Despite for being uncommonly bumpy, the flight was uneventful. I read “The Portrait of a Lady” by Henry James. Ate – the whole feeding procedure was really something, starting with drinks, then food, drinks, coffee, tea and then drinks again, it took at least two hours. A strategy to keep the passengers busy, perhaps? I solved the easy and medium level sudoku puzzle in the in-flight magazine while listening to Swedish podcasts. And I marveled at the beauty of the Ethiopian alphabet.
At first, I couldn’t photograph it, due to the constant turbulence. But then things calmed down and I could capture this:
Doesn’t it look like magic? It makes me think of the ancient dragon’s tongue in the Earthsea universe, in which every word holds magic powers of the thing that it names. This is how I imagine those words would be written. Oh, she’s amazing, Ursula K. Le Guin.
Now, I’m in my four hour layover at Bole International Airport, Addis Ababa, playing a game of guessing who the Stockholm-bound passengers are. Fjällräven bags, Acne jeans, those kind of things. I know at least one. I ran into her outside one of the Tax Free stores, the very sweet girl whose name I’ve embarrassingly enough forgotten, a marine biology student from Stockholm university (she would have been your classmate, Ro, if you hadn’t switched to SERSD! All the ways in which life can develop, now you got me instead of her!). We were at the same MFS preparatory course in Härnösand in September, and she’s been studying sea weed on coral reefs on Zanzibar. Also returning home now, from successful fieldwork. Think about it. She was there when we were preparing to leave, and I run in to her now, when I’m just about to return. Life, huh? The world isn’t always such a random place, after all.
Now, I’ll go to the gate and wait for departure together with Buffy. I haven’t watched any since mom arrived in Accra. But now, I guess it’s high time to meet Angelus, Angel’s soul-less, nightmare of an alter-ego. Bite the sour apple, as we would say in Swedish, and get it over with. The first step toward Buffy’s and Angel’s final separation.
Katja Malmborg 