Transit I

Montty in Toronto, CN Tower in the background

I've long believed that this newfound modern ability to traverse the globe as though it were our backyard is an unsettling thing; surely it does something very strange to the body and mind to zip back and forth between hemispheres and time zones, crossing lines of latitude and longitude as quickly as you'd pass mile markers on a dirt road, were you moving at a more natural pace. Jet lag proves the confusion of your circadian rhythms, but are there not other bodily rhythms, more subtle ones, which are disturbed by skipping through multiple time zones, kilometres of altitude change, and a complete reversal of the seasons, all in the space of 24 hours?

I don't mean to say that because it's “unnatural” it's bad – I love technology and clearly I love air travel, despite the appalling pollution it causes. (Every time I step on another plane, I see with guilt-wracked eyes the image of my carbon footprint expanding and expanding...) However, beyond the pollution problem, I feel that somehow it must upset one's internal balance. Chaos! Or perhaps we get used to it.

Without further ado, then, an appropriately chaotic recounting of my travels, focusing on transit.

September 5^th, I left D'Kar by car at about 4:30 in the morning, driving to Ghanzi to catch the morning bus to Gaborone. Nathaniel drove me through the chill, dark morning, helped load my backpack onto the bus, and then drove back home to sleep. I slept on the bus, on and off till we reached Jwaneng, the centre of Botswana's mining operations. The bus always stops at Jwaneng for 20 minutes or so, and the passengers get off and buy snacks. We reached the Gaborone bus station at about three in the afternoon, where I got in a taxi that took me to my hotel.

The next morning (Sept. 6th), the same taxi came to pick me up. The driver, however, was extremely late – his girlfriend was in the car with him, laughing as they careened around the corner and pulled up in front of my hotel where I'd been pacing angrily in the dark. They drove me to a different bus station, where I boarded the bus for Johannesburg. A few hours to the border, where we all got off and went through immigration – then a few hours more into Jo'burg. I was meeting a friend from Princeton, so I got a taxi to Zoo Lake and then – due to road blocks – walked almost a kilometre with all of my bags to get to the Jo'burg jazz festival. Later, we drove to her house for dinner, and then she drove me to the airport.

Flight: Jo'burg to Amsterdam. Mixup with the ticketing counter because I was spending 24 hours in Amsterdam, which falls in-between a proper layover (in which you spend more than a day between flights and must check in for the second flight separately) and an in-airport layover (in which you are checked in for both flights and only spend a few hours in the airport in between flights)... I had to check my luggage all the way through, but they couldn't/wouldn't give me a boarding pass for the second flight. I think that this was a mistake on behalf of the KLM desk at the Jo'burg airport, but I'm not sure. Anyhow, arrived in Amsterdam mid-morning, checked into a hostel, and wandered around the city in a daze of severe culture shock, like a waking dream. Rented a bike, went to the Van Gogh museum (excellent!) and felt that perhaps his paintings from the mental institution and various states of insanity were a good representation of how I was feeling.

The next morning (Sept. 7th), took the train back to the airport, and almost missed my flight due to problems checking in – the Amsterdam airport couldn't understand what strange alchemy the Jo'burg airport had worked on my booking. First I waited in a very long line for the automated check-in, which couldn't retrieve my booking through any of its 3 methods; the machine directed me to a second long line, which I waited in, only to be told that I needed to wait in a THIRD long line to actually speak to a KLM representative, a haughty and picture-perfect blonde Dutch lady who scolded me for having a messed-up booking and then sent me through to security with the warning that I didn't have a seat assigned yet and I'd better get to the gate on the double to have a seat assigned there. Panicked, I raced through customs where a couple of snotty, pimply twenty-year-olds delayed me and made fun of my accent, and then dashed to the gate – where an endless caterpillar of people were lined up, waiting to go through interrogation by a private security firm contracted by the US government to screen flights going into the States. ARGH.

With their big black suits, garish ties, barrel chests, and snazzy earpieces, these guys were not interested in hearing the pleas of a dishevelled young girl carrying a stuffed monkey. I waited at the back of the line, in order to answer a barrage of pointless questions, generally driving at the point of “has anyone had a chance to smuggle CRAZY DRUGS into your bags?” It was kind of disgusting how obviously they profiled by race or nationality – I explained that I'd spent the day with friends in Jo'burg, and that the bags had been left unsupervised (by me) in their house while I went to the bathroom or had a shower. “Oho,” the man said, suspiciously, glaring at me through his wire-rimmed glasses. “So you had to go to the bathroom, hmm? Friends in Johannesburg, hmm? How exactly do you know these... friends?”

