1:32 AM 2/27/2017
30/05/1438
The flight has taken off. Due to the sad state of affairs I am not headed for Istanbul. In December 2015 a call to adventure took me into the vefa tourism office in Abuja's Sheraton hotel. Jamila wasn't with me then. I bought a ticket to to travel on the 27th of February 2016. My visa to the UK was going to expire in March 2016. It had to be used. That flight didn't happen,and now the ticket is gone, my visa expired without be used. Loss not of money but time. "Change" brought the Naira tumbling. A coup in Turkey increased visa costs to Turkey by 500%. With Abuja's airport closing soon I wonder how I might have returned though. I reach into myself for consolence...
11:03 AM 2/28/2017
About three kilometers from me is a plane with Turkish air livery.....I'ill try and imagine that I'm Istanbul bound.... children do this easily. My flight to Abuja was grounded....we were about to take off and then temperatures started to rise.
The pain
If only certain variables had been right...actually 1 varible money I might have been under the domes of the Haga Sophia now, gazing at Great Words. Yesterday I stopped just outside the Turkish airline office enroute The Place a popular Lagos eatery. Morgan Freeman just advertised Turkish air on CNN. I'm seeing and not seeing Turkey all around me. But Allah (SWT) has Wisely chosen otherwise....today I am Abuja bound...the flight attendants had done their demonstrations, we were buckled in...the pilot had begun to taxi. It was hot inside. The air condition was faulty. Fingers reached to the vents and tickled nothingness. The air was unamused. Then fingers stabbed at the comm button. The red light that came on illustrated our moods perfectly. Mumurs of anxiety began, then one passenger dark skinned with a light beard and medium size skull broke in protest. "Their is something wrong with this plane...they are regulations in Nigeria!"
"Stop the plane...." though he was the only loud voice our silence elected his imperative. He stood up and then others did...I saw a man walk to the cockpit. A private jet was the only plane in front of us. If the pilot didn't stop we would soon be high altitude cats in a hot tin can. God helped us.
"This is your captain.." a thick Eastern European voice announced. "They're is something wrong with our air conditioning...we are returning to the apron"...later I met the sole soul saviour..."May God protect us"...I said shaking his hand ..."And we must protect ourselves" he reply with a slight assertion.
"God uses people.." he laughs.
Enroute the departure area of the MM2 airport at the corner of the escalotor lies a heap of magazines and newspapers. They offer themselves as daily bread for the brain. One of yesterday's headlines was, "105 passengers escape death as Air Peace tyre burst" (a hyperbole). Can death be ecsaped? My mind chewed on the inevitable. We are already dead. My mind excreated. "It is not that you will die that matters but whether you will live.." Right is Rumi..but he is in Konya in Turkey and I am in Lagos. Who is alive?..Who is dead?
30/05/1438
The flight has taken off. Due to the sad state of affairs I am not headed for Istanbul. In December 2015 a call to adventure took me into the vefa tourism office in Abuja's Sheraton hotel. Jamila wasn't with me then. I bought a ticket to to travel on the 27th of February 2016. My visa to the UK was going to expire in March 2016. It had to be used. That flight didn't happen,and now the ticket is gone, my visa expired without be used. Loss not of money but time. "Change" brought the Naira tumbling. A coup in Turkey increased visa costs to Turkey by 500%. With Abuja's airport closing soon I wonder how I might have returned though. I reach into myself for consolence...
11:03 AM 2/28/2017
About three kilometers from me is a plane with Turkish air livery.....I'ill try and imagine that I'm Istanbul bound.... children do this easily. My flight to Abuja was grounded....we were about to take off and then temperatures started to rise.
The pain
If only certain variables had been right...actually 1 varible money I might have been under the domes of the Haga Sophia now, gazing at Great Words. Yesterday I stopped just outside the Turkish airline office enroute The Place a popular Lagos eatery. Morgan Freeman just advertised Turkish air on CNN. I'm seeing and not seeing Turkey all around me. But Allah (SWT) has Wisely chosen otherwise....today I am Abuja bound...the flight attendants had done their demonstrations, we were buckled in...the pilot had begun to taxi. It was hot inside. The air condition was faulty. Fingers reached to the vents and tickled nothingness. The air was unamused. Then fingers stabbed at the comm button. The red light that came on illustrated our moods perfectly. Mumurs of anxiety began, then one passenger dark skinned with a light beard and medium size skull broke in protest. "Their is something wrong with this plane...they are regulations in Nigeria!"
"Stop the plane...." though he was the only loud voice our silence elected his imperative. He stood up and then others did...I saw a man walk to the cockpit. A private jet was the only plane in front of us. If the pilot didn't stop we would soon be high altitude cats in a hot tin can. God helped us.
"This is your captain.." a thick Eastern European voice announced. "They're is something wrong with our air conditioning...we are returning to the apron"...later I met the sole soul saviour..."May God protect us"...I said shaking his hand ..."And we must protect ourselves" he reply with a slight assertion.
"God uses people.." he laughs.
Enroute the departure area of the MM2 airport at the corner of the escalotor lies a heap of magazines and newspapers. They offer themselves as daily bread for the brain. One of yesterday's headlines was, "105 passengers escape death as Air Peace tyre burst" (a hyperbole). Can death be ecsaped? My mind chewed on the inevitable. We are already dead. My mind excreated. "It is not that you will die that matters but whether you will live.." Right is Rumi..but he is in Konya in Turkey and I am in Lagos. Who is alive?..Who is dead?
