Twin Ambitions - My Autobiography Read Online Free PDF Page A

thought.
    Actually getting to Europe from Djibouti was quite an undertaking. We had to take a train from the city to the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa – a journey of 800 kilometres. We arrived at a crumbling old railway terminal which looked as if it was falling apart, and from there made our way to Bole International Airport, where we boarded an Ethiopian Airlines flight direct to Heathrow.
    We almost didn’t make it to London. Two hours into the flight, the warning lights flashed on, the alarm began squawking and buzzing and the plane started dropping speed all at once. I remember being stunned by the intense painful popping in my ears. Then the oxygen masks dropped down. That’s when the panic really set in. Everyone on board started shouting and screaming. Some people were crying for help, others grabbing the oxygen masks and hurriedly fitting them over their faces. People were holding hands, like they believed they were going to die. One guy actually bolted out of his seat and started wrestling with the airlock on the emergency exit, shouting that he was going to jump before the plane crashed and killed us all. A bunch of people tackled him to the ground. I saw all this happening, my heart absolutely pounding with terror. Somehow I managed to put on my oxygen mask. I gripped onto my seat and the surreal thought entered my head that this was the first time I’d flown on a plane, and it might well be my last.
    That moment was the most scared I have ever been. I’ve never known a fear like it.
    Somehow the pilot managed to regain control of the plane and made an emergency landing. Amazingly, no one had been seriously injured. There was this strange silence when the plane finally touched down, the doors opened and everyone breathed a massive sigh of relief. We stepped off the plane one by one. My ears were still aching. Mum was shaking. Wahib was trembling. Ahmed screamed with the pain in his ears. Some of the passengers had to be treated for shock. An official from the airline told us that the plane’s cargo door had suddenly sprung open in mid-flight, resulting in a massive drop in cabin pressure. He then explained that our flight would be delayed for at least twenty-four hours. In the meantime they offered to put us up in a hotel close to the airport. We ended up spending four days in this cramped room before the company told us our rescheduled flight was ready to board.
    Five days after leaving Djibouti, we finally arrived in England. I remember my first sight of London. It was late at night when the plane began its final descent towards Heathrow. I had a window seat. As we broke through the clouds I looked out and saw this incredible sea of lights, red and yellow and blue, blinking and shimmering across the land. I’d never seen anything like it. I wondered how they could have so many lights switched on at the same time. In Djibouti the power would have cut out after about five seconds. The size of the city was unbelievable – it seemed to stretch on for ever.
    I had no idea then that I was looking at the city I would soon be calling home.

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HOLLAND, ENGLAND
    T HERE were a lot of things that surprised me about England – but one of the biggest shocks was finding out that Holland wasn’t part of it. When we arrived in Britain, I had this idea in my head that Holland and England were part of the same country. A bit like Wales, I guess. That all I’d need to do to visit Grandma in Almelo was to hop on a train in London and buy a ticket. Before I’d left Djibouti I’d always thought of Europe as tiny. I imagined that everything must be really close together.
    To begin with, we stayed with Aunt Kinsi, my dad’s sister, in Hanworth. This was a tough corner of southwest London in the borough of Hounslow. We lived there for a few days while we got settled in. Aunt Kinsi had lived in Britain for a long time and knew the ins and outs of how things worked. She spent those early days showing my mum the ropes. After