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Flying the (un)Friendly Skies

This time next week, I shall be preparing to board a plane, on my merry way to the US of A. Being an experienced flyer, it will not really be a big deal. My biggest problem with plane travel now is picking which movie to watch. Unless, of course, I have a rather prominent zit on my forehead. Then there is a danger of the flight attendants mistaking me for the Hindu man, who booked a ticket, and I would be served the vegetarian special-order meal, and that, my friends, would be a terrible crisis.

But these are small issues. So what to write about? A thought which crossed my mind today (and left tire tracks) was to unload my brain a bit. After all, such expertise as mine should be put to some use. What follows, then, is a sort of Airline Traveling for Dummies. However don’t take that as an insult. I merely mean that those less fortunate people among my readers who have not flown internationally more than 22 times should find this useful, beneficial, and rather unique.

 I guess the first thing that comes to mind is don't believe a word of what you hear on the safety videos. It’s all a big joke. In the first place, NO ONE looks as happy as the mock passengers who are jumping down the emergency slide with big rosy grins, trying to make everyone believe that being stranded in the Atlantic by a crippled 747 must be BAGS of fun. It just doesn't happen that way. Also, the life vests are incredibly bogus. They will tell you about how the life vests will automatically inflate, and have a whistle on one side for attracting attention, and a light on the other which comes on when you hit water. In the first place, isn't it nice to know that the airlines are doing their part for safer air travel? I mean, I am sure there are rescue boats all over the Atlantic just waiting to hear airplane life vest whistles and rush to their aid, right? SERIOUSLY!!!! What kind of whack job is running the industry? If there is no one around to notice a screaming jet liner with 4 flaming engines go smashing into the ocean, sending up a gargantuan spray, I am sure the little WHISTLES will do WONDERS to get some help. Sorry. That just doesn't cut it for me. And a light that comes on upon contact with water? Who’s not gonna know? Unless you are a paraplegic, or you wet your pants multiple times during the emergency descent (if ever there was a legitimate reason, though, this would be it!) you are gonna know when you are up to your chest in the gelid brine of the Atlantic. But NO! Instead of putting in something USEFUL like FOOD or WATER, they take up the space with all these little lights so everyone will know (to their immeasurable chagrin, I am sure) that they are indeed floating in the ocean. Bravo for good sense.

Even more fun can be found when the flight crew details the emergency oxygen procedures. “Should the cabin lose air pressure for some reason”, they say, in a cheery, sing-song fashion, “masks will drop from the ceiling.” Brilliant. What next? “Apply the mask to your mouth and nose, and adjust the band to secure it.” So far so good. And now for step 3: “Breathe normally.”

A paragraph break is here needed for emphasis.

BREATH NORMALLY??????? Breathe NORMALLY???????????? Whatever happened to the panic attack? Who on the flight is NOT hyperventilating? On the video, the mock passengers (on the “breathe normally” cue) begin to take ridiculously exaggerated breaths, suggesting that the air coming through the (famously comfortable) mask is wonderfully perfumed, and easy to intake. They inhale like they have just reached the summit of a Swiss Alp, and are drinking in the view from the top. Well let me tell you something, buddy. If I’m in a plane, and it’s going down, and we’ve just lost cabin pressure, and all hell is breaking loose, I’m gonna be needin’ some serious help. Providing that we made it to the ground safely, I probably wouldn’t breathe normally for a year, let alone during the actual catastrophe.

There is only one true piece of good advice on the video. It comes right in the middle of all this fallacious blathering. It is simply this: “in the event of an emergency landing, place your head between your knees.” My friends, this is sagacious counsel. Not only does it allow you to die in a penitent attitude (thereby greatly improving the content of your obituary entry) but it puts you in just the right position to kiss your bum goodbye.

Rule number 2. Do NOT attempt to carry out the Pilates exercises they will detail to you in order that you may have a relaxed and enjoyable flight. You will either a) sprain, pull, or mangle something, or b) look incredibly stupid in front of the whole cabin. I can't tell you how it makes me crack up when, right in the middle of the flight, I see some 80 year old guy in the aisle, doing his impressions of Swan Lake. It’s great. You can look around the cabin and immediately spot the first timers. They are the ones with their hands in the air, climbing invisible ladders, or rolling their heads around and trying to appear relaxed by flexing their eyebrow muscles. Trust me. You don't want to look like a greenhorn. So no matter what they try to scare you with (usually traveler's thrombosis) DON'T DO THE EXERCISES!

