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Trips
that end with sitting in a crowded, hot, and noisy airport terminal make me
cranky. The trip had begun with
carefully packed suitcases, full with enthusiasm. The end of the trip is always the opposite.
No one
was happy at the departure gate. Delays
in boarding, children crying—we all know the temperaments flying around in such
a place. But the atmosphere on the day I
flew home from seeing my baby grandson in Europe switched abruptly.
Silence,
yes, silence lay over us all as we watched the airline officials escort a group
of twenty foreigners onto the plane,
ahead of those first class passengers.
Foreigners. Heck we were all ‘foreigners’ in Europe,
tourists to the bone. But these people were truly from another
country.
They
walked with quiet dignity through the gangway.
Tall, elegant, regal. We could
only guess that they were from some African nation from their clothing and
black skin. We watched them disappear
into the plane.
That
was when people woke up, started questioning what they had seen. The mixture of their voices and tones was
like gravel pouring onto a metal plate.
Someone
in the movie industry once related how crowds of extras were directed to sound
and say in any scene that involved an angry mob. They were supposed to say “Rhubarb” in
different tones and speeds. That would
produce the mob sound without involving any dialogue.
“Rhubarb”
sounds erupted all over the gate 34, until the general boarding began.
I
discovered that my seat was next to one of these foreigners, and quite honestly I didn’t know what to say to
him. He and I were stiffly still in our
narrow seats, avoiding eye contact, touching on the armrest. ‘Who
are you?’
Nine-plus
hours of non-stop flights are torturous when sitting in the cheap seats. Sleep became impossible when the four
toddlers a few rows up began tag-team wailing.
Screaming.
Just
as I started to nod off, a woman’s voice jarred me awake. I looked over to the foreign woman as she explained to her group what the custom cards
were. That was when I truly looked at
the man sitting next to me.
Not a man, but a boy, about fourteen. He was tall, with
long elegant fingers, arms and legs. He
was strikingly handsome and strikingly gaunt.
He made eye contact with me, and we both smiled. His eyes were yellow tinged and blood shot.
As the
plane began its descent, he tried to ask me where I was going, in barely
understandable English. He proudly
announced that he was going to Caleefornee
to live with his father.
The foreigners remained on the plane until
the rest had exited. As I waited in line
to pass through customs, I observed this boy and his group being escorted to a private
room to be processed. They were refugees
being relocated with family in America.
Later,
I saw his suitcase and boxes at the baggage claims. Barely held together with rope and duct tape,
they had his name and destination:
Oakland, California.
A
lesson in being humble rolled over me, and I could only look down at my
feet.
