuweza kweli?”
“Huu ni mwaka wetu. Hawatuwezi kabisa.”
He stamped a page on the passport, handed it back and asked me to move on, through past his counter to the terminal building.
At the terminal various travelers milled around. I looked for terminal 2, and moved to that direction. I met Kef, my colleague.
“You engineers, now where is TJ and colleague?,” she asked.
“I do not know. I have not seen them. I believe that they must have checked in”
At the boarding area, one part of the ticket was torn off, and a yellow plastic strip written 'Boarding pass' issued. Nonetheless, the boarding was not devoid of drama. The overhead sign read “Nbo – Joburg boarding.” In reality, it was an Addis boarding time. It is only after asking the staff at the counter did we understand that the board had jammed. Just after the issue of passes, we were subjected to the last check. We repeated the process of emptying our pockets, removing laptops from bags, passing them through the scanner, another beep-beep for me, and... you guessed right – another episode of removing shoes. After repacking again, we handed over the boarding pass to a waiting hand that had blocked the passage, as we walked through the narrow carriage that led to down to the tarmac, straight to the KQ plane.
I had expected a big plane. One of those jumbos. Even as I took the stairs towards the plane's entrance, I knew that this was a small plane. From outside it looked like a toy. In the inside, it was surely small. Just two seats on each side, with a narrow corridor in between. My seat, 15D, was just three rows from the very end of the plane. I was seated isle side. It was now about 10.15pm, and the travelers were steadily streaming in, and stuffing their hand luggage to the open overhead compartments. In another five minutes, most of the seats were taken. At least two were not taken. It is around this time that TJ called to announce their canceled flight.
When the plane took off at exactly 22.30 as scheduled, I gave this small Embraer 170 plane, that sits seventy, quite some credit. Despite its small size, it was quite comfortable and smooth. It even felt smoother than the last Boeing that I took on a local flight. I had already seen on the ticket that the arrival would be 00.35, at Bole International Airport, Addis Ababa. A 2.05hr flight. Once on air, about 30minutes after take off, a light meal was served, followed by a drink. There was however no video screens on board. Just a bus-like seating arrangement with nothing much. It was almost like the Oxygen experience to the coast two months prior. At cruising speed of 890km/h on altitude 30,000ft (about 10km up there), there was no discernible motion, just some faint far off hum of the engine. We were virtually at standstill. Being near the wing, I could observe the continuous red blink of the wing lights, on the right side that I was seated. The lady seated on the window side seat just went straight to sleep after the meal. I found myself glancing the KQ inflight magazine, without grasping much. I was just flipping through, attracted by the pictorials.
It was not long before the captain announced that, “We shall soon start our descent to Bole International airport. Those on transit to Eritrea, please remain in the plane after landing, since we shall just refuel then depart. This shall be within 40minutes. For those disembarking at Addis, have a good time. Thank you for flying Kenya Airways.”
This was a bit sudden. It did not seem that long. Were two hours truly over? I did not have time to answer that question since momentarily the plane touched down and taxied to the disembarking bay. Out of the plane, a bus was waiting to transport us to the check-out area and baggage claim.
“Yellow fever,” a lady shouted as we headed to the baggage claim area. This was after our passports had been stamped in exchange for the entry declaration cards, that we had filled in the plane, during the last ten minutes of our journey. We raised our Yellow fever certificates for scrutiny, before being allowed to get through to luggage claim, after our hand luggage had been passed through the scanner once more. Our suitcases were easy to spot, after which we headed straight to the exit.
Someone raised a sign having the name of the host organization, followed below with four names. This attracted our attention. We moved to his standing point and introduced ourselves as the guests that he was picking. The time was now about 1.00am. He led us to the van then opened the right side sliding door for us to put in our luggage. I then went and stood on the front left, to wait for him to open the door. He had already opened the front right door. I had expected him to get into the van and just open the left door. Instead, he left the right door ajar, and walked round the vehicle to open the left door. I was taken aback to realize that the steering wheel was located on the left side. The joke was on me when I had to move to the right side doors to get into the van. We were on a left-handed van. Soon I realized that we were on a 'keep-right' driving system. Quite a mental challenge from the right-handed vehicles that am used to. This first late night sleep marked the typical sleeping time for my whole duration in Addis. Somehow I found myself sleeping past 1.30am each and every day.
