Recipe for disaster.

I hate Netherlands

Between April 10th and 13th, I experienced one of the best worst journeys back to Kenya i could ever ask for. However, I am happy that this journey happened because I now do not have the zeal (maybe it will be back) to travel anywhere on earth by plane. Social media has idolized traveling so much that it has sort of become a symbol of a happy life. Utter woke nonsense. (I want to go to Argentina though).

Athens, Greece

This seems like a radical statement. However, I think it is an adaptive mechanism from my brain that has learned to associate planes with danger. For example if a friend of mine comes to me right now and asks me if i want to go to dubai, man wewe enda. (This is not influenced by any geopolitical reasons).

I have to say I knew this was coming. I had experienced utopia before i travelled. Life was so good it felt uncomfortable. I even texted my friend Jeremy, telling him that I miss the adrenaline rush of chasing assignment deadlines.

By the way I think a lot about planes falling from the sky. But before my two flights back home (We were connecting from DC to Amsterdam to Nairobi), I had a dream that we would not reach nairobi as planned.

Now, i have been watching air crash investigation every week when i was a kid back when I wanted to be a pilot. Actually, i have watched all air crash investigation episodes between 2012 and 2019. I liked them so much I was hoping for more episodes but i realized that planes had to fall for nat geo to keep producing absolute cinema documentaries.

As I side effect, I am able to understand elements of aeronautical engineering. Takeoff speed, bank angles, runway sections, propulsion systems, auxiliary power units, depressurisation and that difference in sound when the engines start during taxi.

I try to deny this all the time but every takeoff i experience i make this calculations in my head. Like when i see the flaps going up. I know the only thing stopping the plane would be a bird strike on either engines.

Over my growth i have adopted some kind of pessimistic reasoning. And this was my same line of thought during takeoff from DC to amsterdam.

I’ve never been to amsterdam, but flying over europe is really my highlight, seeing Manchester, my fave blue team from above is a bucket list moment. I will be there to watch anyone in the sky blue jersey score if God allows.

I arrived at amsterdam eight hours later to connect my flight to Nairobi. My layover was 5 hours. I landed at 7am Ajax, and my flight for Nairobi was at 12pm.

That airport is simply the best i’ve seen. There was a pianist playing interstellar when i was walking around. There is a piano section that allowed me to recall my skills. That movie was so good i learned how to play Hans Zimmer when in high school.

Then it was time for the flight to Nairobi. When boarding flights to Nairobi, you always feel home, there’s always someone speaking kiswahili. The familiarity is too uncomfortable for you not to start a conversation.

We took off from schiphol at around 12.41pm. As much as i wanted to travel around the world when i was a kid, this time i missed kenya so much. Because fair enough some of my dreams have already come true. Special shoutout to Lionel messi. I saw messi play and score, alongside Rodri de Paul. Managed by Mascherano. I don’t even believe i am writing this in past tense. Yani I saw messi.

Okay let’s get back to the flight. Everything was okay, save for the dramatic turbulence i noticed when we were abover the Adriatic sea.

It was about this time when the Cabin crew announced that there was a medical situation on board and asked for any doctor on board to volunteer. I judge people from the moment i see them. I judge books by the cover. Something in me knew this guy on the far end row was some sort of doctor. He seemed unreasonably fit for his age.

The cabin crew gave the guy a short interview, asking him what he specialized in, and how long he’d been working. He was then led to the patient in one of the fuselage decks quickly.

By this time everything was calm. But everyone had an awareness that the medical emergency would affect the journey. Maybe an emergency landing, or something of the sort. In my mind i am already running pilot procedures for emergency landings.

I follow the map when i board any flight, and even track my flight code online using flight radar. We had just reached the mediterranean when I saw a location update of our journey. The new direction? Athens, Greece.

The pilot then makes an announcement that we will be doing an emergency landing for the patient to be attended to, and that he will perform a fuel dump to make the plane light enough for landing. This means the radius of the turn would be slightly longer than required, and the bank angle would be small enough for me not to notice.

I have to say I was happy knowing i am adding Greece to the list of countries i have visited.

