One of the most random airport experiences EVER

I have had some interesting airport experiences in my life, but this one is DEFINITELY at the top of the list.

On Sunday night I was waiting in the airport in Dakar for my flight to Ghana. I had gotten to the airport early because I had heard some horror stories about the waiting time.  When I got there, there weren’t any signs for Air Nigeria and a man saw me looking confused. Between his broken English and my broken French I understood they would start check in at 11:00 p.m.   Around 10:30 the man found me and told me “you check in now over there” and pointed towards about 6 counters. I wasn’t sure which one he meant but I figured I would just go over to that general direction and figure it out.

I got in a line, tapped the man in front of me and asked “Air Nigeria?” He said “Oui” so I waited behind him. A few hours later, I was waiting at the gate and he came and stood next to me while I was on the phone. He asked me if I was going to Niger. I said no, Monrovia and he was really excited and was like “Moi aussi!!” (me too!) I was like “ohh!...”  and may have given him a look like “Ok person I don’t know. I’m not sure why you’re so excited about this” and then pointed to my phone and kept talking and he walked away.

Later on he came back and told me that he didn’t speak French and only a little English because he was from Cape Verde and spoke Portuguese. I told him, “Oh! All I remember of Portuguese is ‘tudo bein’ and ‘obrigado’.” There wasn’t really too much more to say then so we parted ways.

In Dakar, they only do boarding announcements in French, so it was a little tricky knowing when to get in line for the plane. I had one year of French in high school, so I can get the basics, but I was a little confused when they started boarding from our gate at the time we were supposed to be boarding, but I hadn’t heard an announcement for Accra. I asked some people and they said they were going to Casablanca so I sat down to wait. A little later I saw the guy getting in line so I told him, that’s not our flight. He looked at me like he didn’t believe me, so I said “It’s not. It’s going to Casablanca.” So then he sat next to me and we waited together. I thought it was strange that he was talking to me and just sat next to me like we were friends, but it was one in the morning and I was tired and he seemed decent.  In a mixture of French and English we introduced ourselves and then made small talk. When the flight was boarding, I was like, “ok, let’s go” and we got in line and boarded the flight.

Our flight left around 2 a.m. and it was now around 7:00 a.m.  I was really tired and still half sleep. When I was getting off, I saw Jose (pronounced Jzo-say) still sitting! I motioned to him and was like “This is us! We’re in Accra!” When we were both off the plane, he came and stood next to me and we waited with the other people in transit. The immigration officer was asking each person what flight they had come from. When they got to Jose he had the stare that comes from trying to process but not understanding what the person speaking just said to you. I recognized it all too well since I’d just come from a French speaking country and had the same more expression more than once. I stepped in and answered the questions and we stayed together from that point on. At the next checkpoint, our names and information had to be written into a book. I answered all the questions for myself and Jose. There was a mix-up when we went to get our bags, so I talked to the airport people about it for both us. We had to be walked through the airport to wait for our next flight, and after the airport worker left us, we sat together.

Earlier while we were standing in line I asked Jose in Spanish, “Can you understand me if I speak in Spanish?” He threw up his hands and said “Si!!” So the rest of our conversations were a mix of English, Portuguese and Spanish. Our flight wasn’t until 11:15, so we had some time to wait until we could check in. He had to go to the bathroom, and he asked me to watch his bags while he was gone. I did and then he watched my suitcase (don’t worry it was locked) while I went to the bathroom. He went outside to smoke a cigarette and I watched his bags again. I was thirsty and so was he, so I went to buy us some water. As we drank our water, we talked about what we did for a living and how it was his first time out of Cape Verde.

After we checked in for our flight, we had to go through customs again. We went through together because Ghana is an English speaking country and he had a tough time with the Ghanian accent (can’t say that I blame him, I don’t always understand it either). I’m not gonna lie – the thought crossed my mind more than once “This is crazy! I hope this man is not a terrorist because I am really helping him and am on all kinds of security cameras with him! But then I remembered how thankful I was when I was in Dakar and people translated for me and helped me around. Plus, I didn’t have a bad feeling about him and I’m usually right in my feelings about people.

Once we were on the other side of security, he was like “I’m hungry.” And I was like, “ME TOO!” He said, “Let’s get something to eat.” So he bought me breakfast to thank me for helping him. We had chicken and jolof rice with coffee for him and Coke for me. (Coke is delicious in Ghana!) Then we waited for our flight together all the while speaking in a mixture of Spanish, English and Portuguese! We exchanged information before we got on the flight, and the next day he sent me an e-mail thanking me for all my help! How random is that!