Everybody waits, that’s the greatest equalizer of flying commercial. It doesn’t matter if you are going to a wedding, rushing to bury your mother, a job interview, a reconnection with a lover, or a dream holiday…you will wait at some point. The distinction is how people wait. Most people will stay at the dreadful airport gates with the cold unyielding seats, with other bewildered passengers, all in motion but still suspended in limbo, dreaming of their destination, of a hot shower. And a bed. That’s what air travel whittles your ambitions down to; a shower and a bed. Or any flat surface really, where you can arrange your bones and close your eyes and sleep a dreamless sleep.
Other lucky travellers will find themselves up in lounges with their deep carpets, warm meals, low orange lighting, and an open bar. Some piped music and someone at your elbow, clearing your table. Recently I found myself at Kenya Airways’ Simba Lounge up at JKIA’s Terminal 1A. It was the dead of the night…nay, it was heading to 10 pm and the lounge felt lulled. There was a white couple with a child sleeping on his father’s lap, legs dangling almost to the floor. I love how children can sleep with half their bodies on the floor. A grave-looking man in spectacles, a coat draped over his chair, read from his iPad with a creased brow. In another corner, a man sat silently with his friend; Gin and Tonic. He looked like a character straight out of the TV series- Tokyo Vice, which you should watch if you like stories of villains in suits and tattoos and swords. A group of three young executives laughed at a table, drinking Cokes and juices, their phones on the table. Out in the brightly lit buffet/ bar/ refreshment area, a couple of passengers slowly walked down the buffet table, holding their plates, and making important nutritional decisions. A young man in uniform stood by, hands held behind his back, ready to show you where the cutlery was or fetch you some black pepper, should you request it.
I poured myself lemon-infused water from a pitcher and took a seat by the large windows overlooking the planes and boarding bridges. Behind the windows, a few planes sat in a row looking forlorn but stoic. I like the morphology of commercial planes; my favourite part of a plane is its nose. From the front, it looks like an animal with a very clean nose. No plane has a dirty nose, nor does it ever get a runny nose even when they have gone to those great altitudes below freezing point.
I turned to watch a sanitation lady working, one of those who clean up after quests. She went about her business quietly, sweeping off dirt onto a dustpan. She weaved around the room discreetly, visible yet invisible, avoiding bodies and legs. Maybe during a small break, she will stand away behind the walls that guests will never see and call home to find out if the baby took her medicine and if she is still coughing in her sleep. All around more passengers walked in and walked out, dragging their suitcases, adjusting the straps of their bags on their shoulders. Most looked weary because air travel can be soul-crushing, especially when you are moving between continents and timelines, and your body has forgotten days from nights.
At another table sat this man.
His name is Christina Madu.
He had just landed from Dubai and was connecting. He was going back home. He lives in Lagos but he stays in airports. He takes eight flights every week between Lagos and Nairobi. He flies on each day of the month except three or four days when he rests. Between June of last year and July of this year, he flew over 300 times. I don’t know what that means in terms of hours but he flew for ten months of the twelve months. That makes him Kenya Airways Most Frequent Flyer. Nobody who flies Kenya Airways flies more than him. Not even the pilots. When he is not in the air, seated in an economy seat, he’s at an airport, getting his passport stamped, walking through a security machine, or sitting in a café waiting to board. His life, for the past eight years, has been about getting on and off a plane.
Madu’s a trader. He’s a distributor of phone accessories in Lagos and its environs. He also has his shops. He’s 54 years old and has been flying since 2007 when he went to Hong Kong with a different airline. In 2010 he started making trips to Dubai.
Flying that much can’t be great for your health. It’s tough enough flying that much in Business, I can’t imagine how much harder it is flying economy, I tell him. Not for a 54-year-old. The long hours spent seated, the food, the disruption of your circadian rhythm, dehydration, the risk of deep vein thrombosis, noise-induced hearing loss, and the risk of catching a cold is 100 times more.
“I don’t drink carbonated drinks, for one,” he said. Neither does he drink alcohol, never has in his life. “Water,” he says. “You have to keep taking water. Don’t pass up a chance to drink water. Sir, would you like some water? The answer is always yes. Water is food, it can hold you for six or so hours. Eat less, drink more. Eat more fruits. Food is medication.” His exercise is from walking from one gate to the other, avoiding escalators and moving walkways. “Move your body.”