Do not disturb
‘Do Not Disturb’, is the notice that I affixed to the external part of my room door. I did this about mid-night as I prepared to watch the final news headlines on CNN before retiring to bed. This was necessary because I intend to have the first long sleep in seven days since my arrival. This would prevent the room cleaners from bumping in at about 8.30am. Two days ago when I had extended my sleep beyond eight-thirty, the ladies had just knocked on my door, shouted some strange language, and before I knew it they were already in. They had to give their apologies even as I struggled out of bed to wonder who had invaded my room. I was not taking any chances this Saturday night. The Addis weather was a replica of Uthiru weather - relatively warm day times and very cold nights. The room offered four blankets and the heater though.
The phone ring startled my deep sleep – and that room phone can ring loud! I crossed the room in three steps to get to the phone set on the window-side edge of the reading table. How could I have forgotten about muting the phone! And who would have thought that someone would bother to call me in this foreign land!
“What!?,” I uttered to the mouthpiece.
“It is ten past nine and we are waiting for you at Gene Forage for a meeting,” came the answer.
“Eh, Why?,” I asked.
The previous day the three gents had had their customary dinner at Zebu club and had agreed to have the first meeting at ten. This meeting would enable us get into a car to take us for a tour of Addis.
“There was to be the meeting with the Project Manager, to update her on the progress of our work”
“But… but that meeting had not been confirmed!”
“Get get here, you have five minutes.”
I knew that she had paid for the airfare, but messing my first good sleep was surely not polite. Nonetheless, I got out of bed, dressed and headed for the meeting room, laptop in hand.
I did not take any breakfast. I was at the meeting room in another two minutes. The two ladies and two colleagues were already in discussions, which I just joined in. When the meeting ended just about eleven, our host left even as the remaining Kenyans engaged in discussions.
“Why did you setup a meeting without giving us notice? We had our own agenda today!”
“It had to happen. Lexi is in Addis only for today. She goes back to Nairobi tomorrow. I had asked mzee to tell you of this meeting,” she informed us, “You mean that he did not?”
“He was concentrating on his own packing as he was leaving for the airport for this mid-night flight back to Nairobi”
“No wonder he forgot. Nonetheless, am making it worth your while. I shall buy you people lunch when we go for the outing,” Kef confirmed.
That is how we landed at the injera place, followed by the tour or Menelik's place and eventually my Sunday evening run.
Beauty
One thing that the Abyssinians are blessed with, without a doubt, is beauty. They are somehow the same pepite size, well rounded and yellow. All of them are almost similar and very beautiful. The Tuesday training run was therefore quite worth it.
We had discussed what it took to get married to such women.
“It depends region where girl comes from,” Mich, a colleague from Addis Engineering said, then added, “In some place, they arrange cows and you run top of cows end to end!”
“You mean running on top of cows?”
“Yes, they arrange them and you run top. If you fall or fail, then you wait one year”
The driver who took us to the museum had told me that the dowry was about three hundred herds of cattle. That was surely beauty at a very high price!!
“You also must buy one kilo gold every year for her,” Mich said.
“And must be pure gold,” Kabe added.
“Every year, you said?,” the Kenyans wondered.
“Yes every year. During Meskel, our new year, you give her gold.”
I had already been told that another qualification was taking your lady to the US, at least once. In fact, the local staff SACCO had a 'US-tour' loan product, which was quite popular.
Now I was calculating:
(1) Investment = (Jumping row of 10cows) + 300 herds + (no. of years x (1kg gold)) + US trip
(2) Returns = (-)Investment.
(3) But, Returns > Investments = Profit
The equation was not balancing at postulate no. 3, though it would be made easier if we introduced a forth condition:
(4) Love your enemies
Then, we just declare them your enemies
After a hard day of work, which included an explosion from a baking even that we were repairing, we had had enough for a day. When one of the locals gave us his story, of how he had worked for the organization for many years and survived many good and bad times. He had concluded with, “My daughters in Sweden. Now here. Want to greet?”
