Flight: Dakar
Date: 28th Feb
With red hot summer approaching, flying back and forth from a hotter Senegal is not favoured by many crews. Especially the ones who are now used to the artificial air conditioned environment in the aircraft. Being born and bred in a tropical country, gives most of us the advantage of standing tall even in the most humid African airports, or to bear the scorching hot sun of the Middle-east airports during boarding on hot sunny days.
Some airports in the world have a very efficient boarding process, while sadly some do not. It takes ages to complete boarding as the airport might not have the bridge facility or has to transport passengers from a mother terminal via buses. The most uncomfortable after-effect is, when that layer of makeup that took half an hour in the morning, starts melting down. Some end up similar to Halloween make up especially when that so called “waterproof” mascara runs down the face.
However air hostesses are also very creative and smart in fixing things; at 30,000ft there aren't many options available but to do it yourself or come up with a temporary solution. Thus some crew on flights like this run in to the bath room every 5 minutes to re apply the vanishing make up.
Some even install a pocket fan in the galley (though many may think that constant visits to the galley is to gobble down another crew sandwich). The others try to stay hydrated and keep that box of tissues around to wipe off their signs of sweat. The ones who couldn’t care less about the image and uniform standards while getting barbecued alive, just stand underneath the air vents looking exasperated.
As many struggle to cope up with the heat, there was one air hostess who was standing still greeting passengers by the door, without any signs of hot whether affecting her. She being from a cooler part of the country it seemed weird and made me wonder what could be her secret.
When everyone was on board finally, she hurriedly yet discreetly pulled out a zip lock bag full of ice cubes, from inside her blouse. Having seen many bizarre things in flight, she knew what I was thinking in my head. "Oh c'mon......it's so hot, even my ice is melting" she said shaking the melting ice bag at me. "No worries babe, as long as you are happy!” (What’s inside your blouse is nobody's business!) I said out loud in my head, and just smiled meekly at her while she filled up her bag with more ice and tucked it inside her blouse back again, looking more comfortable than ever.
Love, Dany
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