“They are AMERICAN, we went to PRINCETON together, that is how I know them,” I snapped back.

He immediately relaxed. “Oh, Princeton, well, congratulations! What year did you graduate?” What bullshit. I suppose the name comes in handy, but I always feel irritated when it does.

Nevertheless, successfully got on the plane, and blissfully watched movies till we landed in Seattle. More (perceived) racial-profiling adventures there: while waiting to collect my baggage, customs & immigration officers roamed the room doing spot-checks. A naive-seeming young officer had been asking various people questions about their visit, their bags, and so on – he'd asked a wide variety of people, both male and female, old and young, and mostly white. Then he stopped to talk to a tall African man (not African-American, but African – I could tell from his accent and the colour of his passport) who had just descended into the luggage collection area and therefore hadn't witnessed the man talking to the other people. “Excuse me, sir,” the officer began, “can I see your boarding pass and passport, please?”

“No,” replied the man, immediately and boldly, with an aggressive glint in his eye. “What for? I just came through immigration.”

“Well, sir, it's just standard procedure – we're doing double-checks of everyone down here on the floor.”

“No! I refuse, I don't have to show you anything. You have singled me out. I will not.” He put his hand protectively on the breast pocket of his shirt, where his passport and boarding pass were tucked away.

“Sir,” the officer tried again, looking nervous and embarrassed, “really, we've been asking everyone – it's a new policy of the airport. We've got to double-check everyone. Please may I see your passport and boarding pass.” He held out his hand tentatively.

“No! I am not giving you anything until I see you asking other people." The African man drew himself up to his full height with extreme dignity. "Ask some white people. I have done nothing wrong, I'm not showing you anything. This is discrimination! You cannot do this to me!”

At this declaration, the officer looked even more nervous – obviously the race issue had been in play since the beginning of their interaction, but for this guy to drop it so blatantly made him desperately uncomfortable. I was holding my breath, waiting for something to erupt – after all, giving trouble to a customs & officer is generally a really bad idea, whether you're in the right or not. And in this case, though the African man couldn't know it, the customs officer really had been asking a wide range of people, and it really did seem to be a new airport policy. The potential for explosion was there. Thankfully, the young officer backed down, and went back to asking white people. I collected my bags and left before I could see if he approached the African man again - however, on my way out I was accosted by a different officer who gave me the same routine questioning, so it seems to be true that they were trying to double-check everyone.

I re-checked my bags and then went to the gate for my short hop from Seattle to Victoria. Waiting at the gate, I was overcome by a fever of consumerism, a sudden compulsive desire to buy seemingly necessary things. This is how my stream of consciousness went: Oh look! A newspaper. I should buy the newspaper, I'm so out of touch with the news, I miss the New York Times – and maybe a magazine, just to read on the plane – and I've been awake a long time, I should really get a coffee – maybe a snack, probably a muffin or something – and then I guess I'll be thirsty, so I could grab a bottle of water, and then a pack of gum, or maybe some mints, I do like mints more than gum... WAIT, WHAT IN THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING?! A quick mental calculation – though each item seemed reasonable, altogether it was almost $20, a percentage of my monthly budget in Botswana that I didn't even want to think about. I bought one large green tea ($1.79) and sat down with a book I'd brought from Botswana with me ($0.00). I could barely read, though, looking up every thirty seconds to see what time it was, to see how many minutes closer I was to reaching my beloved home. At last the screen above the gate flashed on and the loudspeaker crackled to life - "NorthWest Air is happy to announce boarding for flight 5121 to Victoria. Any passengers travelling with small children are welcome to board now..."

During the flight to Victoria I drank in the scenery with ravenous eyes: the deep waters of the Strait of Juan de Fuca fading into turquoise shallows and then grey-gold beaches around the myriad islands off the coast. Thick conifer forests rising and falling with the contours of the land. The scars of logging, exposing the cragginess of mountains not yet eroded by roots and weather. A few quiet houses with threadlike roads peeping in and out of the trees; no cars. Spindly docks with tiny toy boats moored to them. The scaly ripple of sunlight on the water, waves that would swamp a small boat looking as delicate as mosquito netting from the airplane. Cloud-shadows, moving without regard for land or sea. It's as beautiful as flying over the Okavango, in it's own way.

The flight passed quickly. We landed in Victoria and I stepped off onto the familiar tarmac of the small airport, breathed the familiar air, scrutinized the airport windows to see if I could spot my mom. In the baggage claim I was hopping from one foot to the other, pushing the cart back and forth, willing my bags to arrive faster. Then I was rushing through immigration and emerging, practically running, into the airport where my mom was waiting with open arms and a helium balloon.