Maybe calling the athens landing dramatic would be an overstatement. But it was a normal landing until i saw a something like an ambulance coming towards the runway. Then i knew that this trip would be more interesting. On a random saturday what am I doing in Greece.

The pilot informs us that since we did an emergency landing, a compulsory ground inspection on the plane would happen just to make sure everything is okay. And we would have to stay in athens for 1 hour.

I immediately ignored the possibility that the plane had an issue to avoid being fearful while trying to convince myself that it was just a ground inspection.

So i did not try to worry during the one hour. After one hour, the pilot makes this announcement that kind of scares me. Scare is an understatement. Frighten, would be more like it.

The ground engineer found an issue with the left engine. There was a fuel valve malfunction that would be attributed to wrong readings if the flight was to proceed. By now i am able to recall the full sentence, but at that time i only heard ‘malfunction’ , ‘left engine’ and ‘fuel valve’. Those 3 words were enough to make me very uncomfortable on that plane. Luckily for the Somali next to me, he did not understand English, and I had no intention of translating that announcement because I was too afraid to speak of what I heard.

I start walking around the plane and asking the cabin crew questions. They got bored of me. They probably had a more stressful time than the passengers.

Currently the situation is that I am on a faulty plane. And the issue had been discovered only because of the sick passenger. Now, people have their own views on religion, it’s this, it’s that, why did this happen, why did that happen, but I cannot ignore it was an act of God. As my godfather told me, ‘Ey nir that was a God thing you know’.

By this time i am sight seeing greece through the plane’s window. Greece looks so mathematical. It seems every building has been built where it is with a certain respect of engineering precision. It seems that this is an ideal place for the human mind to thrive, so much that it can even develop to form foundational concepts on human understanding.

I could not help but think of Icarus, a story I read in primary. If you fly too close to the sun, your wings will melt away. Why do people get consuned in pursuit of their own dreams? So much that they forget the constraints that life has put for them? But the pursuit of dreams demands both an acknowledgement of constraints, as well as some sort of dignified ignorance if you are to break the limitations that constraints have meshed.

I’m carried away by Greece. I want to go back there, but not in an emergency landing. If fate, time and religious precision align with my consciousness.

We had stayed for four hours on the plane when the pilot says that the engineer had not been able to fix the issue and the possibility of accommodation in Greece would be growing.

First of all, even if the plane was fixed, i did not want to go anywhere with it. I’m not flying on a debugged plane, as an only child. Sometimes i wonder what it feels like putting all your hopes in one child, hoping that life turns out great for them. I assume that it’s an overwhelming perspective, because life is an ultimate combination of unseen forces and intentional actions that shape how a kid grows. You can’t control the safety of a child when they’re in a random plane on one corner of the earth. Ultimately their life is in a pilot’s mental health, an engineer’s thoughtful consideration, and many other unseen things. In the Ethiopian airline crash of early 2019, a Nakuru man lost all his children, together with his wife. He had simply not travelled on the plane.

It is overwhelmingly crazy that a sick man on a plane could be the difference between another person’s life or death.

After one more hour, the pilot says that the plane has been fixed and:

1. Operationally, getting accommodation in Greece would be difficult because KLM did not have partnerships there.

2. We would not proceed to Nairobi because the pilots were well over the legal flight time to Nairobi. The distance of Nairobi was a limitting factor of the journey continuing.

3. Netherlands was in legal range, and accommodation would be easier to get if we flew back to Netherlands.

4. The best option is to fly back to Netherlands because the plane was fixed

You mean we are still flying on a fixed plane. ON A FIXED PLANE. To me that sounded like a death sentence. I did not want to fly anywhere with that plane.

I had no option anyway. I was coming to a close acceptance that death was innevitable, and if it was my day, it was my day.

During takeoff back to Amsterdam, the plane was uncomfortably buoyant on the runway at a section that was a point of no return (no braking). You can imagine my heart rate during takeoff.

Everyone was awake except the old guy next to me. I assumed there is a certain element of fear that goes away with age. Like fear of the innevitable. He looked like he was just fine with death. For a moment i wanted to sleep like that but my brain was overcalculating any possibility of anything. Turbulence over france was terrifying.

