Blessings In Disguise (Monday 8 June 2015)

            This cliché never really made that much sense to me. How can something as wonderful as a blessing, be in a disguise that prevents the beholder from seeing it as such? Instead of the blessing being hidden, maybe the beholder is blind or too obstinate to see it. It is far easier to complain about something not being what you want, than realizing that the alternative is actually better for you. Today I got a glimpse at how real this cliché can be.

                  With my parents expected to land in Ethiopia in little over a month, I took out my passport and plastic American bank cards to the Ethiopian airlines office in Mekele this last weekend. I figured I could take a little break from hanging out with friends on the east side of Tigray and get tickets for my best friends’ visits. After sitting in the office for 40 minutes in a musical chair type line, I was finally helped. I apologized ahead of time for the list of flights I needed to purchase both for my parents and myself. After thirty minutes the flights were all scheduled and booked. However, my US Bank card was declined. Not knowing what else to do, I thanked the man, took a printed out copy of the flights I’d booked and left in search of chocolate.  

                  My mind starting whizzing. What was I going to do? I could fly my parents up to Axum and save me a trip down there to cut on two tickets, but I really wanted to give them a break from flight for a little bit and see them ASAP. We have friends in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania expecting us to come and needing flight details to plan that half of the vacation. What could I tell them besides the flight times? I have a good cushion of Ethiopian birr in my bank account here, but not enough for all these tickets. I couldn’t consider being on a 17 hour bus ride from Addis to Mekele and then another 6 hours to my site to save on tickets, but lose out on time. The only thing I could do was quickly log in on facebook and send parents a message to double check that the bank was informed that I was halfway around the world and  this was not some fraud.

Then wait.

This morning I received a message from Dad letting me know that he’d talked to the bank and I should try another card. After breakfast and a rewarding trip to the post office, I crammed onto a bus to Shire. The 30 minute ride swished by as I read a long letter, but I looked up in time to make my stop at the airlines office. I sat for maybe 10 minutes while a woman was helped and then presented my list of bookings to the man behind the counter.

I’m used to some airports’ initials kind of being funky (what is the DX to Portland’s PDX?). ADDDKR had popped up on the print out that I had given him; however, it wasn’t until he read it out for me that I realized a major mistake. DKR is Dakar, Senegal. That’s on the opposite African coast of Dar-es-Salaam. One touches the Atlantic and the other the Indian Ocean. One shares a timezone with Iceland and the other with Syria.  Thankfully, with some laughing and joking, he was able to change the flights (and price) while keeping the dates. He also realized that I could save money if I booked the domestic flights separate from my international ones as I have a temporary Ethiopian identification card, so I quickly sorted those out to two bills saving a little more than $100. By putting all the tickets directly onto my sheba miles he was able to give another discount on all of them. I left with a giant smile after 20 minutes or so.

Sure, someday Dakar, Senegal may be my destination, but I can’t even fathom (or refuse to let my imagination loose on) what conundrums could have popped up for both my parents, and our friends in Tanzania expecting us, if this hadn’t been caught. While I had given my temporary resident id to the man in Mekele, he hadn’t used it to help me. I would have ended up spending more money on the overall trip. When my card was declined in Mekele, my heart sank. However, if it had worked, I would not have the flights that I really needed.

I think that is what ‘blessings in disguise’ are really about: redefining what we need over what we want. I wanted my card to work so badly in Mekele I attempted sitting in line all over again just to try again. However, if I had gotten my want, I wouldn’t have gotten what I needed. Instead, I was redirected to someone who would help and provide me with what I truly needed: Tanzania not Senegal.

Maybe the beholder is blind some times to the blessings presented to him/her in a negative way (card decline, lack of veggies at market, etc). Maybe negativity prevents her/him at being thankful for the gift (I wanted to buy tickets on the weekend not on Monday with an additional trip). But the blessing doesn’t change. I now have 4 correct printouts of a wonderful three week vacation with my parents to all the right places--  thanks to a blessing in disguise.