midnight flights
12:30 am my alarm goes off and I groan. I hit snooze and 9 minutes feels like one. "Eee...Eeee... EEEEE" It goes off again. "No!" I think and turn off my alarm. "I'm never leaving Kurdistan." Despite the fact that I had piratically begged Bossman in polite ways to let me leave for the last three weeks. One month of cluster meetings, proposal writing, listening IDP stories, room service, meetings with partners, security briefings, babies crying, Chinese food, trips to the field, and more and I was ready to leave Iraq. But not at that moment. The bed was too inviting. Alarm off.
12:50 am. "Eee... Eee. EEE" "No! Really? Why was I so smart to set multiple alarms? Dear Lord, I don't want to get up." Snooze set. "EEEE" Lights flip on. Smart phone on. Run through the list of emails that came in from IHQ over the last two hours I slept. Relief that my assistant got my a room in Istanbul and I didn't have to figure that one out when I landed. Facebook next. Status update "I would like to speak to the person in charge who thought that a middle of the night flight out of every single country I work was a good idea. Seriously killing me."
Shower. Last minute packing. Valet to carry my things down. Done. Done with Kurdistan. Done with being part of the elite group of people who flew in to set up the response for 1.8 million IDPs who fled the most organized extremist terrorist group known to man.
4 security checks later, I was sitting on a plane with an angry Spaniard, crying baby, a tun of Kurds going on vacation, and a handful of aid workers, and German military.The usual crowd for an airplane. An hour delay on the tarmac and I was off to 9-hour layover in Instanbul.
I hate flying. I hate getting up in the middle of the night. I hate standing in line by myself. I hate going through customs. I hate going through security. I hate sitting in the airport lounge. I hate being crammed into a plane, being given breakfast at 4am, listening to crying babies, screaming men, and the indigestion of those around you. There is just nothing pleasant about flying. And yet I fly internationally, on average, weekly. Its part of my life. If I could own my own plane, I would. So much easier. So much more comfortable. Flying internationally makes me feel alone. It makes me feel culture-less. It makes me feel like a single woman- and incredible vulnerable. Men stare at me. I never fit in. And I think the vulnerability is the biggest thing. I do not like it.
Get me to the final destination please. Its why I want to stay in hard places and not get up because I hate flying so much. Its why my bed in the middle of a war zone sounded so much better at 12:30 in the morning than flying home to my apartment in Nairobi.