My most recent travels saw me headed to Zimbabwe from England via Nairobi in Kenya. My flight was from Heathrow airport and anyone who has ever gone through this airport knows how busy it is! With this bit of handy knowledge I decided to plan my trip in such a way that I would be at the airport at least three hours before my flight and this worked out really well. There was literally no queue when my kids and I got to the counters and we decided to first use the self service check in points before proceeding to the counter. By the time we checked our luggage in there was a queue starting to form. As this was a flight to Africa, I naturally was a bit perplexed as to why there were no other black people at all in the queue apart from us.
We hung around that area for a bit wondering what to do with all the extra time we had before boarding. Sure enough the queue was getting longer and still there was not a single black person in sight. It didnt bother me of course but I just found it quite interesting. We decided to sit in a cafe and just chill out before going through security. We had our refreshments and I found a beareau to do my currency conversions. The queue at the check in desk had moved fast and as I looked they were just serving the last person (or so I thought).
I took my kids to the bathroom and decided it was now almost time for us to go through security. As we came out of the restrooms I was shocked by what I saw....a queue was beginning to form again at the check in point for my flight but this time it was an 'all black' queue! In fact it was unbelievably long and I could not help but notice the family that sprinted in through the doors ,heading for that same Nairobi bound flight and both husband and wife had heaps of luggage in tow and looked frazzled. I wondered. How was it possible that ALL the white people (who did not know each other) had arrived early and checked in at a leisurely pace while on the other hand the black people had rushed in at the last hour , some with excess luggage which we saw them unloading and trying to squeeze into their hand luggage or even putting on some extra layers of clothes (true story!) just to 'distribute' some of the weight. What could be the reason behind this 'Black Man's Time' concept. Just thinking aloud. Any thoughts?
