In one of my Cairo flights, I had an amazing experience. Sitting on my exit row in the mid cabin is a dark skinned man travelling with his mom. He looked young and spoke very good English so I made him sit right across me and appointed him as my ABP. The guy didn’t look like an Egyptian so I asked him where he is from. He told me that he is from Eritrea. I didn’t hear him quite well, im sorry is that a country, I asked. He goes on saying yes, Eritrea is a small country near Sudan. Ahhhh…I have always prided myself with my above average knowledge in geography. I felt humbled and made a mental note about googling Eritrea when I get back to base. Clearly I know nothing about the places in the world. And then it dawned to me, this is what I like about my job. This is for me one of the best rewards of being a cabin crew. You get to meet different kinds of people, learn and have worthwhile conversations with your passengers and hear different view points of different issues. This Eritrean though doesn’t live in his own country anymore. He has migrated to Australia, thus the good English and the accent, with his mom and probably the entire family. He and his mom were just travelling and visiting friends and family in Africa and the Middle East.
Whenever I feel like my job doesn’t give me any growth and is making my brain shrink. I just remind myself of the time I met and talked to a guy and his mother who came from a country that I didn’t even know existed. And I’d feel encouraged and lucky again and convinced that I made the right decision to fly.