One hour to landing, the pilot makes another announcement. At this point we were expecting to get KLM accommodation. And the announcement goes like: Unfortunately we are not able to find accommodation because it is too late in Amsterdam, and accommodation would be really difficult to get at 1AM. However KLM is offering blankets and pillows that may help you at the airport. And the pilot added more corporate shenanigans. They said KLM staff was waiting for us at the airport to give necessary directions.

We were directed to empty ticket offices, and told to use ticket systems to look for accommodation. The ticket systems didn’t even have internet connection. I quickly learned that they were pretending to help, when the reality already was that we would sleep in schiphol.

Immediately I knew that I was a data element at the spreadsheet of KLM management, and they had to maximize their marginal revenue, and that wasn’t going to happen with providing accommodation to 200 people, majority of which are Kenyans.

Now, at this point in my story, I am about to make a procedural rant (viven en un cantry) on KLM, and why I don’t like Netherlands. There will be elements of irrationality in this rant, but they accurately describe the atrocious events that followed.

The dutch guys seemed really comfortable because they were just going back home anyway. For me, i was going to sleep at the airport in a country i’ve never visited.

We land at Schiphol at 2AM. We are ‘welcomed’ back to netherlands with the klm staff. Each one of them saying sorry for the flight. I mean at least first of all i am alive. KLM will rather have you fly on a debugged plane than compensate passengers on accommodation. Let me repeat to myself that we were variables at the management’s spreadsheets. Butchers are not benevolent. They sell you meat because they want your money, not because they want to you have food on the table.

The staff at the airport hand us QR codes that redirect us to the KLM website, saying that we could get accommodation options. The Websites were all in dutch. I was still in denial that I would be able to get some sort of accommodation. Given that I get terrible amounts of sleep and i had been in an aircraft fuselage for like 20 hours since DC, i can safely say that i could not afford to connect the dots.

The KLM crew flat out pretended to help us, even though we knew what was coming. We were to sleep at the airport. So, i walk through the airport to look for comfortable spots to sleep, and I find one really far, like at the end of the building. It was quiet, no escalator noise, and no 2AM flights coming in, just guards on patrol maybe. I manage to get 3 hours of sleep from 4am and wake up at around 7 am. I then check my email.

KLM sends me an email saying my flight to dares salaam has been scheduled for 10AM. Pure confusion. I am Not going to dares salaam, I am going to Nairobi. I call my cousin to ask her about this email because she is the one who booked my flight. My cousin, equally confused tells me to “go with what they say”. Looking back, i should have gone to the klm ticket office and asked them what is this dares salaam thing. But i did not. I was too tired to walk around the airport, had a headache, and stomachache at the same time, so I did not bother. I just assumed my flight to Nairobi was at 12pm because the only NBO flight of the day was at 12pm.

So i wait till 11.20 for boarding. When I am queueing, my boarding pass does not scan. I am led to the inquiry desk before boarding. Instead of these crew members speaking english, they decided to speak dutch when processing my details. Maybe, i know enough german to understand fragments of dutch. But something in the lines of “dumb” was mentioned during their conversation. Having searched the translation, I was correct.

“Mr Benir, you missed your flight to Dar es salaam, KLM rescheduled your NBO flight to Dares Salaam and from there you were to connect to Nairobi using a KQ flight, please stand out of the platform. You cannot board this plane. It is full. Go to the KLM office”.

The idea of sleeping in an airport twice does not sound probable to me. KLM has to give me accommodation today since i missed the flight, right?

At the ticket office, they say the next flight to NBO is on Monday, and they would give me accommodation since i have a visa. Now I am quite okay with that, or rather happy, because it meant that i was going to stay in Netherlands for a day.

They tell me directions to the terminal where i would get the transport to the hotel, since it was already catered for. The terminal was outside of the airport, meaning I had to go to immigration.

Now at the immigration line, there is a section for EU citizens, American citizens, and Non-EU citizens (me). However i am lead to none of those queues. I am in my own separate line. In fact, no one else is in my line. Eventually, i reach the customs officer, while processing my passport, they start speaking dutch, for five good minutes, in front of me.

