As we waited at the gate, a gentlemen came around with sandwiches and soft drinks. My husband bought it all and we sat upright in our chairs, ready to eat. I spied a corner store with trinkets, carpets and other souvenirs. I remembered my aunt warning me not to buy items in the airport because they were triple the cost. But I had over fifteen thousand rupees which I would not be able to convert back in Canada.
After buying almost $100 CDN worth of stuff, I returned back to my seat. I thought to myself, this was the safest I had ever felt shopping in Pakistan. At the airport! I crammed everything into my overloaded carry on. The girls brought trinkets for all their school friends back home and I bought a Peshawari carpet to hang on my living room wall. Without having much experience bargaining due to the fact that I rarely went out to shop in Lahore, I was able to haggle down the prices for everything I bought. The art was to walk away, disinterested and they would call you back after a minute. The shopkeeper came out of this shop three times to intice me back in to work out the pricing.
"Have you run out of money yet?" my husband asked after watching the back and forth action from the gate to the shop. I rolled my eyes and sipped my Sprite. My appetite was coming back. And so were my latent emotions.
We boarded Air Etihad. One of the best things about our trip was this airline. If I had the money, I would travel the world with this air carrier. Excellent service, superb seating, tasty food and a general feeling of safety. And the air hostesses are smoking hot. No really. Their side veils, surgically enhanced chests and faces even got me looking at them longer than I should have ;) I was equally entranced with the 85 movies, 150 radio channels and wide variety of television they had to offer in flight.
Three hours later we reached Abu Dhabi. I was the ONLY one on the plane clapping out loud. My girls covered their heads with their blankets. I didn't care. We had made it out of Pakistan. Out of the floods, the plane crashes, the rioting, the gunpoint robberies, the corruption, the congestion...I even took a picture of the Abu Dhabi sign made out of white flowers on green grass, from the airplane window. On our way out, I hugged the stewardesses and told them to give my regards to the pilots on an excellent flight. As the vet twin waited for her guitar, I was rambling about how the pilots flew at the right amount of altitude and how the flight plan allowed us to arrive half hour early when my daughter pushed me out of the plane and into the tunnel. Again, we hit the customs department but it was smooth sailing from there to security to our next gate flying back to Toronto. We all sat down and I felt a wave of exhaustion suddenly hit me. I told them I was going to the washroom and then to check out some of the stores in the new terminal.
I walked for five minutes, passing by free internet stations and encountered all the high-end stores at the Abu Dhabi airport: Chanel, Hermes, Louis Vutton, Burberry, etc. It was then I had my outer body experience.
I walked into a Jimmy Choo store and TOTALLY BROKE DOWN! I was a mess. I started bawling as I picked up a pair of shoes. The concerned sales woman thought I was crying over the price. I was so overwhelmed with emotion that I could not speak. "This pair will go on sale for $1500 by the end of the week," she explained. I think I broke out laughing and crying at the same time. She put her hand on my shoulder and I told her I would be ok. She walked away but looked over at me periodically as I sauntered throughout the store, blowing my nose and trying to catch my breath.
I finally exhaled. Squeeze me? I had been holding my breath the entire time in Pakistan, putting on a brave face for the family, the master storyteller, convincing them that everything would be ok while not even believing my own story. It was an emotional roller coaster, a judiciary proceeding, with me substantiating my mere existence in a third world country, damaged by tragic events, an immoral government and an ever-exploding population of which their system could not sustain. We were stuck there, in the thick of things, with the risk of anything happening to us. My sixth sense seemed to assure me that nothing would happen and it was a miracle that we made it out unscathed. I truly believed a higher power watched over me the entire time because everything that was happening could have worked against me. As I heard everyone's stories, I realized the odds were against me, the statistics were against me but someone kept me in a protective bubble the entire time.
Abu Dhabi was my oxygen mask and I was resusitated in Jimmy Choos. Not that I could afford any of the items in there, but for some reason, the exorbitant prices seemed to calm me down. My mind and body knew I was safe and the release was incredible. I floated back to the gate where my husband noted my puffy eyes but he did not comment. It was the unspoken truth. And as he put his arm around me, I closed my eyes, mind and body. I finally surrendered.
No comments:
Post a Comment