Article November 7, 2005 Issue

'BE GLAD, GIVE THANKS, REJOICE

By Kim Shippey

We met as we took off one winter evening on a South African Airways flight from Kennedy Airport, New York. She had the window seat. I was squeezed in beside her on the aisle. A gracious, elegantly dressed Malawian (as I later learned) who had made no concessions to comfort despite the 17-hour journey that lay ahead of us. I was in a tracksuit.

Within minutes I had checked the dinner menu and was choosing from the list of in-flight movies. When my traveling companion had wriggled out of her suit jacket, she began the frustrating process of working out how to operate the handset for her individual TV monitor.

Half an hour later, an apologetic voice, speaking engagingly pedantic English, appealed for help. As so often happens, it was the lack of detailed instructions with that entertainment center that brought us closer. We worked it out together.

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