Day 10 - Our trip home - Part 1

We arranged for the shuttle to take us to the airport at 8:00 AM. We made it onto the shuttle by about 8:15, which wasn’t too bad considering all the stuff we had to haul out of our room. I think the one unlucky passenger who wasn’t in our party was a little annoyed, though.

We made it up the ramps and into the airport without any major issues, although Brian looked at me cross-eyed when I parked the stroller at the top of a ramp and went back down to take over one of the loaded-down luggage carts from Biniam, who was struggling. I guess Brian didn’t think a pregnant gal with a baby in a sling should push a heavy cart uphill, yet I didn’t see him going down to help, so I decided to take care of things myself.

Getting through security was a little unorganized (as are most things in Ethiopia) so we decided to have one person go through at the front of all our bags and the other stay back until the last bags were through. Not to mention we were a little behind schedule at this point so we were stressed.

We made it through ticketing fairly smoothly, with the exception of Biniam constantly trying to “check” our carry-on bags. He was so eager to be helpful that he didn’t understand there was a method to our madness.

Next we had to get through immigration. Being “white” and having a baby and adopting are the best combination for getting good customer service in Ethiopia. Once again we were ushered to the front of the line and greeted with smiles from the government workers.

We headed through the glass doors and into the escalator foyer to head upstairs to our gate. We quickly realized Biniam was seeing an escalator for the first time, so we whipped out the camera and got a picture just as he walked on. He was smiles the whole way.

Our gate was at the end of the row, and it was PACKED. We got there only minutes before we were to start boarding, but ended up waiting one or two hours. There was no place to sit so we eventually ended up setting up “camp” in the middle of the floor with people sitting in chairs and standing all around us. The kids were restless and hungry (as was I) and I’m sure we were quite the sight.

A gate agent finally called us to the front so we could be the first in line to board. Halfway down the ramp we had to give up our stroller, so we handed it to an “official-looking” person and then boarded the plane.

I have to admit that by now, I was tired, grumpy and ready to be home. As much as I love Ethiopia I had had enough. So it was bad timing when the man behind me walking down the aisle on the plane decided that it was more urgent for him to find his seat than any of the rest of us. He kept trying to squeeze past me in the single-file aisle that was packed full of people and going nowhere. I kept maneuvering myself so he couldn’t get past me, when he finally said “EXCUSE ME”, where I politely responded with raised my voice and said “where are you going to go? This line isn’t moving anywhere, just get behind me and wait your turn.”

Finally, we were seated and on our way to Dubai – about 3.5 hours away.