Notes about my trip in Europe, September 2011.
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En route to London.
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At the line for check-in today, a young Arabic woman with a little daughter came up to me and asked in heavily accented English if I could take one of her suitcases (she had four) in case she was over the weight limit. I agreed automatically and instantly regretted it - wasn't one of the questions they ask you 'did you pack your luggage yourself?' I also remembered that Australian girl, the one on the news a few years ago with the weed. I tried to politely disengage from the woman, checked in, went to the toilet, and then came back, feeling vaguely guilty. I had remembered suddenly that even if I were to help her, it'd be no use since I was headed to London from Abu Dhabi.
She was just finishing up and amicably said it had all gone well. Then she asked me if I could help her with getting to the gate. Over the next few hours we went to MacDonalds (I stayed as far away as was polite), bought perfume, took lots of photos in front of the glitziest, glammiest shops in the airport, and talked about our lives. She had lived in Sydney for six months and was finding English very difficult. Sometimes we didn't understand one another. I had to physically try to slow my speech down and to enunciate - it was harder than I had supposed. I don't know where the father of her girl was - she was in kindy and said that she loved Sydney. Sydney was too quiet, said the woman. I wondered how she would find Canberra. She was going to Tehran with her daughter, where her sister was getting married. I was staggered suddenly by how little I knew about Iran and the Middle East in general. She said she didn't like Ahmedinijad - I told her the same of Putin. I wondered to myself if she wasn't wearing a headscarf for convenience, and would put it on when she got to Iran, or if she just didn't wear one - or if she didn't have to wear one, but was Islamic. I knew so little about that world, and felt vaguely guilty.
We got confused about departure cards together, and she got her scissors confiscated at the security scanners. They didn't treat her any differently than anybody else, and that made me happy, with days to go before 9/11 and the security of every airport, surely, on high alert. The scanner guard smiled at me when I explained I was helping her. Perhaps the world is kinder and better than I thought.

PS: On board the plane. "This is a non-smoking aircraft. Anyone found smoking on board will be removed," says the voice on the intercom, pauses for a second - as me and my neighbour laugh quietly - and blithely continues with its script.