Jeff receiving his certificate as a flight attendant at the Hilton Hotel in Nairobi in 1986
Jeff inside the Airbus A320 enroute to Berlin with Zahra, Marie and an instructor in 1987
Pan Am graduation ceremony at the Hilton Hotel in Nairobi in 1986
Four months after leaving Saint Mary’s I was desperate for a job. Many of my former classmates were either in university or were already working and I felt I needed to do something to kill the boredom and feeling of helplessness. I needed a job, any job to help support my mother and also save to help get into college.
One day Mother ran into one of her old students, Rachel Koigi, who told her she was looking for an office clerk to help with running errands and other office duties. My mother, knowing I was bored and getting desperate at home, suggested I give it a try.
I did and got the job working for Banker’s Trust Overseas Representatives Incorporated, a Nairobi based American merchant bank. The local Managing Director was a German, Horst Schnoze, who had more than a decade experience in the banking sector.
Banker’s Trust had a multi-million dollar portfolio to conduct business with local Kenyan banks. Truthfully, I had no idea what a merchant bank did but that did not matter. At Banker’s Trust was a former Saint Mary’s student, Linda Joshi, a beautiful mixed-race woman with a big smile and who had graduated several years before me. Rounding off the small work force was Linda’s older sister, Jennifer.
Starting at the bottom of the ladder as a clerk was not easy for me, as I had been successful in school and held so many leadership positions. On a typical day, I ran errands and felt cool when I got to cruise around town in the company car to pick up important paperwork from the Bank’s clients. After a few months, I was allowed to file reports and compile a data bank of clients for future business dealings.
Three times a week after work I would get permission to leave a little early to go for rugby practice. I was still determined to make it as a collegiate or even as a professional athlete. I was an adrenaline junkie and missed competitive sports since leaving Saint Mary’s. I joined what was then a young upstart club called Barclay’s sponsored by the bank of the same name. Many of the players were like me, straight out of school and working their first jobs. I was glad to at least have a job. Inactivity at home would have killed me.
Six months into my job, Linda popped her head into my office as I was filing some reports and asked me if I knew that Pan Am, the famous US Airline, was advertising for jobs for local flight attendants in the newspapers. Linda and I had often discussed our future beyond Bankers Trust and here was an opportunity of a lifetime.
I knew for sure that Mother would not approve, but Linda and I applied anyway and so did more than ten thousand other applicants. I actually did it just for the fun of it and after submitting my application, I forgot about it. Three months later, in January 1986, I received a call from a lady called Jezel who said she worked for the Pan Am Station Chief in Nairobi.
She informed me that I had been shortlisted for an interview as a flight attendant. Having forgotten about the application, I was surprised but quickly agreed to attend the interview. Linda too had received a call and her interview was the day before mine. We were both excited for each other, and nervous.
On the day of the interview, I arrived at the office early, finished my chores and dashed out to the Nairobi Safari Club where I found a long queue of applicants.
One of them was a beautiful young Kenyan woman of Asian descent who introduced herself as Shaila. We exchanged nervous pleasantries and waited as one by one, we got called into an adjoining room. When it was my turn, I walked into the room to find an impeccably dressed middle-aged woman in a nice pinstriped suit and reading glasses who motioned for me to sit.
We chatted for a while and she asked me why I wanted to be a flight attendant. I gave her the answers I thought would get me hired, wanting to see the world and enjoying serving and working with people. She asked me whether I spoke any other languages other than English and Kiswahili and I told her I had taken some French lessons back at Saint Mary’s. Twenty minutes later the interview was over and she told me I would receive a letter in the mail in the coming days.
I walked out just as Shaila was also leaving her interview. We exchanged some more pleasantries. She wondered if I knew that there had been thousands of applicants and when I answered in the affirmative, she said that she did not think she would make the cut. I told her that I did not really expect much out of the interview and wished her well. I went back to Banker’s Trust and resumed my duties having put the experience behind me. I asked Linda how hers went and she seemed excited and confident.
A few days later, I got a letter in the mail. I had been selected as one of forty flight attendant candidates to undergo training at Pan Am Airway’s Flight Academy in Miami, Florida, all expenses paid. I could not believe it!
Suddenly my world had opened up. I had been out of school more than a year and was about to see the world in a way I never imagined. Excited, I dashed to Linda’s office to tell her the good news only to find her in tears. She had received a letter of rejection.
I did not know what to say. I felt guilty. Had there had been a way for me to offer her my place, I would have done so. However, Linda ever so magnanimous wished me nothing but the best. “This is the beginning of the rest of your life,” she said, adding, “Go get ’em!”
When I broke the exciting news to Mother that evening, her disappointment and disapproval was scathing. I had deliberately not mentioned my interview. I explained that this would be my chance to get out of Kenya and see the world. Mother did not mince her words, “See the world? As a flight attendant? That’s not seeing the world.
You’ll be a glorified waiter in a dead end job and one day you’ll wake up and you’ll be forty years old and still serving people on an aircraft,” she lectured, “Is that what I raised you to be?” I was too excited to argue and she probably had a point but at the time it seemed like the opportunity of a lifetime and I was not about to let it slip away.
I resigned from my position the following day and began preparing for the trip. I would need to apply for a passport, an entry visa and receive all the necessary immunizations. In the meantime, Pan Am had arranged for the finalists to meet at a cocktail event where the announcement would be made to the public.
It was a grand event and I met the other thirty-nine candidates. Shaila was among the finalists and we congratulated each other. Three of the forty finalists happened to be former Saint Mary’s students. There was Ian Martin, Linda Joshi’s cousin, Chris Coutinho, a Kenyan of Goan origin and myself.
