Friday, 5 July 2013

Departure Day


And we’re off! 
I am currently through the first (and easiest) leg of a complicated, four-part journey to my new home for the next seven weeks – Lira, Uganda.   The process:  short flight from Dublin to London where I spend four aimless hours in Heathrow.  Next up is a six hour flight to Doha, Qatar where I have a 90 minute layover beginning at midnight local time.  Splendid.  From there, it is just a measly five and a half hour flight to Entebbe.  Hello Uganda!
Oh wait…still ahead is an eight-hour car ride with my hosts all the way north through my new home country to Lira.  I hope they do not expect me to be a functioning, speaking human at that point….  
So far things are moving along well.  They checked my bags straight through to Entebbe despite the fact I change airlines.  At first I thought that was a victory, until I remembered that I change airlines and the last two people I know to arrive in Uganda both had their bags mysteriously delayed.  But I have a change of clothes and some undies in my carry on – I did say I wanted to travel light, right?!
The only other glitch to date (and hopefully the only one overall) was that my flight from Dublin to Heathrow was delayed due to a mysterious 92nd “extra bag” on the plane.  After telling us it wasn’t a computer error and they were opening the cargo hold to find the offending piece, we heard nothing more from the pilot.  Not even an announcement that we were cleared to take off – we simply started backing up.  But we made it so….guess that was fine?
As I sit here in the Heathrow airport, I am oddly serene.  According to my mother, “my face doesn’t look as bad” as it did after my epic ladies night out in Dublin.  So I am considering that a success.  Either the reality still has not set in, I am too brain-dead from my Ireland festivities or I am really am ready to rock the third world in all its pit toilet glory, but either way I will take it for as long as it lasts.
Uganda, here we come!

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