I can safely tell you that it is not fun to sit for over 1 hour at Harare airport and wait for what is clearly a delayed flight to Beira and then on to Maputo in Mozambique.
But I can tell you that following that delay sitting in Beira transit for over an hour and waiting for a connecting flight is even more boring. OK, you talk to people (at least if you are me) but there is nothing to eat or drink, there is not a shred of information as to when you might be leaving.
Then on top of it, once we arrived in Maputo my airport transport had left and to really finish it off I had a run in with the local police threatening me with huge fines for not carrying my passport after going for a very late meal.
Let's just say it was a long day. But sometimes clouds have a little silver lining.
Given my boys are now basically both teenagers and so to speak live in their own world I had kind of forgot that I am actually quite good with kids. And I think I can say that with some confidence actually. So once we finally board in Beira this little girl (say she was 8 or so) carrying that envelope that states "unaccompanied passenger" gets the seat next to me.
We start talking and to my surprise she speaks very good English (after all we are in Mozambique, right). I had a feeling she had never really been on a plane before so I explain how the safety belt works (and for sure she did not know), how the reading lights work, the cooling fan. Then how the propellers will fire up and so on.
About 15 minutes after take off I have a little sleeping head leaning on me and the kid curled up in her seat. And there she slept. She rescued my day, basically.
