At the mercy of strangers

Our long trip to Tajikistan took us on three flights from LA to Amsterdam to Istanbul to Dushanbe. Changing airlines in Istanbul meant transferring our luggage there. But how to do that in the busy Ataturk Airport while going through the usual transit route and not exiting via passport control to baggage claim? Asking official after official and going from one counter to another (including an unnecessary 30-minute wait in a passport line), we circled around again with a sense of dread and futility to a counter we’d been before, the Havas Celebi Logistics desk. But after all the previous miscommunication or misdirection or being passed on to someone else, this time a helpful guy not only ensured that our luggage was picked up from KLM and transferred to Turkish Air, but also invited us to come around behind the counter to sit down while we waited for the new tags and offered us tea. Was it because Lee had resurrected some Turkish from a 30-year old layer in his brain, because of my haggard look after all those sleepless hours, or simple because he was a kind human being? Bless him!