CF, a common abbreviation used in our family for an enormously screwed up situation

From Jim Mergens:

Wednesday March 24

Sherry,

I hope you see the humor in this and not think you are reading the words of an aging whiner.

Even the schedule within the schedule, the shadow schedule is not accurate today. 1B, first grade, which in the official schedule has Amharic 1st hour, but on the actual or shadow schedule, the one most followed, reading is scheduled for 1st hour. When I went to this class math was being taught. Miss Azeb, the first grade Teacher shrugged and asked if I hadn’t seen the new schedule that came out this morning.

I have been here ten weeks and while this completely screws up my morning I don’t find it surprising. Every day is similar to this. Yesterday I do not know what happened at school because the transportation schedule was screwed up and no car came for me –also not unusual. I could have called for a ride but I would have been late for 1st hour which they probably didn’t have so I said fuck it and went to the Hilton.

I needed to go to the Hilton to try to fix our return flights which were messed up because of the NWA/Delta/KLM/Mesaba ClusterF. Of course I had to deal with KLM since we were flying it to Amsterdam on the first leg of our flight. I explained to the Ethiopian lady behind the KLM desk that on our NWA itinerary we had reserved seats, but on the new KLM itinerary our seats were listed as unassigned. The woman busily typed in what seemed to me to be an extraordinary amount of data after which she said that the flight and the flight numbers had been changed twice since our original purchase and in the process we had lost our seats. I didn’t make the obvious pun, but I asked her why they would do that and she replied rather huffily that it wasn’t done intentionally and I asked politely if she could kindly restore our seats. She of course couldn’t because the seat computer was not working so I would have to call KLM at the Addis airport on Monday and she gave me what she thought might be the number.
I breathed deeply in lieu of screaming profanities and at that time a wondrous new thought came to my addled brain, why not ask her to check the remaining flights on our tortuous journey home. Of course a thought like that is indicative of how far from logical thinking I had sunk but I asked the question. She said in a tone that seemed to suggest that I was a fucking idiot she would really like to check for me but she had no way to access Delta’s computer. I began to stutter and drool. Seeing the frenzy in my eyes she handed me a document then stood up and said something about lunch. I sat perfectly still for about 2 minutes fearful of looking at what she had handed me, fearful of looking at anything. And then I stood up and walked out of the Hilton and down the hill to Meskel Square where I went to the museum of The Red Terror.

The Red Terror was the time of the Derge, about the mid seventies. Famine and torture were rampant and real suffering with millions of people dying are chronicled in this museum. I think it is still the image that most Americans have of Ethiopia. But it made me realize how petty my problems were and while I didn’t leave there with good feelings, I did leave with a better perspective of what a lucky guy I am. It didn’t even bother me that what the KLM agent had given me was an almost indecipherable itinerary that makes me wonder if we will ever get home.

And then it was 5:00 and our ever reliable driver Ketima was to pick us up between 5 and 5:30 to take us to Tekle’s house, fighting my geezer time mentality I waited until 6:20 to call him. In a panicky voice Ketima said ”Oh my god Jim I forgot our appointment, I will be there in ten minutes. I looked at Karen and shook my head. We walked to the end of our alley and 20 minutes later an embarrassed and apologetic Ketima appeared. He had called Tekle and explained the situation and asked her and Yoseph to meet us at Fasika restaurant which is close to her house. We arrived there first and found that Fasika’s was closed for remodeling. The day had been a CF from the beginning and it appeared it would continue. However, {to be continued}


From Sherry - well, he never continued with this, but I think the day ended quite well. They spent the evening with Tekle and Yosef, Hana's grandmother and brother, and had a beautiful time. The most amazing thing is that I pulled Hana out of her math class and we called my parents while they were with Tekle and Yosef. HANA WAS ABLE TO TALK TO HER FAMILY FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE SHE LEFT ETHIOPIA!! It was beautiful and wonderful and unforgettable. Ketema translated for us, except when Yosef said in English, "Hello Hana, I miss you, I am in 5th grade". :) Wow, we are so blessed.