From Nairobi To Denver eating Ugali!

There is a first time for everything. Today was the first time I almost missed a flight. The curious thing was that I was at the airport at least 1.5 hours before the flight was scheduled to take off and still I almost missed the flight.

Here is the story. I was on my way to what has now become an annual pilgrimage to Nairobi, Kenya. The flight was scheduled to take off at 10:10 hours in Amsterdam. I was dropped off at 08.35 hours and proceeded to drop my luggage, do the security and immigration checks. All of these took less than 15 minutes.
I checked the information board to see at which gate my flight was going to take off and it clearly said F8 and I proceeded to that gate. So much time in my hands. I was marvelling at all that is new at Schiphol airport since my last flight from there in January this year. So many changes intended to make the passenger experience an enjoyable one. So much to see as I walked towards gate F8.

Somewhere along that leisurely walk, my brain must have temporarily switched off. Because instead of proceeding to gate F8, I proceeded to gate D8! Still having an hour to burn, I sat there with other passengers updating my personal Facebook page, catching up with friends on WhatsApp and calling a few colleagues. Vaguely at the back of my mind I wondered why there were not a lot of black people sitting there. Surely at any given time, Kenyans love to go home. I also looked outside and wondered why a Delta Airways aeroplane was standing outside and not a KLM one as I had booked. I probably thought maybe they switched the flight with one of their Sky Team partners. (After all a week earlier, I had received a mail from KLM telling me that my return flight would be handled by another of their Sky Team partners). But all of these were in my subconscious. However, I started to be conscious something might not be right when at 10:00 hours the passengers started embarking and I took my place in the line. I looked the information board there and it said Denver!

I quickly ran to the desk and asked where my flight was. The lady behind the desk looked at me incredulously and said I was going to miss the flight anyway because she could see on her computer screen the doors at gate F8 were already closed and she thought my luggage may have been removed already! She was still talking while I ran like I have never done before in panic looking for gate F8. I think it was about 1000 metres from gate D8 but I must have covered it in less than 3 minutes! But it felt like I ran a marathon. A KLM lady at gate F8 saw me from afar and ran to me to ask if I was the one they were waiting for. My luggage were being offloaded as we speak she said but they were going to do their best to get them back and get me on the flight.
It would take the world coming to an end to make me panic in normal circumstances. After all even when being shot at with automatic rifle and kidnapped in Nigeria in 2014, I was zen and calm. However, the world would have collapse had I missed that flight.

While the KLM staff were busy frantically scanning (and failing) my boarding pass and communicating with aircrew, I felt like the 52 year old, physically unfit man that I am! I was completely out of breath and sweating profusely like a Christmas chicken. After what seemed like an eternity, the ground staff finally got the go-ahead to send me on board. I then walked as calmly into the waiting aircraft as a heavily perspiring, highly embarrassed, man could do.

“I can see you had to really run hard,” the senior purser said with a wry smile. “You are sweating a lot!”

You bet I am. I could have been on an unscheduled flight to Denver, USA but now I am in Nairobi Kenya eating Ugali!