Back again in Dubai… I’m here to edit the Al Jazeera documentary on Fatima Meer that I’m working on. The company producing the project, Hotspot Films, is based here. I worked for them early last year on the film about Tatamkhulu Afrika. But this is not what this post is about.
Yesterday, when flying to Dubai, was one of the most trying days of my life… no exaggeration. I missed my connecting flight to Dubai at Johannesburg airport. While it being my error for not double checking, my boarding pass for the JHB – DXB flight had my boarding time and gate closing time left blank. All it said was time : 2PM. I assumed that meant the boarding time as there was no other time on the pass. When the time came for me to board, I got a call from Emirates saying the plane was about to leave. Panicked, I ran to to the boarding gate and while trying to duck to through the queue barriers to get to passport control, I tore the front of my pants! Crotch flapping open, I frantically ran what felt like a kilometer to the boarding gate but by the time I got there it was too late. The flight had been closed. And I was in the airport all this time! At Mugg ‘n Bean nogal! I couldn’t believe I had let this happen. I just focused on trying to not hate myself and called my mom (as you do when your world falls apart.) My girlfriend too. Since my passport had been stamped out, I was technically out of South Africa and in no man’s land. After about 4 frustrating hours of confusion and misdirection from airport officials and the most walking I have done ever in one day, I eventually managed to check back into South Africa and get onto the next flight to Dubai.
Once on the flight, I noticed a familiar look woman sit right across the aisle from me, it was Fatima Meer’s niece! I had met her in Durban when interviewing her dad Dr Farouk Meer, Fatima Meer’s brother. This coincidence was just to good to be true. I told her that I was on the way to Dubai to finish work on the documentary on her aunt and she couldn’t believe it either. It was a really good omen for the work that lies ahead of me, especially since I was feeling some anxiety around the edit (as I always do before an edit.)
For me these kinds of coincidences are God’s way of steering you in the right direction, or to tell you you are on the right path. If I hadn’t missed my flight, I wouldn’t have been sitting next to her. In that sense I realised that sometimes life doesn’t go as we plan, but we just have to roll with it, and just maybe there’s a reason why bad things happen. And when we do make a mistake, we have to not hate ourselves for it and get caught up in the drama, but accept and move on.
Today in Dubai I started listening to the new Roots album Undun (amazing) and I felt this next track just jumped out at me
I was always late for the bus
Just once can I be on time
Then I start to think, what’s the rush
Who wants to be on time
Feeling unlucky and if I ever got lucky it was one time
In this crazy world
Happy weekend, everybody.
VALLEYWOOD 