TJ and Ben were starting to say, “Oh, no need...,” when I directed them towards Zebu with, “Of course, we want to greet”
To Zebu club, the four of us matched. Seated at the low coffee table were two beauties.
“Hi”
“Good evening”
So we did the introductions, then small talk for about ten minutes before finally leaving.
This introduction was almost like an honour. To us, this was a risky move that could easily backfire.
“Do you think any of our techs could introduce his daughters to our staff”
“Hey, mbuzi awekwe mbele ya fisi!”
WWB, Addis, 15-Oct-2011
How it came about
When I arrived at the airport at nine, I went to the entrance where all travelers were going through. Before the entrance, someone demanded to see the travel ticket. I showed him a printed page, which he scrutinized, then shooed me on. Straight ahead, a sentry instructed us to remove all metallic items from our pockets and put them on an open plastic tray, which were available for picking. Then all hand luggage and tray contents were passed through the scanner. We were asked to remove laptops from their bags and put them on trays, as they passed through the scanner.
“Beep beep,” I heard the beep when I attempted to pass through the entrance, even after emptying my all through the conveyor belt to the scanner.
“Step back,” the sentry ordered, “Confirm that you have no metallic object on your pockets”
I rechecked and for sure, there was nothing, absolutely nothing, in my pockets. Even my passport, flash disks and cash had been part of the contents on the tray through the scanner.
“Remove your shoes, put them on the conveyor”
I thought that I did not hear right.
“What?,” I asked, more of “Are your serious” tone, than “What did you say” question.
Without even looking at me, he repeated, “Remove your shoes and put them through the conveyor”
With lots or reluctance and disgust, I removed my shoes, put them on the running conveyor to the scanner, and walked on bare socks through the entrance. This time there was no beep, but my temper had risen a notch. I reassembled my luggage at the other end of the conveyor, put on my shoes and stepped onto the check-in lounge. It was about 9.15pm. There was no one to show us where to go, nor any directional signs. Travelers just guessed where to go. I went to a place marked 'Immigration', after wondering aimlessly for about two minutes.
“I am traveling,” I informed the person, with a badge, stationed near the entrance.
“Do you have a boarding pass?”
“Boarding pass?”
“Yes, you need to get one. Which airline?”
“Kenya Airways,” I responded.
“Queue there,” he pointed to his right.
I joined a queue that was surely headed to counters marked 'KQ'. There were about eight other travelers ahead. The queue moved fairly fast, with three counters in operation. At the counter, I presented the computer generated e-ticket and passport. The lady handed back the passport without any look and studied the ticket.
“Had you checked in?”
“No, I have just arrived”
She fingered her computer keyboard, then, “You had already been checked in,” she looked back at me, as if searching for answers.
“I was booked through our corporate travel agent. It is possible that they finalized the process”
The answer was good enough, since she proceeded to give me a ticket and asked me to move on, even as she affixed a tag on my suitcase and let it slide away behind her sitting position.
At 'Immigration' I saw people filling in 'Entry declaration' forms. I thought about it for a moment, wondering why folks were filling in entry forms on a departure lounge. To conform, I filled in the blue card, which required details such as name, passport number, county of issue and country of intended travel. I joined another queue to a counter marked 'Kenyan citizens'. The other counters were marked 'East African citizens' and 'Other travelers'. During my turn at the counter, the immigration officer pushed my passport though a scanner, then asked, “Where are you traveling to?”
“But this was written on that blue card you just shoved away under the table?,” I thought of saying. Instead, “Ethiopia,” I answered.
“Mbio wanatuweza kweli?”
“Huu ni mwaka wetu. Hawatuwezi kabisa.”
He stamped a page on the passport, handed it back and asked me to move on, through past his counter to the terminal building.
At the terminal various travelers milled around. I looked for terminal 2, and moved to that direction. I met Kef, my colleague.
“You engineers, now where is TJ and colleague?,” she asked.
