She Made Me Laugh. Stephanie Emmons
Margie turned to me. “Steph, Miriam is planning a six-week trip to India next January to work with Mother Teresa and she’s looking for someone to go with her. Can you think of anyone?”
After pondering the question for about ten seconds, I said, “Yeah, okay!”
It was no more notable than if I had just accepted an invitation to go to the movies. And so, after a few weeks of pinching myself to make sure it was real and convincing my poor family that I had not lost my mind, we got busy making all of the preparations, getting the required shots and arranging the travel.
A few days before our departure, Miriam’s brother, Father Thomas Dowd (now a bishop), celebrated a cozy send-off Mass at their parents’ home for us. There, I took Father Tom aside and told him not to worry, that I would look after his little sister. He smiled and said, “Oh I have a feeling she’ll be looking after you.” How right he was.
When the big day arrived, January 7, 1996, I went to Mass by myself in the morning at St. Maurice Church. During the homily, our pastor told the congregation about our trip and pointed me out. He asked them to reach out and pray a blessing on me, and with that, every one of them extended a hand toward me, praying for my safety and wellbeing. My whole parish. I felt peaceful the rest of the day. Meeting up with Miriam and our family and friends who had come to wish us bon voyage, I set about the difficult business of saying goodbye to my mother and my brother Rob who had come to see me off. They were understandably concerned, reluctant to see me heading so far away toward the unknown. Ultimately though, they supported me and wanted me to do what made me happy.
At long last, we were in the air heading from Ottawa to Halifax. We giggled an awful lot during the first movie. It was Babe—the one with the talking pig and the dancing farmer. Three little blind mice kept appearing, and the sight of them sent us both into peals of silent laughter. (You can only laugh so loud and so long on a plane before your fellow passengers start to get perturbed….) We didn’t dare make eye contact for fear of setting each other off again. We were both giddy and emotional, as the enormity of what we were doing started hitting home. Besides, the weeks leading up to this day had been busy and nerve-wracking, so this bit of comic relief was welcome.
Eventually, we each settled into our own solitude. I thought about the days and weeks ahead, trying to somehow prepare myself for what was to come. But how do you do that? This was India. I’m from Canada; there was no frame of reference. And other than Miriam, I wouldn’t know a soul there. I was nervous, for sure. But more than that, I was thrilled. This was the trip of a lifetime! Every moment would be entirely new and different, and I was keen to get at it.
Before long, however, I started feeling very unwell, thinking maybe a migraine was coming on. There was sharp pain in both my ears, right down into my throat. I was almost in tears when we called for the flight attendant to ask for help. This must happen to other people, as they knew just what to do. They gave me two small white plastic cups with hot moist paper towels inside them to hold over my ears to relieve the pressure. I guess I had a bit of a cold and the change in pressure bothered my ears and sinuses. Miriam, though very sympathetic, couldn’t help giggling at the sight of me. In her defense, I’m sure I did look silly, maybe like Yoda with round white plastic ears, but I didn’t care. The warm towels really helped.
By the time we stopped in Halifax, I couldn’t hear out of my right ear, but I was just glad the pain had eased. On the second descent, this time in Amsterdam, I had an even rougher time than the first. My ears hurt so much that I was crying. Once we landed at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, I bought some nose drops and used them several times during the next flight. I also bought some ibuprofen and made sure to take it before our descent. Thankfully I was okay. I just kept chewing gum, yawning, swallowing, and praying, and I was okay. It was a long, long day. But so worth it.
We arrived in Bombay Airport and were funneled into a large room where we lined up with a throng of others to show our passports and go through customs. The baggage retrieval area was crazy. A crush of travelers, luggage handlers, and people begging swallowed us up as we slowly made our way to the front. It took a good half hour to find our bags, and we then proceeded through an X-ray machine. Then we found our way to the Indian Airlines gate—one staff person with one phone sitting at a wooden desk. We asked about our flight to Cochin—the final aerial leg on our trip!—and he told us to go outside and walk through the parking lot to the bus marked Indian Airlines. It was 3:30 a.m. and very dark. As we walked out to the parking lot, cabbies approached us hollering “taxi!” at us over and over. It was unnerving. We reached the bus and climbed aboard. The driver, two men, and a young couple all stared at us as we stood there awkwardly at the front. The driver asked to see our plane tickets, gestured toward the seats and stowed our bags. All around us nothing stood still—old style taxis, zippy motorized rickshaws, noisy buses, and just so many cars. This was our first experience of the chaos. We took our seats and waited quietly in the rickety old bus for about twenty minutes.
Then we left for the other terminal where we would catch the flight to Cochin. I felt weird and a bit frightened. My stomach was in knots. Now it was 4 a.m., which is a sort of dark and scary time to begin with. We were so alone on a strange bus in a very strange city with a very bad smell. We passed numerous shacks by the side of the road in Bombay, most made with cardboard and rusty tin siding. People, we realized, were in those shacks—whole families—sleeping. Miriam and I glanced at each other, and then we just stared out the window in silence the rest of the way. That bus trip somehow made me sick—soul sick. It had begun.
Almost thirty hours had passed since Miriam and I had first left home. The endless hours spent sitting in airports, on tarmacs, and in the air had hardly given us a chance for any decent stretches of sleep. We were beat. Here’s a letter I wrote to my best friend, Margie, while waiting in the Bombay airport:
Dear Margie,
Hello from two tired, jet lagged, fed up travelers! We are sitting in Bombay airport, waiting hours and hours for our next flight. The trip has been hard but we’re almost there! Two flights down, one to go. Cochin, here we come! I can’t wait to get on the next plane—hope I can sleep a bit. Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam was HUGE! I think it might be the biggest one in the world but I’m not sure. We actually got lost a few times in there, but it was ok cause our next flight was delayed three hours. The shops were so expensive and so was the food. I paid $9.50 for a bowl of tomato soup! Crazy compared to the $4 or so we’d pay in a restaurant at home. We found a lounge where travelers were all stretched out across chairs. It didn’t look too comfy but it was better than nothing so we did the same. We were able to catch a couple of winks, despite the constant flight announcements, fluorescent lighting, zillions of people, and the SMOKE! Everyone smokes here. Ugh. On our overseas flight there were little monitors on the ceiling showing us where we were. We flew over or near: London, Brussels, Berlin, Paris, Munich, Rome, Barcelona, Frankfurt, Glasgow, Manchester, Hamburg, and more! So cool. Anyway, I’ve had about 3 hours of sleep in the past 27 and Miriam has had about 5. I’m so freakin tired and a bit delirious. We seem to be laughing a lot. Everything is hilarious when you’re overtired. But we are safe and really excited to get to Cochin and meet Father John in a few hours. I’m thinking of all of you in the snow back home as I swat away the mosquitos and move slowly in the heavy humidity here in India. (India! It’s hitting me … I made it!) No complaints though—I love the heat. And aside from eating dinner at breakfast time and vice versa, we’re holding up fairly well. Can’t wait to tell you everything in person.
Bye for now. I’ll write again as soon as I can.
Love Steph
I finished the letter and we heard the long-awaited boarding call for our flight, quickly gathered up our things and scrambled to the tarmac toward the very last plane—the one that would take us to Cochin. And although I was thrilled that we would soon be there, I was desperate to close my eyes.
Once settled, I curved my little travel pillow around my neck. And, pulling my fleece jacket up to my ears like a cozy blanket, I relaxed and became one with the seat. At last I could rest. Closing my eyes, I slipped out of consciousness. It was delicious. Then a loud female voice jolted me awake. I thought it had only been