Memoirs from 37 000 Feet Where have the last fifteen years gone? On the 19th February 1994 I started flying for an Arabic Airline and I laughed when everyone said ‘Time flies when you fly!’ It feels like only yesterday that I got the phone call from The Airline saying ‘Can you start on Saturday?’ I remember flying downstairs to tell my family, My Dad was dubious but my Mum’s enthusiasm was infectious, even my brother was happy.
They say time flies when you’re having fun! I have to admit one thing I’ve never felt in my flying years is boredom. I remember being the most junior crewmember and not even allowed to work in business class, seniority is so important in Aviation! I was really lucky with The Airline, so many people joined in a short time after me and I became senior really quickly, by the time I left to join my present airline I was a Number One and nearly always worked in First Class. I’m now fortyone, at least I think I am, and as I’m taking voluntary redundancy I find myself mulling over my fifteen years of flying. One of my first ever trips included a threeday layover in Dar es Salaam. As was standard procedure in those days the crew offloaded practically all of the alcohol from the bars and the food from the Aircraft. So far as I’m aware the company condoned this in Dar es Salaam. They advised us not to eat in the hotel restaurant because so many crews had been struck down by food poisoning and not to leave the hotel as they considered it to be dangerous outside. A couple of the Arabic boys volunteered to go to the supermarket in Muscat and buy food for the trip. You either loved Dar es Salaam or you hated it! I fell in love with the place the minute I walked into my wooden chalet and saw a single red rose laid on the pristine white sheets of the enormous four poster bed surrounded by fine white netting. The communal chalet, used as a crew room, had a kitchen where our multiracial crew took turns to cook. As the only English girl on the crew I was assigned to cook breakfast. The best meals being cooked by the Arabic boys and the Filipino girls who added banana puree to the tomato sauce to make the best spaghetti I’ve ever tasted!
Our Flight Senior, Hussein was a thin Persian guy who looked like a walking, talking, laughing skeleton with a big bushy moustache and a loud booming voice. `JAMBOOOOOOOOO´ he cried whenever he saw a local. `Habari´ they would always reply, to which he’d say, `Mzuri, asante sana´ This little discourse seemed to be the limit of his Swahili but it was a ritual he repeated countless times every day. During our pre flight briefing he instructed the Australian girl who was doing the PA´s to welcome the passengers on board with…‘Ladies and Gentlemen JAMBOOOOOOOOO!!!!’
We spent a lot of time lounging around in the crew room and in the evenings we went to the disco where the boys were chased around by local prostitutes. One day we took a boat trip across to an Island where the locals caught fish and barbecued it for our lunch. The small wooden boat looked like it would fall apart if hit by a big wave and the motor choked and spluttered and cut out on more than one occasion. One time it took quite a while for them to fix it and we thought we’d have to swim to the Island. Ahmed, a corpulent Omani steward who never stopped talking, turned as pale as the fluorescent coloured robe that he was wearing and was uncharacteristically quiet during the crossing, only admitting that he couldn’t swim once his feet were on solid ground again. ‘Don’t pay the ferryman ´til he gets you to the other side!’
On the Island a few of us went snorkelling but there were no tropical fish to be seen, only a huge jellyfish. I was so busy watching the jellyfish swim that I forgot to move out of its way and got a nasty sting! The heat was intense and there was no escaping the sun, as there was no shade on the Island, consequently we were all a little red on the white knuckle ride back to the mainland.
Another day we ventured out to the local market. As we left the safety of the hotel we felt like we’d just intruded on a picture postcard. The burnt orange dusty track that was the main road bustled with traffic. The pavements were equally as busy with big buxom African ladies in brightly coloured clothes carrying huge baskets on their heads and babies strapped to their backs. At the market we found stall after stall of soap stone figures and chessboards. There were masks, tall thin figures and every type of animal carved out of mahogany and iroko wood. I didn’t really want to buy anything but you somehow get drawn into the heckling. The moment your eyes linger on anything for more than a second they tell you how beautiful it is and ask you ‘How much you want to pay, I give you a good price.’ They won’t take no for an answer. If you won’t name a price they name theirs to which you instinctively reply; ‘No, that’s way too much!’ and before you know it your heckling for something you don’t really want. Then the price drops so low that it seems rude not to buy it!
