The Grand Entrance

My not-so-grand entrance

“The local time is 1445 hours” The pilot’s comm interrupts my daydreaming, bringing me back to earth. We were finally landing after what seemed like a 10-hour flight. Looking through my window, it was a beautiful day outside, and it looked very familiar. The green grass, the trees seemed to be basking in the golden sun, just like they do it in my home country. I was thankful for that. My mind immediately started to create simulations of what it could be like here… I made a friend and while we chatted away, I realised an hour had passed and my driver hadn’t arrived yet. Unbeknownst to me, I was about to face my first challenge in this new land: Since I couldn’t change the booking, all I could do was wait, and- he arrived eventually. Guess what? He didn’t speak English! This is where writing fails me because I can’t express the way he ushered me into the van with the justice it deserves; it was with a whistle sound and a finger pointing to the van. I just started giggling 😂. This was going to be a long journey, I thought.

He put on music, and we set off. It took us roughly 2.5 hours to get to where I was staying the night. Upon arrival, the driver was kind enough to carry my suitcases to the entrance. Then it hit me! Without internet though, there was no way to contact my host and announce my arrival. I tried to tell him to help me with that, but I gave up after 5 minutes of trying to explain what I meant and using all the possible hand signs I could manage, only for him to just shrug his shoulders and say “no”. He left. And I was all alone. Well, it was me and my suitcases, that I wanted to kick and throw away. “Why do I have so much luggage?” I kept asking myself as I was getting annoyed with myself at this point. I wanted to cry. I instead just sat there pondering, lost. I’d arrived earlier than expected so probably my host was going to come down at some point. I tried to encourage myself to prevent myself from crying.

It was now getting late, and I slowly was becoming an attraction for passers-by. Suddenly, an elderly lady opened the door. I was so happy. Bless her as she really wanted to help but she couldn’t speak English also. We tried the- I’m going to speak my language, and you’ll speak your language, and maybe there’ll be some intersection? It didn’t work. We then tried the sign language thing, it didn’t work. We were lost for words, literally and literary. She refused to leave my side though, until another lady who spoke ‘some’ English came. As we were struggling through it, Daniel arrived. Who’s Daniel? A stranger who spoke English. FINALLY! 😭 The overwhelming relief I had almost brings me to tears still. He shared his hotspot, and my host came to get me a few minutes later. I forgot for a moment how tired, annoyed and anxious I had been and thanked God.

When travelling to a new country, and you’re visiting someone, be better prepared than I was. Get roaming data (I have a whole story about this that you’re never going to hear🤪), ask your host for the flat number and not only building number, try to at least say, “Room number 35 etc.,” in their language- if you don’t speak their language. Don’t say you weren’t warned. By the way, I still haven’t learned the language 😁😁😁.

It’s been a long minute since I wrote. I do hope you enjoy the reads. Thanks for reading 🤗🤗🤗