Worst. Flight. Ever. To. Djimma.

The first time I went to Ethiopia was just about twenty years ago now. The flight my colleague and I took from Addis Ababa to Djimma still holds the record for worst plane flight I’ve ever been on. And that’s saying something.

I’ve been on planes hit by lightning — it sounds like a thunder god is slamming his hammer on the fuselage — and once a stranger next to me screeched and grabbed my arm. Then, when he realized we weren’t going to crash, he sheepishly let go and looked away for the remainder of the flight.

And I’ve landed in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, where the flight path takes you through downtown, buildings both sides of the plane and road not all that far below. Flights have run off the edge of that admittedly short runway, right into traffic, and sometimes cows.

But this particular flight to Djimma still takes the cake, and the thought of a six or eight hour drive back to Addis started to sound good, compared to taking this same plane back to the city the next day.

Worst. Flight. Ever. To. Djimma.

An overgrown, overweight, under-
maintained plane from the crumbling
edges of some newsreel documentary.
Where old planes go to die, this one
had not gone. Perhaps it lost its way,

possibly after hard plastic jump seats
with makeshift web belts replaced
the original seats, letting twice as many
board its belly. No overhead bins—
luggage, purses, overcoats and crated chickens

alike went into its underbelly.
I take that back. Crated chickens were
stuffed in the rear behind passengers
while up front someone served cheese
sandwiches that made the front row retch

and the rest wish for the smell of plane fuel
back again. I held my wallet in my lap,
watched trees too close, watched sky
turn leaf turn cloud turn, well, too much
turning as the plane itself hoped for the best.

Twenty years. I still know the green glow
that sickened even the local travelers’ faces.
An hour (felt longer) later: unsteady gaits, wide eyes.
When storm lines rush through, even now
you can see that same green in any sky.

If you enjoyed Worst. Flight. Ever. To. Djimma.

The plane I was on had a couple more rows of seating than the one in the picture, but not many more.  And you probably know the color green I referred to. The shade of green that makes a regular rain storm suddenly look like a threatening tornado is just over the horizon. And you don’t have to travel half way around the world to find that color in your stormy sky.

Seeing that color underpin the skin of my fellow passengers was not good, watching some be sick was outright bad, and I was pretty sure I looked just as bad. I sure felt it. Some things you just never forget.

You can read more of my work on this blog or in the collection Stars Crawl Out From Their Caves, which is available in both ebook and print.  Missed a poem of the week? Links to prior weeks are on this page.  

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And, comments welcome, as always–have a great week, and look for another poem next Monday.