A much more practical rule which of course you know, but would be worth pointing out, is that it's never too early to wait for your flight. Invariably, you will see some businessman doing the marathon through terminal 4, his little wheelie bag clacking over the tiles behind him at a frenetic pace, and he looking about ready to die (obviously having not had much exercise in his life), while over the intercom, the flight people are shouting:

"MR. LARDCAN, WE ARE DELAYING YOUR FLIGHT. IMMEDIATELY PROCEED TO GATE 2,459."

"MR. LARDCAN, THIS IS THE PILOT. EVEN IF YOU MAKE THE FLIGHT ON TIME, YOU ARE GOING TO BE RIDING IN THE BAGGAGE COMPARTMENT ALL THE WAY TO TUSCALOOSA."

"MR. LARDCAN, IF YOU WISH TO REMAIN ALIVE FOR THE DURATION OF THE FLIGHT, YOU'LL GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER."

"MR. LARDCAN, THE FLIGHT IS NOW DEPARTING. THE FBI IS WAITING TO ARREST YOU, HOWEVER, SO PLEASE PROCEED TO THE GATE ANYWAY. THANK YOU FOR FLYING THE FRIENDLY SKIES."

You get the picture. I always like to be ready to board 3 hours ahead of time, and it goes quickly, I promise. If you like people watching, then you'll love international airports. It’s a great pastime. Just crank up some tunes, and casually keep tabs on everyone in the room. What are they doing? Where did they come from? Is that lady a natural maroon? It’s a lot of fun. Oh, but when you are getting off the plane, take your time. Trust me. as soon as the seatbelt sign is switched off (usually a little before, actually, contrary to the orders of the head steward), throngs of people will be up out of their seats and shoving each other in an attempt to get their bags first. This does no good, however, since it takes usually around 10 minutes for the gangway to be placed, and the doors to be opened. So everyone fights for a few seconds, and then stands in the aisle not looking at the next man, and waiting to get off the plane.

Here is what you do: sit. Just stay in your seats until everyone is off. It’s what we do all the time. Unless you are in a massive rush to catch your next flight, just wait out the storm. The flight attendants will love you for it (we often times get a bag of all the leftover chips and sodas, which is really great), and it is nice to exit the plane in a leisurely fashion. Trust me. Best way, bar none. Unless of course you do The Micah. This means you have your bag in hand before you even touch down. as soon as people get up, you make your way down the aisle, saying "excuse me" in a very patronizing manner, acting as though you are on your way to retrieve your bags from a far compartment. Folks will move. When you get to the door, just stop and act like you know exactly what you are doing, smile at people, breathe deeply, as though enjoying the smells of cabin air (this will please the attendants) and when the door is opened, just step through with no waiting whatsoever. It works like a charm.

Following this advice will ease your next flight immensely. I promise.

Cheers,

Micah

Currently Reading Moby-Dick (Penguin Classics) By Herman Melville see related

Packing 2 - What Lies Beneath

Things are insanely busy around here. Our container is due in less than a week, and all the furies have been unleashed as far as domestic life goes. While significant progress has been made in the way of packing and getting ready to leave, there is still a job to be done of colossal proportions. Every room we go into is a new adventure. Frankly, you have no idea how much junk you own until you personally capsize your home. I have found many things in the context of moving that I thought we had lost years ago. I found stuff I swear we didn’t move here with. I guess everything you collect in life sort of packs up and follows you, even if you don’t want it to. Sad, really.

Part of the difficulty has been deciding what to take back. Personal loyalties to certain sentimentally valuable goods have given birth to some rather impractical ideas. Every member of our family (even yours truly, pure as the driven snow) is guilty. I guess everyone has their own little pile of detritus, which means the world to them, but is what the world would consider pure garbage. Dad is famously reluctant to give up clothes, and (at first) stood with arms akimbo in front of his closet, assuring us that if his clothes didn’t go, he didn’t go. He was soon talked into a more sensible point of view, but that is only one of many troubles we have had along these lines. Asa has a filial attachment to published items, and he nearly took up arms when we decided to get rid of our National Geographic collection. The magazines are so dog-eared, I would not be at all surprised if they could hear by now. As an interesting side note, these very magazines were dumped on us while still in the States by another missionary family which was moving to Kenya. Undoubtedly, what goes around comes around.

Sarah wanted to keep all of her dolls. This sounds like a rather inconsequential matter. However if all of Sarah’s dolls were taxpaying citizens, they would make a sizable dent in the federal debt. The statistics bureau actually sent her a Christmas card last year. We’re talking about some serious numbers here. She had to be similarly convinced that perhaps a population reduction in the toy department would be a good idea.

Mom, of course, has many things she would like to take back, that the rest of us are unsure of. However by dint of motherhood, she gets to take back whatever she likes. And this is incontestable. Earlier, she had a stack of items ready to be packed. I began to protest, arguing that the box itself was worth more than the goods it would soon contain, if the plan were carried out.  I almost missed dessert for the month because of it. We don’t argue much these days.

