It was a long 45 hours that began in Islamabad and has ended in Baku after 3 flights, 3 hours sleep, 3 airport waiting areas and a lot of 'annoying' people. It is experiences like these last hours that test my humanitarian spirit. And at the moment, I think I might fail the test.
Let me tell you how I get to this low point of tolerance and patience. It began at Islamabad where I passed through 9 forms of security checks to get into the waiting lounge. 3 different people opened and checked my luggage - apparently my multi-vitamins caused alarm and after being asked 3 times if they were for my personal use I was allowed to keep them! I passed through 2 X-ray and intimate body pat down searches. I had my papers checked 4 times, once by an officious uniform that decided he had the power to hold up the whole airport so he could personally verify all passengers, (until his own supervisor yelled at him) and that doesn't include the check in and immigration check. But I was just starting, so whilst annoyed I was holding it together.
Dubai: Terminus of lights, palm trees and shops. A busy, bustling living organism of all forms of humanity. Hajj pilgrims, tourists, self-important business travelers and annoying darting golf carts all combine, with over-tiredness, to begin to increase the levels of intolerance, impatience and annoyance. (On a bright note I had Cold Stone ice cream for breakfast! Dark chocolate ice cream with white chocolate bits and pistachio nuts!)
Istanbul: again, busy and no place to escape it. Despite having 4 and a bit hours to kill, the last 30 minutes are a mad dash, with a couple hundred other people, from the once posted departure gate at one end of the terminal to the gate where our plane waited: apparently someone forgot to tell the passengers. Everyone finally on board but, oh wait, a passenger decides she doesn't really want to go, so she's deplaned but now we all have to retrieve our hand luggage because, for security seasons we have to make sure she didn't leave something unwelcome on board, and then of course they have to find her checked luggage. So we miss our departure slot, the plane can't use its electrics, so no air and warm sweaty bodies all too close, but eventually we line up behind 9 other flights for a relatively uneventful flight... except; when the meal comes I ask for a ginger ale, only to be served a gin and tonic, by now I am very tempted but one may not be enough.
So now, the humanitarian, the lover of people, the advocate for human rights is ready to lock himself away in a small room, alone, without people and canned air and regroup. In about 7 hours time I need to go about the business of a humanitarian aid worker, I need to care, I need to be compassionate, or at least I need to adopt our newly acquired family motto: "fake is insquequo vos planto is".
Let me say that none of the people described here did anything wrong: I am just being judgmental, mean and nasty; and trust me I can be, especially when I'm tired, just ask my wife and daughter!
Maybe soon I'll write something a little more inspiring!
