rWaiting for Rwanda

stranded in an airport lounge in Nairobi, waiting for a plane to Kigali, Rwanda. Souvenir giraffes as far as the eye can see. A woman’s voice comes over the loudspeaker to signal missing passengers. She’s very polite though. She never uses last names. “Mary S., and Janubu B., please report to Gate 4. Mary S., and Janubu B.” Her voice is tinted with a British accent. There is almost no one here awake. Everybody is splayed in plastic chairs, some sleep right on the floor, newspapers covering their faces. “Joseph K., please report to the transit desk, Joseph K.” On CNN they are interviewing the hostages. I fall asleep and when I wake up the channel is changed to a cricket game. England vs South Africa. I fall asleep again and wake up again. Now a man is sitting at my table, also watching the game. He wears a lycra sweatsuit in the colors of the Kenyan flag. "Is it a good game?" I say. He mumbles. The score is something dream-like, 524 to 208, but the announcers gamely insist that South Africa still has a shot. When I wake up again, the ‘first boundary’ has been penetrated, ‘putting an end to the aching tension of the 5th over.’ Or something like that… apologies to my Pakistani readers. I stumble up with a crick in my neck and wander over to the duty-free. I’ve gone through all the books I brought for carryon so I lurk by the books section. It is all dime novels and self-help books about achieving personal wealth. “Come closer!” says the salesman with the nametag Mike. He asks me what I’m looking for and I don’t know what to say so I say, “Something classic.” (Which may be from now on my go-to answer. Seems that it services pretty much most questions I don’t know how to answer.) Anyway, Mike scans the shelves and hands me “You Can Do It” by Richard Branson. Actually I don’t know if it’s called You Can Do It – this whole blog entry is seeming highly unreliable… but I do know that it’s by Richard Branson and since I took a Virgin Atlantic to get here on the air journey which has gone on forever and forever I just shake my head, quietly, disturbed. Mike shrugs. His favorite book is The Secret, the ultra-best-selling self-help book that I first encountered on a flooded-out street in New Orleans, and since then have had recommended to me a dozen or so times. But Mike gives me a different formula. “God comes first,” he says. “Then read The Secret. Without God, the Secret is nothing. With God, and The Secret, all your prayers will be realized. Eventually.”