As for me, I am relatively blameless in this area. However my sense of the pragmatic is (I must admit) prone to a little overdrive now and then. I will frequently go on campaigns to rid the house of things which I think would do nothing but disgrace the family name. While often my raids do nothing but good, it is easy (even for a professional dumpster like me) to make mistakes.

“Mom, I insist that we get rid of this ashtray. It’s nothing but a low-priced waste of glass, and it just sits in this cupboard all day anyway. If you simply must have an el cheapo buttcan sitting around the house, then I will personally buy one for you once we get back, however this is but flotsam.”

“Micah, for one, that is not an ashtray. It’s a late Victorian confectionery dish. And the reason it sits in the cupboard all day is because it is a priceless heirloom given to me by my Great-Great Aunt Elizabeth.”

“Oh.”

Surely you can see from this hypothetical, yet very realistic, interchange, that when I do make something that remotely resembles a bad suggestion, it is never my fault, but is simply due to serious misinformation for which I am NEVER responsible.

These difficulties aside, we have managed to agree upon (for the most part) what we are giving away and what we are keeping. We all have our funky stashes, but I am prevented from begrudging others their mundane items by the completely ridiculous box of my junk that I am, at the moment, packing.

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I Love A Parade

Yesterday was a hard day, for several reasons. And when I have a hard day, I take to a sizzling hot shower, and go straight to bed with my latest read. That was my plan last night, before things took a turn for the absolute worst.

I was enjoying said shower, when I heard what sounded like thunder directly outside. This was not surprising – it has been raining quite frequently of late. Accompanying the thunder was a bit of power fluctuation. This was similarly unsurprising, since you never know what will come out of the Ugandan sockets. However just then, Asa popped his head in the door and announced (through a veritable bulwark of steam) “Micah, someone just crashed into our wall and knocked it down!” I poked my lathered head out of the gloriously mildewed curtain, and questioned the veracity of this statement. After being assured that this was not a fable, I spun the taps off and grabbed for my towel. This was definitely something worth checking out, even at the cost of a serious abridgement of my evening ablutions.

Throwing on some clothes, I hurried outside to get to the bottom of whatever was going on (note, gentle reader, that this is at exactly 11:15 PM). As I stepped around the corner of the house, I was greeted by what I would call a decidedly arresting sight. Two headlight beams were poking into our compound through a gargantuan hole in our relatively new brick wall. A light dust was beginning to settle, and the street lamp on the now-skewed utility pole was flickering and popping.

After stomping to the top of the debris heap in a manly fashion, I surveyed the scene. The pickup truck (to which the aforementioned headlights were attached) had clearly seen better days. The front end was completely pancaked, and steel guts were spilling out from under the jauntily cocked hood. To make it worse, the vehicle was bearing a government plate. Glancing at the side of the truck, I made the wry observation that the truck belonged to the Road Maintenance Division of the Ministry of Works. This was irony at its best.

The driver (a government employee) was circling the vehicle, kicking each tire in turn, and listening closely for a telltale hiss of air. It didn’t take long for me to realize that he was potted to an extreme degree. The multitudinous beers he had clearly swilled earlier that evening were obviously brewing again in his very depths, and the fumes were floating freely about him in a viscous cloud. After several rounds, he straightened up (tilting ever so slightly to one side), and made a declaration of piercing brilliance – “I think it is broken”. The guards and I agreed wholeheartedly. This being decided, he of the brewskis endeavored to fix the vehicle. He started with the battery. Picking it up, he stared at it with a glazed expression, wondering why his eyes would not focus. Frustrated by his lack of vision, he plopped the cell on the ground, and hit it with his fist, in a “that’ll do it” spirit. Satisfied with his repair job, he picked the battery up and replaced it upside-down in the cage. He fiddled with the wires for a minute, trying to figure out where the terminals had gotten off to, but soon gave this up and misdirected his efforts to the engine block.

Through a drunken reasoning process, he assumed that since the smashing of the front end had caused the problems, all he had to do was to unsmash it, and the effects would be reversed. He grabbed the bull bar and began to yank on the grille. All this produced was a slight cracking in the bowels of the engine, after which the radiator began to pee on his foot. Nonplussed, he rolled up his sleeves and plunged headfirst into the engine. The only things visible were his legs, waving around and kicking the windshield occasionally.

Eventually extricating himself, he punched the hood and then clambered into the driver’s seat through the window. Turning the key, he revved the starter for a full 20 seconds. Nothing happened, and he decided that more banging was in order. That’s when we intervened, suggesting to him that perhaps the car was not going anywhere, at least for the night. Accepting this, he promptly plunked himself down on the ground, took off his shoes, and began to pick apart his socks.

