Flying

27 October - 28 October 2007

We arrived at the airport at about 2 pm on sunday, october 27. me in my wheelchair and colin pushing our horribly overweight luggage. we got into the queue for check-in secretly hoping that we would get one of the two ladies on duty rather than the man, who looked a bit mean, as we were in need of some serious sympathy if we wanted to get all our luggage onto the plane. damn! we got the guy. we wheeled over to him and handed him both our tickets and the original of my doctor's letter that such a huge fuss had been made of. he barely glanced at the doctor's letter and gave me a sticker that said MAAS with a picture of two hands shaking. to this day i have NO idea what MAAS stands for, but i had to wear the sticker on my chest for the entire flight and all my baggage and my wheelchair had the same insignia attached to them. so, obviously this indicated to all airline personnel that i was 'handicapped' in some way.

colin nervously put all our luggage (except the computer casing) on the conveyor belt to be weighed. we were 4 kg overweight. how is that possible?! we had weighed our bags at home and they had come to 50 kg exactly, NOT 54 kg! well, the crappy scale had obviously been a waste of money! the man didn't seem too perturbed by the fact that we were overweight so colin asked if he could just add his computer casing to the pile, "just to see". we were now 15 kg overweight. "that's okay, we cant pay for all of that. we will leave the computer casing behind."

"don't worry. i'll give you a special deal."

and with that, we watched every last bit of our ludicrously overweight luggage roll down the conveyor belt for FREE! sometimes, we do get lucky! i have stopped counting my blessings, but that was definitely one of them.

then i was wheeled along by an airline employee and jumped straight to the front of the line to get onto the airplane (wheelchairs can be very useful in queues ;-). but to my astonishment, i wasnt the only wheelchair passenger, there were in fact 4 of us. 4! what are the odds! i was wheeled up to the entrance of the plane and then was helped to my seat by the stewardess, my wheelchair taken down to the cargo hold. We had window seats, but unfortunately not in the front row. well, unfortunately for colin anyway. you see, his legs are so long that it is incredibly difficult and uncomfortable for him to sit behind another row of seats in economy class. he had informed the airline of this and normally they were very accommodating, but not this time. but our luck had not completely run out. as we watched the rest of the passengers slowly file on we realised that we had an extra seat all to ourselves. hooray! i could lie down and colin could stretch out his legs a bit. i took my sleeping tablet (stilnox) and slept comfortably for the 4 hour flight to singapore.

take off and landing proved the most uncomfortable for me. the change in pressure made me feel like some unseen hand was pushing my brain down into my neck and my head down into my back, it made my ears pop and my body shake in my seat. but i made sure i was drugged up to the hilt with xanax and stilnox so i didnt feel too awful.

we arrived in singapore airport with about 4 hours to wait for our flight to cape town. i was feeling groggy and grumpy and just wanted to sleep. there were no suitable chairs that i could lie on so colin left me lying on the ground in the airport while he went to try and buy a bag. he was, of course, unsuccessful as he had no singapore dollars so he sat down next to me and tried to cheer me up by showing me videos on his ipod. colin is often very good at getting me out of my black moods, as long as he doesnt get into a black mood himself ;-). suddenly it was time to board the plane and by the time we got to gate 3 we were at the back of a queue full of cranky south africans and taiwanese. sitting in my wheelchair i found my countrymen huge, loud, obnoxious, almost scary at times. i felt no kinship with them as they pushed and grumbled. i was in complete agreement with the taiwanese, these wai guo ren (foreigners) were very rude. it was the strangest sensation and it made me worried about going "home". was south africa really my home anymore?

my irritation level also started rising as no one was showing any consideration for the girl in the wheelchair. colin, who was struggling to push me and our baggage at the same time, and i were being jostled right to the back until an airport employee noticed us and came to help. YAY! my wheelchair privileges were re-invoked as we were pushed to the front of the queue and i was parked off to one side as colin put all our baggage through the X-ray machine. i watched in horror as my bags were rifled through and all my bottles of cream and deodorant thrown carelessly into a bin. i was told that i couldnt bring my water onto the airplane either. i started to protest, how could we be allowed to carry these things through taipei airport security only to have them tossed into a bin at singapore airport?! but it was regulations. "okay, okay." i would allow them to treat my personal items as rubbish just so that i could sit in the official 'waiting area'.

there was about an hour wait before we would be allowed to board the plane and during that time i needed to take my medication. but now i had no water. hmmm. i asked the lady who had helped me earlier to please get me a cup of water so that i could take my medication. "no, sorry. no water allowed in this area. you can get water on the plane." and that was that, i was denied the right to take my medication because of airline regulations. disgusting! i entered the plane in a foul mood. i was terrified as this was to be the longest part of our journey, 12 hours, i had just been treated very rudely and unfairly and i was feeling like shit! i sat down and disconsolately watched the other passengers file in. no window seat, no extra seat for us this time. and then, the nail in the coffin. across the aisle from us sat a wealthy south african couple with a third seat between them. they had obviously not been able to get into first class and so had to settle for buying three seats in economy class. this is when i started crying. it was so unfair, there was nothing wrong with them, they didnt need the extra seat, they could just afford it. while i, sick and terrified, had to sit upright for 12 hours.

colin calmed me down by stuffing xanax and stilnox into my mouth. this action was repeated every time i woke up. during the journey i woke up very confused a few times, i would try and get up to get some water from the kitchen and would be restricted by something?! then the realisation would come, "oh, i am on an airplane! ooops!" in the end the flight was not too bad and when we came in to land, i got a glimpse of the blue sea and green mountains of cape town, my HOME. i was HOME, we were HOME. i had made it, we had made it. a weight was lifted off our shoulders. i was crying and everything was going to be okay.