Two years ago today, we were on a plane, flying North from Africa, across Europe, Scandinavia, Russia, the pole, Canada, and down the coast to New York, the longest part of our journey from Ethio to home. Our world travelers spent most of the flight in car seats, sleeping, watching Bollywood movies and Finding Nemo, and rejecting most forms of food and drink. You can practically see the raging ear infections they had in this photo, but they were troopers, sailing through 36 hours of travel, hopping from continent to continent, airport to aiport, from Addis to Dubai, then New York to Chicago with only a few meltdowns. We brought our own travel blankets, and wrapped them around the kids, and the flight attendants brought us more and wrapped us all up.
Sleeping on the plane, somewhere over Scandinavia/Russia 2009
Mostly, what we remember about this trip is the incredible kindness of complete strangers:
- The airline representative who got us, literally, on the last 2 seats of the last plane (from another airline) cleared to leave O’Hare in the surprise blizzard that hit the city the day we left, in business class, and who we suspect had something to do with our first class upgrade in Dubai.
- The flight attendant who made the people around me behave during the first 4.5 hour leg of the trip home, while M made it abundantly clear that she was NOT HAPPY WITH AIR TRAVEL.
- The woman sitting across from me who made faces at M to make her laugh while I rocked her, and the flight attendants on the long-haul flight from Dubai to NY, who raced to get us hot water for formula, kits of washcloths and baby wipes, and offered to walk the kids on the plane to let us sleep, if we wanted.
- The counter person at the Starbucks in the New York airport who filled our bottles with hot water so that we could mix formula while waiting for our next flight, expertly testing the temperature against her wrist to make sure it wasn’t too hot.
- The business traveler who saw us struggle with 2 babies, 2 car seats, and a walk across the freezing, open tarmac without winter coats on us or the kids, and who grabbed a car seat to get us out of the cold as fast as possible.
- All the flight attendants who helped us install and uninstall the car seats on plane after plane, the security people who waved us through at Dubai so we could catch our flight.
- The man who knelt down and helped me get my shoes back on so I could sprint to the next gate with a baby strapped to me, towing a car seat behind me.
- The security checkpoint at the NY airport, who let us take our time (we were so, so tired), and admired our girls, and let us go through without any fuss, even though the car seats couldn’t be x-rayed.
- The Homeland Security officer at NY Immigration, who let us line jump ahead of at least 200+ waiting people, to a line of just 6 VIPs, and then waved over a security agent to open a special gate for us and sent us directly through so that we could finish our immigration paperwork and sit down.
- The agent who processed our paperwork, who was kind, and efficient, and made us feel welcomed back to the US.
- The second set of immigration officers, who line-jumped us again, taking our casework as soon as we walked through the door.
- The airline rep who carried our bags from the pickup area and got it sent directly to our next flight so that we didn’t have to carry our checked baggage with us to our next check-in.
Sitting at the gate for our three hour layover for our next flight, in New York. 2009
I am sure it was a stressful trip, but all I remember with any clarity is how willing all of these people were to take a moment out of their day to offer some kindness to strangers. And how much I threw up! I definitely remember perfecting the technique of throwing up while wearing a baby, because I did it in 4 different airports, and a few times on the plane, each time with M strapped to me in her Bjorn.
