Everyone at the airport was ready. The staff
had put on their best clothes and every single corner of the small terminal
building had been cleaned to the last millimeter. From very early in the
morning, people had arrived to help organize every single part of this
impromptu visit. After all, it was the president of the most powerful country
in the world. And theirs was one of the poorest and most isolated ones on the
whole planet. However, the presidential plane had to refuel somewhere, so the
small nation had received the honor of hosting the president for a few hours.
From the moment they had been warned about the
impending arrival of the plane, hundreds of people were put to work. Not only
those in the airport, people who only really worked on weekdays and even then
only in certain time frames, but also every single operator and technician
available. They wanted not only the people to feel welcomed but also to make
the best work possible with the plane. They got fuel from the city’s reserves,
as the amount they had on the airport was not enough to refill a plane the size
of the one they were going to see in a few hours.
The process required almost every person in
the capital, a city of about a thousand people, to wake up and also help by
cleaning the streets of the city and the authorities enabling the movement of
fuel reserves from where they stored it to the airport, which was fairly close
to the city. People took to the streets with brooms and mops and every single
cleaning help they could get, but the truth was no one really knew if the
president was going to land and stay on the plane or walk around a little bit.
Many people were curious like that.
The president of the tiny nation was the one
that was moving all over his house, calling the right people and asking
everything from food to more cleaning products. He wanted to send a message
through TV but the people of the studios were helping around so he decided to
send it through the radio. It was much simpler and more effective; as it was
the medium of communication that people listened to while they were preparing
the city for the big arrival. Every single person in the country heard it and
everyone understood the importance of the visit.
To the eyes of the world, it was practically a
miracle that their country actually existed. To be honest, it had been a thing
of luck and one of those strange coincidences that happen out of nowhere. They
were too isolated and unimportant. Practically everything they had came from
their neighbor to the east. So they had known starvation and real poverty
because when that neighbor didn’t have enough for themselves, they suffered
too. But the world in general never really knew anything because they weren’t
watching, until now.
The country had no army but its people did
behave like one once the president’s message had reached every single person.
They knew they had around six hours to have everything ready. With luck, the
weather up in the clouds would delay the plane a bit more to give them more
time but they constantly checked with the aircraft and that didn’t seem to be
the case. Everyone had to do their best in the time given. Only an hour after
the president’s announcement, everything was coming up nicely and all citizens
were helping, even elders and children.
A huge amount of people arrived at the
terminal in order to use the old kitchens that some rundown businesses had not
used in several years. The idea was to cook a good amount of their national
food for the people arriving, as well as other dishes that they might like. It
wasn’t crazy to think that they would be very hungry, even at that early hour
of the day. After all, this was all going on in the darkness of the night. The
president was scheduled to arrive around eight o’clock in the morning, so they had
to wake up or not even sleep.
The cooking team was led by the nation
president’s chef, his own wife. It wasn’t like in other countries were the
president has everything and the people below him have nothing. In that nation,
everyone was basically the same. People hadn’t starved in some years but they
weren’t rich or even close to that. So the president’s wife decided it was best
if someone close to the government like her supervised the food. It was the
best way to guarantee that it would be perfect for someone with such a high
profile as the ruler of the richest country in the world.
They acknowledge that all those people in that
plane, around two hundred according to the information they had shared with
them, had been and eaten in places much better than their small country. That
was obvious and they didn’t feel bad about it. But they wanted them to leave
knowing a little bit more of their culture and about what they loved to eat and
drink in those lands. The menu had been defined by the president’s wife and she
was very confident that it was going to be one of the best feasts in the
recorded history of their nation.
It consisted of a special recipe for meatballs
using a kind of cheese that was made from goat milk, which also happened to be
used in their national beverage, which was kind of like a milkshake but less
thick and richer in flavor. They also cooked the goats in various ways and were
very proud about their vegetables and mushrooms, of which they had a very large
variety. Various dishes were cooked with all those ingredients and some spices
too.
The small country’s president arrived in the
airport only two hours before the arrival of the plane, to check everything
out. The terminal had been painted in record time by volunteers and the control
tower was bursting with life when, in normal days, it would only have one
person and not even all day. He thanked everyone there and then went to the
terminal’s commercial area where his wife and helpers were giving the final
touches to the food. The smell had flooded the building and it was very
delicious, so much that many stomachs growled loudly.
Then, he went outside and did a walk around
the tarmac and the runway. There wasn’t a single spec of dust anywhere, which
he thought was absolutely magnificent, especially for such a windy part of the
country. It seemed as if the weather was also helping them achieve their goal.
The red carpet in the tarmac was the same one that the president had stepped on
when he was inaugurated for his term, more than three years ago. A president’s
term was five years and he couldn’t be reelected, which he personally thought
was a good idea.
He decided to check the band that had been
practicing for hour in the cold and congratulated them for the amount of love
they were showing the country. He stayed a bit to hear them play and, to be
fair, they were not as prepared as he would have like, but there was no way of
getting better musicians with only an hour to go. They would have to do. What
made them special, at the end of the day, was that they played their
instruments with real passion and the idea of making their country proud. And
that was more than enough.
The president decided to wait for the plane in
the control tower. There, he would be able to know every detail about the
upcoming visit. When he stepped in, the plane had crossed into their airspace.
It would be only thirty minutes until they touched down in the runway. The
atmosphere was really special. Every single person in the tower, in the
terminal, in the tarmac and even in the city was ecstatic. This was, by far,
the most exciting thing to ever happen in their country. And they had all
worked together to make it the best day possible.
The plane came out of the clouds and landed,
in a very soft and elegant manner. Everyone applauded and greeted the people
inside through the radio. The president ran outside, getting ready with all
others. Many people from the city had come out of curiosity and they had been
allowed to stay a bit further away. The plane parked exactly where they had
determined it should go. For some minutes, nothing happened. Then, the door
opened and everyone stopped breathing for a second. Their moment had come.
