Wait for it

Although there are definitely countries worse than Sudan when it comes to time spent pointlessly waiting for things to happen, the Kenya Airways office seems happy to keep this African tradition alive in Khartoum. I have now visited this office twice and spent a total of 2.5 hours sitting in its waiting room. I know intimately the harsh overhead lighting that gives a bluish cast to the red-and-silver decor; illuminates the row of despondent-looking Sudanese men hoping to alter the family’s flight reservation to London or Dubai or Nairobi; frames the row of impassive female ticket agents garbed carefully in red suit coats and matching red print headscarves; and draws attention to the airline’s in-house advertisements, which boast of Khartoum’s apparently advantageous location near many major cities of interest...provided that you fly through Nairobi, of course.

I have contemplated this scene while waiting first for my number to be called, then for the computer system to creak slowly to my registration (“Malesh!”), then to explain the information I want or how I want to change the reservation, then to reserve it, then to go upstairs to pay the money, and finally for the printer to spit out my “ticket,” or a piece of paper with the flight numbers printed on it. I waited with “Mohamed,” our school’s liaison officer whose sole job is to deal with red tape from all sources, a late-middle-aged man who has seen a lot in Khartoum and is also some kind of chief in his village in the Nuba Mountains of central Sudan. Mohamed has quite a sense of humor but not always the best grasp of English:

Mohamed (studying Kenya Airways poster): This sign makes no sense.
me (reading poster): ‘African pride is flying high.’ What doesn’t make sense?
Mohamed: ‘Pride’ and ‘flying high.’ These things, they are not related.
me: : Well, they have...much proudness...about their airline.
Mohamed: Oh! (laughs uncontrollably)
me: What did you think it said?
Mohamed: Like a bride and groom!

Today Mohamed was again inspired by an airline poster from KLM that showed a sumptuous 5-star restaurant in Amsterdam:

Mohamed: I would like to spend time in a restaurant like that. I went to Amsterdam once for 12 days when I was young. Ooh! I went to the Red Light Street. They do not have this in Sudan. You have heard of this?
me: You mean the Red Light District?
Mohamed: Yes, I went in the Red Light Street and I saw women behind glass. I did not believe that they were real. I put my face right next to the glass and stared into the woman’s eyes to see if she would move. I blinked, then she blinked, then she looked to the side!
me: So they were real?
Mohamed: REAL!