airborne
Originally uploaded by Mishaone.

Having never attempted to travel even as far as outside the city by myself, I was a bit nervous about travelling to another continent altogether where I would be dependent on my sparse knowledge of Arabic to survive. Come late evening and I find myself being driven to the airport with my luggage and family in tow. Mum's nervous, of course, and keeps telling me the exact procedure to get through to the boarding lounge over and over, as well as letting me know to mind my P's and Q's when I get to my relatives' place and not leave my clothes all over. I turn up the radio and find myself singing along to an oddly squeaky voiced fellow singing "I'm so looooonely". The song proves to be addictive and is stuck in my head for the duration of my say in the UAE. In fact, even now if you should approach my friend M, who stayed with me for four days in Sharjah, and start singing "lonely" in a squeaky voice, she will run screaming to the nearest wall to bash her head in. Anyhow, I'm getting ahead of myself.

The airport looms over the horizon. I've never has such mixed feelings about seeing the golden arches that signal the approach of a McDonalds' franchise. Turns out there's still over three hours till my flight's takeoff time, so an early dinner at Mickey D's is on the cards, which turns out to be a blessing, considering the food they serve over at Emirates. Fast forward a half hour and it's time for the awkward goodbyes. I'm not much for the hugging and bawling in public places is even less welcome in my book, so I casually say goodbye and grab my luggage and make my way through the glass doors. Odd how it's instantly cool inside, even though the doors are open twenty four hours a day. I try to resist turning back, but it suddenly strikes me that I'm all alone now and an immediate "ohmygodimsoooooscrewed" rush occurs. Panic, pure panic. I turn around, locate my family and give them a wave that I hope seems confident and turn around and walk in. The last time I was in here, the very first customs check made us open up suitcases and poked screwdriver heads through the heels of my brother's boots. This time I'm waved through almost instantly, a fact I attribute to being a mostly harmless-looking female. With a burst of confidence, I check in my luggage and get my boarding pass and wave one last time to my family as I'm whisked through immigration. Once inside, I eagerly approach the little kiosks where I can use the Internet free of charge, after all this is the major advantage of checking in two hours early and waiting around in a boarding lounge. Unfortunately, the kiosks now ask for a valid email address to activate the Internet for twenty minutes, and even then only with browsing. Additionally, they have an clumsily made browser which is pretty much all you can access on the computers. I wrestle with the strange browser and give up after fifteen minutes and return to my seat to watch TV. Lady luck has abandoned me, it seems, because I now discover that they only have one channel available: the Airport channel, which consists of the same twenty monotonous advertisements being played over and over and over. Desperately, I look around for any entertainment at all and find only a snack bar that serves food for almost double the price it would be in a regular retail store, and now that you're trapped and deprived of any entertainment, you absolutely have to buy it. Two hours of waiting later, I am marvelling at the resilience of my sanity for not having left me by now when we're finally called in to board the airplane.

In between, unfortunately, a middle aged lady who was, judging by the tags on her carry on luggage, travelling via PIA to Qatar, approaches me and asks me if I would mind watching her luggage while she pops in to the loo for a minute.

I nearly go crosseyed in the next five minutes, keeping one eye on the lady's carry-on bag and one eye on the ladies washroom door to ensure said lady does not exit and leave me here with her potentially dangerous bag. To my relief, she exits and comes straight for me. I straighten up and look around casually as if I never doubted her return for a second. She sits down, smiles gratefully and checks her watch. Uh-oh, she says. It appears to be time for her prayers. Would I mind watching her bags for a few more minutes while she says her prayers? Torn between feeling guilty for thinking a harmless old lady could be a terrorist and the cynical voice insisting that the first time she came back to lull me into a false sense of security and this time she would not return, I say yes again. Lady smiles gratefully and exits to where my gaze cannot follow. God, I mutter, I will not ask you for an iPod again, please let her just be an innocent old lady who wanted to pee and then pray and not a member of an International terrorist organization praying on stupid people who agree to watch luggage for strangers. Twenty minutes pass by and I'm getting concerned about the lady's whereabouts. Surely she should be done with her prayers by now? The vague feeling of disquiet is not helped in the least by the fact that passengers for the PIA flight to Qatar are being invited to board the plane now and the lady may well miss her flight. My attempt to discreetly distance myself from her bag falls flat when a member of airport security approaches me (now at a bit of a distance from the lady's bag) and asks if I own yonder bag. No, I don't. Is the owner travelling with me then? No, I have never seen her before. Oh. I should be careful then, he says, nodding sagely as he speaks. I would be held responsible for the bag should the lady not return. I manage to smile and nod my understanding before letting out a string of words under my breath it is best not to repeat here. I walk off in search of the place for ladies to pray and, to my immense relief, find the lady still praying vigorously. Not really knowing how to interrupt someone in the middle of their prayers but wanting to let her know that her flight may be leaving without her and that I cannot watch her bag anymore, I clear my throat several times to get her attention. The lady turns out to have ears only for God because she completely ignores me. Screw it, I think, and return to my seat before having an attack of conscience and returning to find the lady and grab her right after her prayers end and tell her where her bag is. To my alarm, the prayer room is empty. I hurry to the place where I left the bag only to find the lady in question boarding her plane with her stupid bag hoisted on her shoulder without so much as a glance backwards to wave appreciatively. Good riddance, I mutter angrily to no one in particular and flop down on my seat to wait for boarding of my own flight, which happens twenty five minutes later.