The short walk from the hotel suddenly felt much longer on the way back with four or five brightly coloured plastic bags in each hand and the midday sun beating down on us as we wondered how we were ever going to squeeze all of our bargains into our suitcases. In those days we were given our allowances in our hands. Inflation in Tanzania was so high that we got a great wad of dirty notes, hundreds and thousands of shillings, we felt like millionaires! The philosophy was spend as much as you can while you’re in the country because if you exchange it on your way out it’s almost worthless and yet it can buy you as many soapstone figures and chess sets as your heart desires! I couldn’t believe how the crew shopped, especially the girls, as if seeing the world wasn’t enough. They wanted to take it home in their suitcases!
We did many an epic ‘Around the World in 9 Days’, the suitcases getting heavier with every night stop. We saw a lot of poverty with Bangladesh being the place that affected me most. Dhaka always seemed to be tagged onto the end of a nine-day shopping trip and consequently the suitcases would always be in excess of 30 Kilos. The job of lifting those suitcases onto the roof of the crew bus belonged to an old, frail looking white haired man whose ribs stuck out prominently. He didn’t look strong enough to lift those suitcases and his face would contort with pain as he heaved them up. Younger men would always try to help him but, unwilling to share his tips, he’d beat them away with a stick showing them his teeth like a monkey fighting off rivals. One thing that hasn’t changed in the last fifteen years is the tip, which is still $1 anywhere in the world apart from Japan where it’s offensive to offer a tip. Young children swarmed around the crew as we waited to get on the bus pleading with us to give them our pens. Once we were safely on the bus, we’d pass our pens through the window. If one boy got more than his fair share the rest would dive on him and a fight would break out. A stewardesses handbag is always full of cheap plastic pens that we pinch from the hotels and the passengers ask to `borrow´although they rarely give them back! There was always a thin lady, babe in arms, putting her hand to her mouth, her sad eyes imploring us to give her money for food. As the bus pulled away the street kids would jump on the back and as the bus picked up speed an airport guard would run behind, beating them with a stick until they jumped off. After the horrific scenes at the airport we’d arrive at one of the most beautiful, decadent hotels in the world! I always left Dhaka much more grateful for the privileged world that I was born into. All of my problems would melt away into insignificance.
It’s a funny old job! You love it and you hate it. You love it when you’re stroking the lion cubs in Joburg or watching the baby elephants drink their SMA milk from huge baby bottles in Nairobi. You love it when you have a champagne breakfast in Sydney and then catch the ferry over to Manley. The Sydney harbour and opera house behind and in front the sun dancing on the sea a cool breeze in your face. You love it when you’re drinking cocktails and watching the sun go down over the statue of Christ Redeemer on top of the Corcovado Mountain in Rio de Janeiro. You hate it when your little girl cries as if the worlds about to end when you leave home, her little body shaking as she has to be peeled out of your arms. You hate it when you fly close to war zones or have to make a detour to avoid a no fly zone or when you land somewhere dangerous and the crew bus has to be escorted by an armoured vehicle. I’ve been in Bombay when there was an outbreak of Bubonic plague; I was lucky, the crew that left after me were quarantined on their return to the Gulf! I’ve been in Colombo when the activities of the Tamil Tigers were all over the International press and we were warned not to go out but I went and played squash with a couple of English guys that I’d met on a previous trip!
You hate it when the phone rings at 6am in Saudi but it’s only 2am on your watch. You drag yourself out of bed, hardly able to open your eyes; you’re so tired you feel sick. You need a coffee but there’s no kettle in the room. Thank God you ironed your blouse last night, packed the suitcase and paid your bill. You’re so dry your tongue is sticking to the top of your mouth. You finished your bottle of water in the night and the tap water is salty. You look in the mini bar and a bottle of ice-cold water stares out trying to tempt you. You almost succumb but the mini bar’s extortionate and if you take it you’ll have to queue up to pay your bill all over again. You’re in such a fowl mood you don’t dare look in the mirror in case you pick a fight with yourself. Too late, you glanced, she caught your eye ‘ugly cow!’ she
hisses ‘what do you expect at 2am!’ you retort ‘Have we got PMT?’ she smirks. Your head spins around like the little girl in ‘The Exorcist’ as you switch the lights out and race downstairs to see if a coffee will make you feel human again.