We departed Kenya on February 9th, 1986 flying Business Class for the very first time in our lives.
There was a large crowd at the airport to see us off. Everyone had their own group of family and friends but collectively it looked like all of Nairobi was at the airport that day. Freddie and Wangui drove me to the airport and I felt proud to have my family around. I remember waving to the crowds, some of whom were my rugby teammates from Barclays Bank.
Walking up the steps of the Boeing 747SP was great and it was my first time ever on an international flight. I was assigned a window seat, 10A next to Ian. We chatted excitedly as the flight attendants offered us champagne, juice and a choice of magazines and newspapers.
They demonstrated how to straighten and buckle our seat belts in preparation for takeoff. As the plane took off into the beautiful African sunset, a sense of freedom engulfed me. For the first time in my life, I was going to be on my own. I was about to see the world, meet new people, explore my talents and fulfill my dreams.
Once the aircraft reached its cruising altitude of thirty nine thousand feet, we had a chance to get up, walk around and chat among ourselves. The average age, I would find out was about twenty-one. I had just turned twenty the month before.
The oldest among us was Mike Gitau, a tall thin, very loud but extremely personable character. Mike had worked in the service industry as well as various local airlines for a number of years. He was a walking, talking encyclopedia and when you needed advice, you went to Mike.
The second oldest was Fred Arungah, the complete opposite of Mike. He was slightly built, quiet, kept to himself and only spoke when spoken to. Others in the group included Richard Nyundo, a tall handsome former model who was originally from Rwanda.
His family, he told us, had fled the country during a civil war back in 1979 and ended up in Kenya. He was a graduate of Utalii College, a prestigious Hotel and Tourism Management school in Kenya and a part time model. There was Maggie Mbogo, a boisterous and buxom socialite who loved the sound of her own voice and loved a good time even more. Gloria Kakenyi was Maggie’s best friend and we would find out later that no party ever took place without them.
Others included Marie Muchoki, Ruth Ngugi and Njeri Gathungu. They would be come known as the ‘Three Musketeers’ as they were never far apart from each other. Rose Too and Betsy Atkinson were both half-Kenyan and half-British. There were five Asians in the crew, Chris Coutinho, Mehboob Sadiq, Mohammed Khan, Shaila Chaudry and Ezmina Ramji.
Unquestionably, the most beautiful duo in the entire crew were two Somali Kenyan cousins, Dunai Abdi and Zahra Abdi. They were often mistaken for the supermodel, Iman. The two were gorgeous but never flaunted it. They exuded a quiet confidence. The others included Cecilia Yewa, Jimmy Tuti, Charlie Muthama, Peter Obara, Janet Kago and Rahab Mbugua, known simply as Ray-Ray.
“Start paying attention to how the service is done,” said one of the chaperons accompanying us to Miami, “That’ll be you pretty soon.” We studied the service for a while but I doubt any of us paid much attention. Five hours later we landed in Lagos, Nigeria.
Nigeria was at the time ruled by a Military government and it was a tough place to do business by any standards. Luckily, Nigerians are always flying, mostly on business trips.
The West African leg turned out to be the most lucrative for Pan Am. In Lagos we were not allowed off the plane. We took off again and an hour and a half later we were landing at Roberts Field International Airport, which was about forty-five miles outside the Liberian capital, Monrovia.
Liberia was a former colony for freed American slaves and was considered the continent’s oldest republic. Roberts Field was named after one of the country’s early presidents, Joseph Jenkins Roberts.
Incidentally, Roberts Field had one of the longest runways in Africa, more than thirty-five miles long. We would later find out that it was constructed specifically for the National Aeronautical Space Agency (Nasa).
The runway was supposed to be an ‘alternative’ airfield created in case the Space Shuttle ever deviated from its normal course and had to force land in Africa. The country’s President, Master Sergeant Samuel Kanyon Doe, was a military man who had overthrown the previous government.
Our chaperons informed us that Roberts Field would be our ‘layover station’ once we began our flights. We would deplane as the American crews continued on to New York. Three days later the aircraft would return with a fresh batch of passengers and we would take over, via Lagos to Nairobi. Labor laws did not allow non-American citizens or non-union workers to fly into US airspace. I realized we were merely good, cheap labor for an airline experiencing financial challenges. We did not mind it in the least bit. We were heading to the United States and that was all that mattered.
Roberts Field felt like a really nice place to be. The place seemed peaceful, the people pleasant and friendly. It did take a while to get used to the Liberian ‘accent’, a heavy mixture of deep American South meets West Africa. They called it ‘Patwa’.
Little did I know that fifteen-year’s later, I would be returning regularly to this place, reporting from what would become one of Africa’s most volatile nations. For now it was a destination of peace and tranquility, rare in West Africa at the time and our future, ‘home away from home.’ Our layover hotel was a five-minute walk from the terminal. It was appropriately called Roberts Field International Hotel.
After seven hours in the air we were exhausted. I do not remember landing in Dakar, the Senegalese capital. I was woken up for breakfast an hour before landing at the John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. I pushed up the window shade to see an endless stretch of skyscrapers in the distance. Wow! I thought, so this is New York! It seemed like I was still dreaming and if that was the case, I certainly did not want to be woken up.
We landed shortly after, touching down on an icy cold runway and on American soil for the first time in my life. We were ushered past immigration and into the lounge where we would stay for five hours before taking our onward flight to Miami. This was the first time any of us had seen snow and we strained our necks to watch the maintenance crews and baggage handlers’ work in the snow.
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