The 191st Episode : Where am I ?
[June, 2009 Bamako, Mali]
The aircraft that I reached at last after many troubles was going to head for Conakry, the capital of Guinea. It took off off Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. My stay in this country was only quarrel, that's a bitter memory. Forget what was over, then I was to expect good job at the next place.
The equipment began to lose the altitude and landed. It was good to have arrived safely anyway but something was strange. The flight was scheduled for approx. 4-5 hours but was still only less than 2 hours after leaving. The in-flight announcement must have been made but I didn't catch it well due to their accent and my own trouble on hearing.
I asked a flight attendance "where are we?". She answered "Bamako". That's the capital of Mali. Whaaat!?!? Mali!?!? I hadn't seen the indication of transit point, so I just assumed it was a direct flight to Conakry. "Passengers who are going to Conakry, please stay on board", an announcement was made. After a while, however, "all the passengers, please disembark once" flight attendant informed walking the aisle.
Ah, it was kind of pointless. We were all made to go to the waiting room and wait.
June in the 12 degrees north latitude, was so hot. There was no air conditioner but only one large fan was turning on the ceiling in the big waiting room. Most of the passengers were fed up. Besides many flies were flying here and there. Come to think of it, I hadn't seen so many flies for a long time. I used to eat meals while chasing away flies in my childhood, but we seldom see flies in Osaka. Is it only in the urban areas?
After we were waited for about one hour, we were permitted to board again. To our surprise, there were flying so many flies in the aircraft that were not when we arrived. Male staff walk down the aisle while spraying insecticide. It was rained down also on passengers in large quantities regardlessly, that made everybody screaming.
Many young football players from France were on the seats around myself and we laughed in unison, saying that flies and people also would be killed.