“I do not know. I have not seen them. I believe that they must have checked in”
At the boarding area, one part of the ticket was torn off, and a yellow plastic strip written 'Boarding pass' issued. Nonetheless, the boarding was not devoid of drama. The overhead sign read “Nbo – Joburg boarding.” In reality, it was an Addis boarding time. It is only after asking the staff at the counter did we understand that the board had jammed. Just after the issue of passes, we were subjected to the last check. We repeated the process of emptying our pockets, removing laptops from bags, passing them through the scanner, another beep-beep for me, and... you guessed right – another episode of removing shoes. After repacking again, we handed over the boarding pass to a waiting hand that had blocked the passage, as we walked through the narrow carriage that led to down to the tarmac, straight to the KQ plane.
I had expected a big plane. One of those jumbos. Even as I took the stairs towards the plane's entrance, I knew that this was a small plane. From outside it looked like a toy. In the inside, it was surely small. Just two seats on each side, with a narrow corridor in between. My seat, 15D, was just three rows from the very end of the plane. I was seated isle side. It was now about 10.15pm, and the travelers were steadily streaming in, and stuffing their hand luggage to the open overhead compartments. In another five minutes, most of the seats were taken. At least two were not taken. It is around this time that TJ called to announce their canceled flight.
When the plane took off at exactly 22.30 as scheduled, I gave this small Embraer 170 plane, that sits seventy, quite some credit. Despite its small size, it was quite comfortable and smooth. It even felt smoother than the last Boeing that I took on a local flight. I had already seen on the ticket that the arrival would be 00.35, at Bole International Airport, Addis Ababa. A 2.05hr flight. Once on air, about 30minutes after take off, a light meal was served, followed by a drink. There was however no video screens on board. Just a bus-like seating arrangement with nothing much. It was almost like the Oxygen experience to the coast two months prior. At cruising speed of 890km/h on altitude 30,000ft (about 10km up there), there was no discernible motion, just some faint far off hum of the engine. We were virtually at standstill. Being near the wing, I could observe the continuous red blink of the wing lights, on the right side that I was seated. The lady seated on the window side seat just went straight to sleep after the meal. I found myself glancing the KQ inflight magazine, without grasping much. I was just flipping through, attracted by the pictorials.
It was not long before the captain announced that, “We shall soon start our descent to Bole International airport. Those on transit to Eritrea, please remain in the plane after landing, since we shall just refuel then depart. This shall be within 40minutes. For those disembarking at Addis, have a good time. Thank you for flying Kenya Airways.”
This was a bit sudden. It did not seem that long. Were two hours truly over? I did not have time to answer that question since momentarily the plane touched down and taxied to the disembarking bay. Out of the plane, a bus was waiting to transport us to the check-out area and baggage claim.
“Yellow fever,” a lady shouted as we headed to the baggage claim area. This was after our passports had been stamped in exchange for the entry declaration cards, that we had filled in the plane, during the last ten minutes of our journey. We raised our Yellow fever certificates for scrutiny, before being allowed to get through to luggage claim, after our hand luggage had been passed through the scanner once more. Our suitcases were easy to spot, after which we headed straight to the exit.
Someone raised a sign having the name of the host organization, followed below with four names. This attracted our attention. We moved to his standing point and introduced ourselves as the guests that he was picking. The time was now about 1.00am. He led us to the van then opened the right side sliding door for us to put in our luggage. I then went and stood on the front left, to wait for him to open the door. He had already opened the front right door. I had expected him to get into the van and just open the left door. Instead, he left the right door ajar, and walked round the vehicle to open the left door. I was taken aback to realize that the steering wheel was located on the left side. The joke was on me when I had to move to the right side doors to get into the van. We were on a left-handed van. Soon I realized that we were on a 'keep-right' driving system. Quite a mental challenge from the right-handed vehicles that am used to. This first late night sleep marked the typical sleeping time for my whole duration in Addis. Somehow I found myself sleeping past 1.30am each and every day.
Do not disturb
‘Do Not Disturb’, is the notice that I affixed to the external part of my room door. I did this about mid-night as I prepared to watch the final news headlines on CNN before retiring to bed. This was necessary because I intend to have the first long sleep in seven days since my arrival. This would prevent the room cleaners from bumping in at about 8.30am. Two days ago when I had extended my sleep beyond eight-thirty, the ladies had just knocked on my door, shouted some strange language, and before I knew it they were already in. They had to give their apologies even as I struggled out of bed to wonder who had invaded my room. I was not taking any chances this Saturday night. The Addis weather was a replica of Uthiru weather - relatively warm day times and very cold nights. The room offered four blankets and the heater though.