While this amazing performance was happening outside, Dad was inside, trying to contact the police. When they picked up the phone, he explained to them the problem. They agreed that this was a crisis, and assured us that a patrol was on its way. Satisfied, he then called the Uganda Electric Board. When the driver had crashed into the wall, he had sheared off our utility pole at the base, leaving the rest of the pole dangling by the wires that it was supposed to be holding up, with one end half-resting in the brick pile, and the other end floating dangerously above the pickup, which was now leaking diesel at an incredible rate. Naturally, we were somewhat concerned about this situation, but we couldn’t reach the electric company.

Dad came outside, then, to survey the damage for himself. For some reason, our saturated friend was under the delusion that Dad was a priest. “Father!”, he cried, “Father please let us put this wall back!”. He then began to industriously pick up bricks and restack them onto the ruins. Dad told him that the police were on their way, and we would let them sort it out. “But it is not broken!” he insisted, gesturing to the phenomenally strewn wreckage. To drive his point home, he leant on the precarious utility pole and tried to shove it backwards, showing us that it was still implanted in the ground. We all screamed at him and lunged forward to prevent certain disaster. Taking the hint, he quit.

The few passers-by who had stopped to see what was going on soon left, leaving the drunk, our 2 guards, Dad, Asa, Ezra, and me sitting around waiting for the police. After approximately half an hour, we were getting rather tired. It was, after all, 1:15 AM by this time, and the cops still hadn’t shown their ugly faces. Meanwhile, the drunk had left. No one noticed until after he was well out of sight, but we really had no right to keep him there, so we just let him go. Dad went inside to call the police again, and they said they were “still organizing”. We took this as a bad sign.

It was interesting, sitting outside on a pile of wreckage at one in the morning, lit by the foggy moon and the lone streetlamp, staring through a hole in the wall, and listening to our guards chat about the situation. They really weren’t much help, actually. Shortly after the accident, Stephen, our main guard, insisted that he call his supervisor and report it. However because of a power situation at the station, their walkie-talkies weren’t sufficiently charged to contact him (we’re all about security over here). I brought out our cell phone for him, and he dialed the number. After many rings (the dispatcher was asleep), he finally answered, and Stephen was able to detail the situation to him. “This sounds serious”, he said, “you’d better contact the police”. Hanging up, Stephen related to me this conversation. Fort Knox, I thought, that’s us. So not only could the guards not contact their supervisor without borrowing our phone, his only solution when they did reach him was to call the fuzz. Pretty lame.

However talking to them about the accident was interesting. He said, with all seriousness, that the police might not organize themselves until the following morning. We all had a good laugh at this. Eventually his disdain for the Mbale police force reached the limits of his grasp of the English tongue. “I don’t know how to describe these police”, he shouted emphatically. I do!, I thought, dryly, but kept it to myself.

Sitting on my throne of crushed mortar, I stared into space. Dad was getting disgusted. “Anyone know any good campfire songs?”, I suggested, but the rest of the gang didn’t pick up the option. A thought was slowly beginning to dawn on us all. Perhaps the police weren’t coming at all. It was 1:45 AM, the car was going nowhere, the wall certainly couldn’t be fixed on the spot, the suspect had vamoosed, and we were tired. We went inside, and fell into bed.

The next morning, we were visited by an official looking policewoman. Amid a crowd of approximately 30 boda drivers, she interrogated Dad and the drunk man (who was not drunk at this time, but for purposes of labeling, he shall ever remain “the drunk man”). Being a savvy officer (no doubt a pillar of the local force), she started by not taking pictures of the crime scene. Instead, she drew a primitive sketch of the car and wall on a yellowing legal pad which had obviously been in use for several decades. In order to make the drawing as geometrically accurate as possible, she took a stick and began banging on the front bumper (or what was left of it). I wasn’t sure what she was doing, until I realized that she was “measuring” the distance between the front end and the severed utility pole. Her results were surprisingly accurate. “I think it is about a meter or two, don’t you?” We agreed that this definitely sounded within the confines of reality. After a few more minutes of making sure Dad was telling the truth (I mean, come on, the truck could have been parked in a hole in our wall, and we could have plucked an innocent and sober bystander from the road and forced him into culpability for the accident), she left on the bike which she had come on. Yep.

The story is still unfinished. We have yet to see who is paying for the wall repairs, what will happen to Mr. Beercan, and essentially if the police force will ever improve. After last night, I am doubtful.

Cheers, and I do hope your week was less eventful than mine.

Micah