Yao's Second Flight

Yao’s first flight had been earlier that morning, to Nairobi where I came across him at the transfer desk. Half an hour into our conversation, our boarding passes arrived and we discovered that we would be sitting together on the flight to Dubai.
“God is good,” he said.

He was on his way to Osaka to attend a month long training course. He was a teacher, deputy head and French teacher at a secondary school in Cote D’Ivoire, further up the ladder than me, yet until today he had never flown before. Flying is something I take for granted. He told me how he’d miss his students and daughter while he was away.

It wasn’t until we were in the air that his ‘novice flyer’ status came up in conversation and then it quickly explained his blank reception of the bags containing blanket and headphones, his sharing of my video screen in preference to using his own and other minor uncertainties. But still his calm assurance threw these things into a stark contrast. He professed no fear of flying and most refreshingly, had no fear of appearing uninformed or inexperienced.

At dinner time, he asked advice about what to eat first and, “Is it alright to eat the bread with this?” I realised what an inadequate model of etiquette I was, as constrained by space I forked food one-handedly into my mouth, inelegantly juggling and stacking the containers on the over-full tray. We talked on and off, explored the in-flight entertainment (on both screens by now) and the time passed all too quickly.

He was enchanted by the night-time view of Dubai on our approach to landing, delighting in identifying roads by their strings of orange lights, then individual cars and later the tall buildings of the city. I have never lost that sense of wonder, viewing the world from above. I hope he doesn’t.

As we taxied, seemingly for miles, I told him that Dubai was a much bigger airport than Nairobi.
“I’d never seen anything like Nairobi airport before,” he replied. I knew he was in for a shock. Nairobi is a typical developing country airport, small for a capital city, slightly shabby and decidedly dull. Dubai glitters with opulence, shops overflowing with unnecessary and expensive goods, floors gleaming, lights twinkling, the whole place looking much like a top-end shopping mall. We walked around together, Yao so quiet that I couldn’t tell whether he was overwhelmed or simply unimpressed. I tried to see it through his eyes, this movie-set of an airport, the likes of which he had never seen before. How far apart our worlds must be, yet however much I told myself this, all I could see how similar we were, but for the accidents of our homelands and the experiences they’d given us. And now we were just two travellers in a place that was no place and at no time.

With hours yet to go, our gates were not yet displayed, but Yao was uneasy with my nonchalant assurance that they’d appear in an hour or two, so he went to make enquiries. I walked him to his gate, where he wanted to wait and promised to return once I’d done the things I needed to do. Realising he’d have no currency, I took him a Coke – and writing this I remember the similar kindness I received here back in March– and we said our goodbyes again.

Over the months, I’ve met many people who’ve asked me to return or visit them in the future, but none has struck me as more sincere than Yao, nor has made me want to do so as much. I had found a friend in the nationless sky.