Fabiana Urbina

10/28/2020
Draft #2

Pain infiltrating my skull as my eardrums pop as I masticate my gum to alleviate the

pulsating sensation. Only a couple minutes till landing and I am already regretting getting on this

plane, only thinking about how even out of this plane I would be going to a strange uncomforting

bed in an unfamiliar apartment where I would live for the rest of my childhood. Fortunately,

stepping off the airplane was such a relieving moment, after five hours of sitting, it felt as if I no

longer could walk the same again. Looking around at the modern looking airport all I could see

were signs in English, which none I could understand. At that moment I knew that everything

was going to change, I was no longer in Venezuela. 

We had arrived at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, but our real destination was

JFK airport, sad to say that I was not in a bed but instead having to wait eight hours to catch our

next flight. My mom and I looked at the difference in ambience, the different stores, the people,

the food, just a different atmosphere than what we were used to. Entertaining ourselves was more

difficult than anticipated. Imagine a nine-year-old trying to stay still for eight excruciating hours,

mission impossible. Talking among each other, looking at the bright blinding lights, moving

aimlessly, trying to get an ounce of sleep, doodle upon doodle, time felt as if each grain of sand

were softly landing inside an hourglass. No longer fixating our eyes on the clock hoping it would

move faster, letting time run through without a care because we had time to spare. 

As time passed we decided to head for some food, looking at the endless mouthwatering

choices, we finally found something that was fairly easy to point at and didn't require much

talking, because we noticed that not many people spoke Spanish as of course we are in the

middle of North Carolina. Pizza was the final choice, but to get there, there was a lot of broken
English and pointing. Enjoying the delicious warm, juicy slice of pizza watching the cheese melt

right off the top felt like heaven on earth, so much so that we forgot we had somewhere to be

after. 

Loud words flowing from a speaker to which we paid little attention to since we could

not understand, suddenly our eyes widened, and our heads snapped at the sound of “New York

fifteen minutes”. Immediately we stood up and started running to where we needed to be, all this

time, but we had to wait till the last minute. With our luck, we had not only waited till last

minute, but we still had a bag that we needed to check in. Trying to frantically explain that we

needed to check in a bag to a certain flight in another language was not what I wanted to do with

time running out, and as this ill-fated situation couldn't get worse no one that speak Spanish was

available. My brain scattered as my mom could not comprehend what the man was saying, and

he could not understand our attempts with communication with the needless to say confusing

hand signals. There was no other way but to understand each other, as we had no phones with

working signals and the man did not have the bright idea to use his computer at the time. 

Although I was taught that I could not interrupt when the adults are talking, I could not

take it anymore. I decided after five minutes of never-ending miscommunication, the flight was

leaving soon, and I was not going to be staying any more time in this place. I found a way to

catch the man's attention and point to the bags behind him, carefully watching his slow-motion

mouth movements saying, “Check-in suitcase to New York”. Upon hearing those words, myself,

the light bulb inside my brain illuminated as it clicked that we were finally talking about the

same thing. Finally coming to a mutual understanding, he looked at me and smiled big as he saw

how hard I was trying, despite the lack of English vocabulary I had. But above all that, I walked

to the gate with my head held high, my brain cluttered from what I had just gotten ourselves out
of, as my body tingled with the feeling of accomplishment for not being scared and finding a

solution.