of was finally getting to get to ride inside one of those airplanes I had often seen flying overhead.
With all the papers finally in order, Mom, Dad, and Betty came to Haiti to take me home. I said my last goodbyes to Mama and Papa Franchil and the rest of my family and friends, cried my final tears, and resigned myself to the fact that I was leaving, unsure of what the future held for me. The ride to the airport with my family was one of the longest of my life. Everything went by in slow motion. It seemed as if we drove by every place that had ever meant anything to me in my first seven years of life. I saw my school, my cornfield and the countless fresco stands downtown. I was saying goodbye to my whole world. When we arrived at the airport, my only concern was not getting lost in the chaotic sea of people and baggage and carts. We checked in, put our bags on a magical moving belt that took them away into a hole in the wall, and went to the departure area to await our boarding time.
I didn’t see our plane when it landed and only caught my first glimpse of it as it taxied into its parking spot near the terminal building. I now know that it was an American Airlines Boeing 727, but to my seven year-old mind, it looked like a gigantic metallic bird. My face was stuck to the window in sheer awe and amazement as the plane’s three engines pushed it into its parking spot with a deafening roar. I looked back at my family and the other passengers, wondering how they all could sit around so casually with this amazing machine right outside our window. The sight of that gigantic silver metal bird staring at me from its cockpit windows had me beaming with excitement at the prospect of actually going inside it. I literally couldn’t wait. After what seemed like an eternity, I heard an announcement in Kreol that sent my little heart racing: “Now boarding American Airlines to New York JFK International Airport”.
I leapt for joy and for a while anyway, forgot about my sadness about the world I was leaving behind. I wasn’t really even thinking about where we were going. New York and America had no meaning for me yet. For one of the first times in my life, I was completely in the moment. I was taking in everything as it happened, thinking neither of the past I was leaving behind nor of the unknown future. All that mattered was that I was about to go flying.
As we stepped back out into the heat and started walking towards the aircraft, I could not believe how BIG it was. The closer we got, the bigger it got. The flight was full. I looked at the plane and all the people walking in line with us, along with all the bags being put into the belly of the big silver bird, and thought this is IMPOSSIBLE! How can this heavy machine possibly lift all of us and all this stuff into THIN AIR? The apparent lack of concern on the faces of my parents, sister, and the other passengers didn’t serve to put my wonderment to rest. To my mind, it simply could not work.
We arrived at the bottom of the stairs, and as we walked up, the deafening whine of the plane’s auxiliary power unit blasted my ears. As was common in those days, the captain and lead flight attendant were waiting at the aircraft’s entry door, greeting everyone with a smile and a “Welcome aboard American Airlines”. When I first saw the captain standing there greeting everyone, I smiled at him and was in awe that this man was going to be sitting at the controls of this amazing machine. The captain looked at me and smiled back, and I kept turning to look at him as we walked down the aisle to our seats. My parents had ensured that I had a window seat, because they knew how excited I was about my first flight. Betty, who was happy finally to have her big brother with her, hadn’t protested even though she too had wanted the window seat. Our seats were near the rear of the cabin, and Betty was in the middle seat next to me, with Mom in the aisle seat and Dad across the aisle from us. We sat down, and my mom helped me put my seatbelt on and showed me how to work my overhead reading light and air vent, both of which I could barely reach. My head was on a swivel as took in all of the activity around me. It was all so exciting.
I looked out the window at all the little airport vehicles darting around the airplane, then back up front to where the captain was standing then around the cabin at the sea of passengers, then back to the smiling faces of my family who were happy to see that I was enjoying the experience. After the flight attendants closed the main cabin door, the engines slowly started whining to life and soon we started taxiing towards the runway for takeoff. My little heart was pounding in my chest with more excitement than I had ever felt. A part of me STILL did not believe that it was possible for this gigantic thing to get itself and all of us off the ground. As the flight attendants conducted their safety demonstration, I stared at their beautiful faces, watching their well-rehearsed routine. I commented to my mom about how pretty they were (I guess all future pilots are attracted to flight attendants). Then I heard the captain’s voice over the speaker, which Mom explained was him telling the flight attendants to take their seats for takeoff. Here we go! I thought.
As the engines spooled up and we started rolling down the runway, I felt a force pushing me back into my seat unlike anything I had ever felt in even the fastest tap-tap. The roar of the engines was almost deafening, and my face was plastered to the window, watching as the ground zipped by us faster and faster. After what seemed like forever, and with the airplane shaking and the ground outside a blur, the nose of the giant beast started gracefully lifting off the ground, followed by the main wheels, and we were FLYING! I looked excitedly over at my family who all had big grins on their faces and forward toward the front of the long cabin, which now appeared to be uphill. As we climbed ever higher, the houses, trees, cars, and everything else on the ground got smaller, and I thought they all looked like little toys. There were a few puffy white clouds in the sky. Occasionally, we would be completely surrounded by white, as the clouds enveloped us. I wondered how it would feel to touch them. My parents told me that we would be in the air for about three hours before arriving in New York, and as we leveled off at our cruising altitude, I stared out at the horizon with the sun slowly setting and felt a sense of sheer wonder at where we were and what we were doing. We were flying... I felt at home.
As we cruised along in the night sky, I stared up at the air vents and the square reading lights, and reached up to fiddle with them. I opened the in-flight magazine, and although I couldn’t understand a word of it, being that it was in English, I looked at all the pictures of the beautiful places in its pages, hoping to visit some of them one day. Every few minutes, I heard some soft dings and bells in different tones echoing throughout the cabin. I asked Mom what they all meant, and she told me that the sounds were the flight attendants and pilots calling each other on the interphone (whatever that was). After a while, I noticed the smell of hot food wafting its way through the cabin and the flight attendants starting to come down the aisle with carts piled high with supplies. “What are those for?” I asked my mom.
“The flight attendants are going to bring us drinks and dinner,” she replied.
“They’re going to FEED us too?” I asked, unable to believe it. As if actually being way up in the sky were not enough, we were actually going to get hot food, served by those pretty ladies. Wow, this is awesome! I thought.
As the carts approached my row, I saw Mom reach up and turn a little lever at the back of the seat in front of her and as if by magic, a miniature table appeared in front of her. Coooool! I thought, as Betty and I quickly followed suit. The train of serving carts reached our row finally, and the flight attendants gave us our drinks and dinner. After the flight attendants moved on, I looked down my row and everyone else was already eating and chatting away, seemingly oblivious to the fact that we were thousands of feet in the air eating hot meals! As I sat there eating my delicious dinner for the very first time in an airplane, I had a very strong sense that this flying thing was NOT something ordinary and was not to be taken lightly or for granted. The whole experience was nothing short of a miracle. To this day, although I fully understand the physics and science behind it all, I am still filled with that little boy’s sense of wonder every time I fly.
As we continued along, I stared out at the darkness and at the flashing strobe lights on the airplane’s wing tip, catching glimpses of clouds and an occasional light below. In all the excitement, I hadn’t noticed that the drinks the flight attendants had served us were taxing my small bladder. I asked Mom where the bathroom was, and she pointed to the rear of the cabin.
When I stepped into the lavatory, I was surprised to see myself in a big mirror. There was also a little sink, toilet, and toilet tissues all neatly arranged. Wow, how cool! I thought.