“But you are gone for so long,” I cried, “can you keep a marriage – or any relationship really – when you are always away?
“Yes. Five kids, I’m a grandfather.” He said, “My eldest son who is 37 years old, he flies too. He is in the family business.” While he was talking I was counting with the fingers in my head.
“You got your son at 17?” I gasped.
“Yes, and my youngest is 25 years old. Two of my daughters are married with children.
“Jesus.” This means by 29 years he was done getting babies.
“My son has a son.”
“You don’t look like a grandfather.”
“I don’t wear it as a cap.” He said.
“But what about your wife, does being away affect your marriage?”
“Not really. It doesn’t affect anything if you communicate with your household. That is what matters. Taking care of your home. You take time to make calls and people pass the phone to everybody and you talk to everybody. I video call them all the time. I also provide for my family. Anything my family needs I get it for them because it’s their right.
When your family is comfortable, you will be comfortable. And when I’m home everybody will come home and we will eat together. They will bring their children with them and I will bless them. If you stop communicating, you open a gap for misconceptions.”
He doesn’t read a book during flights. He doesn’t listen to music. He never watches anything on the i-flight entertainment. He just sits there. “You just sit?”
“Yeah. Or nap.” He said. “Most people don’t like sitting with themselves.”
They want to distract themselves, afraid to be in their heads, to confront the present moment. “When I get on the flight I rest. I drink my water. I stay put until I land.”
“But what do you think about all those hours?” I insisted because the concept of sitting still is so foreign to me. It’s almost psychotic to just sit still. What are you, hunting? “What occupies your thoughts?”
“Nothing. I don’t bother myself with thinking. I’m on the flight and I’m going to my destination. I’m moving. I don’t need to think. Anything that makes me think hard will affect my health. So your health is just not about what you put in through your mouth but also what you put in through your mind.”
Bloody right. I thought.
He must have met many interesting people. People he struck up a conversation with and learned something about how those people live their lives, or gave him an insight to transform how he lives his life. People who made him laugh. People whose arms he broke in an armrest fight. He thought about this for a second and said, “Of course, I’ve met some really interesting people, those that are helpful, and the ones that are discouraging. But what matters is the helpful ones, you use them and move on. The ones that are not helpful, you keep it outside your space and go your way.”
He’s never desired to be anything or anybody else. He never had any ambition to be a surgeon, a professor or an engineer. Growing up he always wanted to go to China to trade. It was always very clear in his mind. “This always baffled my teachers and parents because I was always the first in my class and the expectation was for me to be in a serious profession. But I wasn’t interested. I have always seen myself as a trader.”
So as soon as he finished his secondary education, he bailed out of education and started chasing his dream of being a trader. “I’m an Igbo man,” he told me proudly, “this is what we are good at. “
He is quick to add that there is no joy in flying. He doesn’t fly for pleasure, he flies because he has to because he has a family and he is the head of that family. He’d rather stay at home with his family than stand in another queue, show another boarding pass, or wait outside another washroom on a plane. “But the connections and business are out there and they won’t come to you.” He could fly any other airline. “Yes, and KQ is not perfect, it has challenges and some of my trader friends change airlines at the onset of problems but I’m an Igbo man, “he said, “an Igbo man doesn’t get discouraged easily, we go and get stuff done. Whenever there is a tough situation, we find a way, a light at the end of the tunnel.”
“Do you sometimes travel with your wife?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Does she want to come with you sometime?”
“No, no, no. I travel for business, not for pleasure. I don’t go sightseeing, you understand. It’s business. Besides, she doesn’t have that time to follow me up and down, she is concentrating on her own business which she runs.”
Window seat or aisle seat?
“Aisle, because when you are drinking so much water you will want to use the bathroom a lot and you don’t want to be disturbing anyone to pass through.”
What he enjoys is being alone and the flying accords him the privacy to be just another face in another airport going someplace. “I like to stay alone. I don’t like noise, that’s why I come here, to the Pride Lounge, because it’s quiet and nobody bothers you.” He’s earned KQ’s Platinum Elite Plus status in the Asante Rewards Loyalty program with lifetime benefits. I wonder if he will ever use his status again, if he will ever want to hop into another plane again in his life because he’s nearing the end of his travels. He can’t do this much longer, he admits. He can hear it in his body and his mind. So, he will let someone else travel, his son, most likely. Someone younger, fitter, hungrier. He will stay back in Lagos and handle his business. Like an Igbo man should.
***
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