I am lead to a white room where i am told to wait. That long wait, just made me know i was going to be interrogated for some sorts. And my passport was handed to another officer, more armed than the customs officer. I noticed he had handcuffs, pistols and gym muscles as well. Do I look that threatening to society?

They ask me a series of confusing questions.

So are you flying from DC to Nairobi to Amsterdam?

No I am flying from DC to Amsterdam to Nairobi

Why are you in Amsterdam?

I am connecting flights to Nairobi.

You were supposed to travel to Nairobi yesterday, why are you still here today?

My flight had a technical issue

Did your flight have a technical issue or a sick passenger?

Both

What time did you land from Greece?

Yesterday

Yesterday? Not today? Wait, we landed today at 2AM.

More dutch. Even more dutch. I am trying so hard to restrain myself from calling this racism.

No english feedback is given to me, and instead, i am led to another room. I am extensively searched for narcotics, until i meet one kenyan officer who tells me “Yeah wewe ni kama security wali deny entrance yako huko, hakuna kitu unaeza fanya”.

Hearing this Kiswahili was somewhat comforting, even though the delivery was bad news. I was not disappointed. I was stagnant at this point. All i knew was i wanted to get back home. By this time my parents have also not slept for two days.

I am told to go to the KLM office and tell them my issue.

Actually, i had not eaten since Greece. It was visible. The cheapest piece of shit in Amsterdam airport goes for 15 euros, that’s a pretzel and small sized juice. But i wanted chapatis and beef stew, not over marinated pretzels and salty bread. I tell KLM to give me food compensation, which they do. Although they give me a 15 euro voucher.

Besides, KLM tells me i have 3 options if i wanted to go back home. I could take a flight to Qatar, then from qatar i connect to Kenya. The strait of horumuz had openned. Option 2 was to take a flight to south africa and then connect via a KQ flight to Kenya. Option 3 was a set of pillows and blankets to help me get through the night. I took pillows and blankets.

The strait of hormuz closed on monday morning after two ships were attacked trying to cross it. KLM would have abandoned responsibility if i got stranded in capetown. And the last thing you want is to depend on KQ for help.

So i pass time, a lot of time, for monday to somehow reach faster. I get a meal, there was a mcdonalds. Idk what the guy serving saw, but he gave me a free juice. Managed to eat a burger and fries and juice. This is when i talk to strangers. South Africa, Nicaragua, chile, portugal even Indonesia. Random people going anywhere.

Night finally comes. There is a spot where two bolivians were also stranded and their flight was on monday as well, so i decided to join them because we were kind of in the same situation. Just when i manage to close my eyes, there’s this ‘passport check’ going on. We are woken up by police and they ask us for passports.

Now guys, my passport photo was taken in 2013 when i was eight years old. There is little resemblance of that in 2026. Allthough in the dutch conversation, i understood that the officer refused to believe that i am indeed the same person from 2013. Just a slight change in height and a glow up. They instruct me to look them in the eye, and they shine this torch on my face. Same for the bolivians. After the interrogation we just laughed. The bolivians did not understand english well so the guards were just hard on them.

I quickly thought of how helpless i was. How the world does not recognize you at a foreign land. How people can treat you based on what they think. How you can be treated as a statistic on a spreadsheet. With the bolivians, although we did not understand each other well, we understood each other enough to laugh at the situation we were in. I kind of wish they came from Argentina because we would have spoken about Messi the whole night.

By this time, I knew i wanted nothing to do with Netherlands. This experience has shattered my whole view on netherlands. I will not even support netherlands in the world cup. It is hard for me not to judge anyone from Netherlands that i meet. That airport experience maybe requires some sort of undoing project in my mind, because i cannot wish to have any friends from netherlands.

Finally i slept, boarded my flight to Nairobi and i was home by Monday midnight, or tuesday morning 12am.

I wish you could tell KLM “the world is round” . But that won’t happen. Probably they will keep on making profits until I die. It is pointless to hold a grudge with a multimillion dollar company.