The Peoples Temple
“This is my first trip out of New York,” I say. “I’m going to Guyana. Can you give me some tips?”
The twenty-something year old hardly looked up from his computer. “You need your passport and your yellow fever card. The flight goes out of Terminal Four. Here are directions.”
I’ve been flying for fifteen years now. Directions from one terminal to the next are hardly necessary. I can follow the airport signs. So I thought. And, I wonder why I need my yellow fever card to go to South America. Maybe the kid doesn’t know where Guyana is, or he thinks I said Ghana. I wish I could rid this southern accent.
The twenty-something year old should have given me some deet and a warning: Apply this spray often, and make sure you cover yourself thoroughly. A few crew members have died. Don’t roam the streets; it’s dangerous. There have been reports of bed bugs in the hotel. Be sure to remove the sheets and look for bed bug shit.
Just give it to me straight up.
Welcome aboard. After catching a bus to terminal four and clearing security for the second time at JFK, I find myself wandering the terminal as aimlessly as any passenger who cannot read. I feel like a new-hire. I stop and watch a woman, who blends right in to the melting pot, wearing a short ratted wedding dress and a huge white ensemble in her matted hair. Her mascara is seeping into the wrinkles in her skin beneath her eyes. She looks as though she belongs in a horror movie. A very bad one. Think Courtney Love. I can’t take a picture. I am too close to security.
The gate area is crowded. My Italian decent usually gives me the advantage to blend in in any South America setting. Not this time. Maybe I’ve confused Guyana with Ghana. Where the hell am I going? The people are dark, and most are old, like seventies and eighties old. There are no mission groups, and there doesn’t appear to be one single American passenger. They are towing the same loot as most South American natives: large brown boxes, children’s gifts, toilet lids, comforters, overstuffed trash bags, and square suitcases. Vodka. I make a mental note to skip vodka when I visit the duty free store. Wheelchairs are lined up at the entrance. I count thirteen and all have suitcases resting on the back metal racks. While I wait for the agent to check me in, I reach down into my bag, and I take two Advil. Dry. Okay, three. I will soon be the one who lifts the hundred pound bags of the elderly into the overhead bins. I weigh one-hundred pounds. You do the math. I lift with my knees, just like the doctor told me. If I ever tell you that I cannot lift your bag, take it as a compliment. It means that you are fit and healthy and strong. The airline has a clause. I am required to help the elderly, even if there is a washing machine and a body inside the bag.
Boarding is a disaster. They are climbing over one another as if it is a race to the seats. This isn’t Southwest. They are climbing over me. There is some hidden fear that says it is a game of musical chairs and you must get to yours’ quickly or be left behind. I grab the handset. I threaten over the microphone. I talk mean. They ignore me. I punctuate every ending with, “Thank you for your cooperation. Welcome aboard.”
They’re in their seats. They’re not. There are children in the exit row. We move them. They move back. They look at us like they don’t speak English when we tell them to move. I did read that English is the native language on my briefing report. We threaten with the airport police. They move to other rows. They’re traveling on buddy passes with kitchen sinks! They grab me and demand things. “You fill out my form,” a woman says.
“I’ll be right back,” I say. I don’t make eye contact again.
It’s now 6:00 a.m. It’s hot. It’s terribly hot.
The drive to the hotel is odd (and hot). Different. Disturbing. We watch from the window. There are six of us. The van would uncomfortably sit five. We are pressed together and the air conditioner blows low. I’m sitting on a hump between an overweight male flight attendant and a pilot. I’m the little one; I get the hump. I lean forward and peer through the windshield.
A man is sitting in the middle of what appears to be a landfill reading a newspaper. Our driver stops, and a cow crosses the street in front of us. There are slums and churches.
I strip the sheets on my bed because a friend of a friend on my crew told her there were bed bugs. I don’t see the black dots they told me to look for in the seams or around the headboard. The plugs in the room are the standard three prong like in the United States. I’m glad; I forgot my adapter. The toilet flushes. Another plus. Free internet. Life is good. I change into my shorts and t-shirt, and I head down to the pool. Well, actually, the pool bar. The co-pilot is already there. He’s half-way through a Banks Beer, the local brew. I drink one. It tastes like Pell City Redneck Beer, AKA Coors Light. Water. There’s a sign by the pool: Fogging at 6:00 p.m.
I don’t feel them biting me. I don’t see them. Hell, I wasn’t even warned.
I buy rum at duty free. I leave Guyana.
I google it once I’m home. Malaria. Malaria season. Malaria types. Malaria symptoms. Great. I’m a mess of scabs by this point from clawing at whelps the size of tangerines. Type one: Get to a doctor. Type two: Get to a hospital. Type three: Don’t worry about it; you’re dead. Type four: You’ll never even know what hit you. It’s September; Malaria season doesn’t start until November. If it’s transported by mosquitos, then that leads one to believe it’s not mosquito season. How did I get mauled? I have malaria; I know it.
I call my parents with full intention of telling them I have traveled yet another exotic South American destination. “I just got back from Guyana,” I say.
“Ghana?” My dad says.
“No, Dad. Guyana.”
“Where’s that?”
“It’s in South America. Jonestown,” I say. I think he will be impressed.
“You didn’t drink the kool-aid, did you?” he says.
“What?” I say. I never know what the hell he’s talking about. He talks shit all the time. He’s fucking with me.
“You never heard of Jim Jones?” he says.
“Who?”
“Didn’t you take history classes at that private school?”
“Who is Jim Jones?” I say.
“Google it,” he says. That’s what I always tell him when I don’t feel like explaining something.
For whatever reason, I tell him all about malaria. I think he’ll be proud of me for being so brave since he doesn’t seem impressed with the destination.
“Why’d you go there?” he says.
“Because my airline goes there,” I say.
“Don’t you have more seniority than that?”
So much for impressing anyone with my exotic travels. Another destination done. Been there. Check, please!