The phone ring startled my deep sleep – and that room phone can ring loud! I crossed the room in three steps to get to the phone set on the window-side edge of the reading table. How could I have forgotten about muting the phone! And who would have thought that someone would bother to call me in this foreign land!
“What!?,” I uttered to the mouthpiece.
“It is ten past nine and we are waiting for you at Gene Forage for a meeting,” came the answer.
“Eh, Why?,” I asked.
The previous day the three gents had had their customary dinner at Zebu club and had agreed to have the first meeting at ten. This meeting would enable us get into a car to take us for a tour of Addis.
“There was to be the meeting with the Project Manager, to update her on the progress of our work”
“But… but that meeting had not been confirmed!”
“Get get here, you have five minutes.”
I knew that she had paid for the airfare, but messing my first good sleep was surely not polite. Nonetheless, I got out of bed, dressed and headed for the meeting room, laptop in hand.
I did not take any breakfast. I was at the meeting room in another two minutes. The two ladies and two colleagues were already in discussions, which I just joined in. When the meeting ended just about eleven, our host left even as the remaining Kenyans engaged in discussions.
“Why did you setup a meeting without giving us notice? We had our own agenda today!”
“It had to happen. Lexi is in Addis only for today. She goes back to Nairobi tomorrow. I had asked mzee to tell you of this meeting,” she informed us, “You mean that he did not?”
“He was concentrating on his own packing as he was leaving for the airport for this mid-night flight back to Nairobi”
“No wonder he forgot. Nonetheless, am making it worth your while. I shall buy you people lunch when we go for the outing,” Kef confirmed.
That is how we landed at the injera place, followed by the tour or Menelik's place and eventually my Sunday evening run.
Beauty
One thing that the Abyssinians are blessed with, without a doubt, is beauty. They are somehow the same pepite size, well rounded and yellow. All of them are almost similar and very beautiful. The Tuesday training run was therefore quite worth it.
We had discussed what it took to get married to such women.
“It depends region where girl comes from,” Mich, a colleague from Addis Engineering said, then added, “In some place, they arrange cows and you run top of cows end to end!”
“You mean running on top of cows?”
“Yes, they arrange them and you run top. If you fall or fail, then you wait one year”
The driver who took us to the museum had told me that the dowry was about three hundred herds of cattle. That was surely beauty at a very high price!!
“You also must buy one kilo gold every year for her,” Mich said.
“And must be pure gold,” Kabe added.
“Every year, you said?,” the Kenyans wondered.
“Yes every year. During Meskel, our new year, you give her gold.”
I had already been told that another qualification was taking your lady to the US, at least once. In fact, the local staff SACCO had a 'US-tour' loan product, which was quite popular.
Now I was calculating:
(1) Investment = (Jumping row of 10cows) + 300 herds + (no. of years x (1kg gold)) + US trip
(2) Returns = (-)Investment.
(3) But, Returns > Investments = Profit
The equation was not balancing at postulate no. 3, though it would be made easier if we introduced a forth condition:
(4) Love your enemies
Then, we just declare them your enemies
After a hard day of work, which included an explosion from a baking even that we were repairing, we had had enough for a day. When one of the locals gave us his story, of how he had worked for the organization for many years and survived many good and bad times. He had concluded with, “My daughters in Sweden. Now here. Want to greet?”
TJ and Ben were starting to say, “Oh, no need...,” when I directed them towards Zebu with, “Of course, we want to greet”
To Zebu club, the four of us matched. Seated at the low coffee table were two beauties.
“Hi”
“Good evening”
So we did the introductions, then small talk for about ten minutes before finally leaving.
This introduction was almost like an honour. To us, this was a risky move that could easily backfire.
“Do you think any of our techs could introduce his daughters to our staff”
“Hey, mbuzi awekwe mbele ya fisi!”
WWB, Addis, 15-Oct-2011
No comments:
Post a Comment