Sometimes it is not easy to travel out of Africa. Having secured an E-ticket, I was to travel from Kigali to Entebbe, then to Doha and finally to JFK International Airport in New York. My airline of choice was none other than the world’s five-star Qatar Airways. Of course I would have lovingly flown our own RwandaAir but problem is that it does not fly to Amerika. But now that our own RwandaAir has started rolling out new aircrafts, well, the sky is not the limit but the beginning! I suppose, greater things are yet to come our way. Like Jimmy Cliff sang, “You can try it if you really want, success will come your way”. Who does not want to succeed? Well, everybody wants to! My E-ticket read, “Departure: 10:45hrs”. I was told to report two hours earlier, sijui they had to check this, that and this again! That is the norm. And never take the airline time for granted; five minutes can make you miss your flight and nobody wants to. I was at the airport by 7 o’clock and was the first passenger to check in. See, I have always loved to be first. Even in school, I used to be first. One time I came home with an end-of-term report holding the 6th position out of 30 pupils. That night, my dad canned me as if I was the last. He reasoned that I had failed. But when I went to secondary school, being tenth was no mean feat! I love Africa – and always will. Many of my fellow passengers came with suitcases loaded with items like “indagara” (silver fish), “intoryi” (egg fruits), ‘ibinyomoro’ (wild tomatoes), bananas, name it! They argued that their relatives in Amerika had been missing these foods for so long and now was the chance for them to taste the home foods once again! Nearly every passenger carried a packet or two of Rwanda’s Maraba Coffee. This was on high demand in Amerika; even the bazungu were scrambling for it. One thing for sure is that our coffee is the best worldwide. People carried huge suitcases or bags as if they were emigrating. I thought people were supposed to leave Africa with minimum loads and return loaded!We took off at exactly 10:45 and within 40 minutes we had landed at Entebbe International Airport for other passengers to board! For nearly an hour, we were at Entebbe International Airport before the journey could resume. We were treated to very delicious lunch courtesy of the five-star airline. Believe you me, these guys (Qatar Airways) are a class apart. They allow you to use your mobile phones in the sky. As long as you can roam, the sky is not the limit! They even have USB sockets on every seat; one has the luxury of plugging and charging their phone as they travel! The onboard entertainment comprises a touch screen TV unit per passenger. The journey was uneventful. We arrived in Doha at about 6:00pm.
