NDINDA: I’m stupefied by the news that my flight has been cancelled

It is Wednesday. After yet another restful night, I wake up at 6am with a smile on my face, looking forward to the next two days that will culminate in my flight home on Friday 12.

After my morning devotion and before I can get out of bed, I receive a phone call that wipes the smile off my face a minute later.

The number is local, so the first thought on my mind is that it must be the testing centre informing me that my results are ready. I pick it up and say “hello” with a formal tone. After exchanging brief pleasantries, the caller identifies himself – he is the man in the repatriation WhatsApp group, the one I had given directions to the facility where I got my Covid-19 test on Tuesday.

He managed to get the test on the day we spoke and is anxiously waiting for his results. And then he goes on to say many things which my mind finds difficult to process. I think the shock of what he is saying shuts my mind down. After some time, he realises that I have no clue about what he is talking about.

He tells me to go through the WhatsApp messages in the group before we can talk again, then hangs up. I breathe in and out, take some water and then sit on my bed and start going through the texts. There are 76 of them.

There are no words to describe the shock and utter disappointment I feel as I read message after message. All 76 of them.

I won’t be going home. Our flight has been cancelled. Since no official communication has been given by the Kenya Airways, the texts are full of speculation, panic, rumours and denial. Nobody seems quite sure of what is going on.

What is clear, though, is that we will not be going home on Friday 12. Some say their contacts are saying the flight has been rescheduled to June 19, a week away, but nobody is sure that that is, indeed, the case.

The conversation keeps going, though it is made up of questions without answers. I put the phone down. A nauseating feeling comes over me. I breathe in and out, in and out again to try and calm the panic that is threatening to consume me.

I get up, my legs weak, barely able to support me. I slowly take a walk around this room that I have called home for over two months. I want to be sure that I am not asleep, and that this is not a horrible nightmare. After a while, when I am sure that I am awake and living this nightmare, I pick up my phone again, and standing on shaky legs, I go through the messages again. One by one. Slowly. But my mind refuses to comprehend what I am reading, probably because I am in denial.

I get off WhatsApp and escape to Twitter, where I hope to get some form of consolation, some respite from this cruel news. It is useless, I don’t comprehend anything that I read. My mind has shut down. Firmly.

This is too much for me to withstand. I put my phone down once again and start processing what this news means. The disappointment, the extra boarding costs I will have to bear for another week or longer, breaking the saddening news to everyone again, shelving the plans I had made for when I got home. I feel sick to my stomach.

Once again I pick up my phone, but this time round, I avoid the repatriation group and go to other WhatsApp chats. Daniel, my employer, needs some information since he is trying to process my ticket.

I look at his message and I am not sure whether to inform him that there is no flight, that I won’t be coming home this Friday.

I spend most of the day trying, unsuccessfully, to get out of this harrowing mental space. Honestly, I am not sure how I finally make it through the day. Daniel calls Kenya Airways, who confirm that indeed, there will be no flight on June 12, but “maybe” June 19. Having heard about the turn of events, he is heartbroken for me.

Ms Ndinda is Research Manager, Transform Research Africa Ltd. She is stranded in Nigeria, where she has been since March 21.                         

TOMORROW: Our repatriation flight having been postponed with no explanation whatsoever, we have more questions than answers. We are anxious, disappointed and apprehensive.