The words rough and smooth jump to mind! ' This could be heaven or this could be hell!' We’re all so insensitive we complain to our friends back home, ‘Oh no, I’ve got a Mumbai and then a Miami!’ ‘I’d love to go to Mumbai or Miami,’ they reply. I know how they feel, when I was on maternity leave and my friends complained about India’s and Middle East’s I felt the same! We love it and we hate it and yet no one ever leaves, it’s a bit like Hotel California! ‘You can check out any time you like but you can never leave…. We are all just prisoners here, of our own device!’ I however have checked out and it appears I’m leaving after my next trip. It doesn’t feel real, I feel numb inside, I always thought I’d fly right to the end, I thought they’d kick me out of the crew report centre kicking and screaming, but life had other plans for me!
I was devastated when I was told I was having the menopause at 36 but I put my faith in God and refused treatment. When I discovered I was pregnant I prayed for twins. Double trouble is an understatement, the twins have turned my life and house upside down! The saying ‘be careful what you ask for’ springs to mind. I know I sound ungrateful, I’ve got two affectionate loving children who give lovely strong hugs like chimpanzees and when they run into my bedroom on a Sunday morning they lie on either side of me kissing my face like a couple of cuckoos pecking at the same tree saying `I love you Mummy´. I live in Spain and I adore being at home with the twins. I love my adopted village so much that I recently wrote an article for a local magazine called `El Paraiso se Llama Canyelles´. I do have a life, so why am I so sad about leaving?
I can’t look anyone in the eye when I talk about voluntary redundancy because my eyes fill with tears and I almost choke trying to hold them back. At the moment I’m feeling numb but I know that’s because I’m not letting myself go there. I can’t even think about the moment that I hand my ID in and walk out of the crew report centre for the last time. I’m not a nostalgic person. I didn’t feel any sadness when my parents sold the house that I’d grown up in so why am I feeling this way about leaving BA? It’s not as if I’m not moving forward to an exciting career. I’m going to host two radio shows and myself and a friend have written and produced bilingual audio books which we’ve self published on www.easylinguistics.com. My story is called `Pela the Class Pet´ and is about the weekend that my daughter brought her class pet, a tortoise named Pela, home for the weekend. I think as cabin crew we are so lucky because we have free time down route that we can use to set up a sideline. Before choosing this business I’d considered using my down route time to study psychology or to work as a proofreader or a freelance translator. Writing stories however is far more exciting and all I have to carry with me is a pen and paper! I’ve grown to love the jetlag! I get so much work done in the middle of the night. We’re now looking for authors to write more stories for us. I’d particularly like stories from colleagues, I think flight and cabin crew are amazing people and there are so many huge personalities out there, I’m sure there’s many an undiscovered best selling author in the crew community!
Most cabin crew are attracted to the job for the very obvious reason that they want to see the world! Now, as I’m contemplating leaving I know that I’ll miss my globe trotting days but more than that I’ll miss the thousands of amazing friends and colleagues that I’ve met over the last fifteen years, most of whom I’ll never see again! A remark I’ve often heard from crew is that they’re not qualified to do anything else. Absolute rubbish! There is one thing that every flight attendant has in common and that’s charm! Not the insincere charm of a conman but the charm of a person who genuinely cares about his or her fellow human beings and is accustomed to breaking the ice, keeping the conversation going and making people feel good about themselves. Dale Carnegie states in his book `How to Win Friends and influence People´, that having a likeable personality will bring you more success in the workplace than your qualifications alone. My advice to any cabin crew who are ready to hang up their wings is, if you no longer enjoy the job step aside and make room for someone younger and never underestimate your abilities! My advice to anyone hoping to get a job as a flight attendant is; keep trying you’ll get there in the end and when you do enjoy every minute of it because time flies when you fly! Although this is a new beginning for me it’s also a chapter in my life closing and I feel I have the right to shed a few tears! Ella Rowe www.ellarowe.lifesuccessconsultants.com Co-Director of www.easylinguistics.com Author of the Spanish English bilingual story `Pela the Class Pet´ ‘Pela the Class Pet’ book and CD are available at www.amazon.co.uk Downloadable versions (pdf and mp3) of Easylinguistics Bilingual Stories and Audiobooks are available at www.easylinguistics.com > > >