Airport Run

Each time I take my son to work, we pass by the Municipal Airport here, and it is so much fun for me to see the small leer jets, small helicopters and Cessna planes land or take off as they zip overhead the car traffic. As I was leaving the shop where my son does the books, a rather large military helicopter was coming in, thundering its noise through my car, with the blades leaving a quick shadow over me. I enjoyed the slight tremor, and smiled, thinking how there was a time when I was friends with five pilot students from what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I met these rascals un peu louches, in the library, of all places, with my Algerian friend Yasmina, when I was a senior at TCU in Fort Worth, Texas. These guys were a riot, semi ex-patriots from Belgium, Israel and Italy, whose families were trying to make sense of their at times precarious lives in Zaire. They were mischievous and quite hilarious. Dany, Jean-Pierre,Solomon who went by the name Kiko, Harold and Michel. I was like the mascot of the group. It was like being the only girl in a riotous band of pirates. It seems these days they mostly lead quiet lives in Belgium, but there are a couple of the group whose whereabouts remain shrouded in a tropical like thick mist. So driving by the Olympia Airport, as mundane as it might be to the drivers around me, fills me with both smiles and nostalgia. It also reminds me of how fortunate I was as a student to have the opportunity to travel often, and to exotic places, like Costa Rica, Panama and Zaire. Kiko and I dated for a time, and I went to visit him and his family in Kinshasa for the Christmas Holiday in 1980. The experience of two weeks in the heart of Africa remains one of the magical experiences of a lifetime, for a number of reasons. The magnificence of the forests and its animals and vegetation, the local population , hearing them speak Lingala, trying to communicate with them, the open air markets, the anxiety the political system brought on a daily basis, the delicious local food, the heat, the complete darkness each day by 6:00 p.m. because of being at the heart of the equator, the warm, intense rains, the marvel at seeing the mighty Congo River and seeing Papyrus plants at its edges. Standing next to a real Baobab tree, where previously I had only seen a cartoon drawing of it in Antoine de Saint- Exupery's brilliant book " Le Petit Prince ". So, quite often as I drive by the airport and see the small planes zipping by, a sigh not without delight, escapes me and I dream of the time, when, perhaps, I can travel again, and maybe meet up with the next band of pirates in a far away land.