Travel Day - 7 Aug. 2010

Traveling to Africa from the U.S. is a marathon of a travel experience. It involves, typically, nearly 24 hours of travel. My flight from Detroit to Amsterdam lasted just under eight hours; and the flight from Amsterdam to Entebbe, Uganda was the same. Add a two-hour layover and my inability to sleep (much) on airplanes, and that’s 18 hours already. Let me tell you what you don’t want to be – a guy having traveled for eighteen hours straight, and moreover awake for 24 hours, arriving in Africa.

Greeted with the customary “it is not permitted to take photographs of the airport” message, I arrived at customs in Entebbe. As is the usual with Customs lines anywhere, there were several booths where frenzied passengers hurriedly filled out customs forms (not available on the flight) and rushed to be the first in line to go through customs. After staggering around and thinking “why do I need to fill out a customs form if I’m only transferring planes” I saw a small room with a sign overhead that said “transfers.” I went in to see another passenger sitting, and a woman behind the counter. I showed my itinerary and passport, and said that I was headed on Rwandair to Kigali. Although I did see a computer sitting on the desk, she wrote down my name and information below the other gent’s and I was instructed to take a seat. Another woman appeared, short, wearing a bright green vest over her otherwise normal-looking airport employee outfit, and an extremely pronounced limp. She said that she was going to take our flight information, and our passports and come back to get us. Now, generally speaking, I was always under the impression that the rule as far as passports goes is – don’t let them out of your sight. Letting the short hobbly lady run, well, scamper off with my passport seemed like perhaps one of the worst ideas possible. After telling her that I had three pieces of checked baggage, she came back and fetched me to “deal with” the situation, as Rwandair only permitted two pieces of checked baggage. She led me on walk through the Entebbe airport, past security, and to the ticketing counters. It was a small room, relatively speaking, with several small kiosks, most of them not staffed given the late hour. A young slight man said that there would be a fee, of 74 dollars. My first inclination was to whip out a credit card, which I promptly did, knowing that they would not be able to process it. I then begrudgingly admitted that I did have cash, but pleadingly said that I was an intern, with not a lot of money. Then, two more workers, women, cam to what seemingly was mu rescue, after I said that I paid $350 USD for that particular bag in Detroit, and that it had been checked all the way though to

The best part of this, unbeknownst to me at the time, was the third bag, for which I was to pay the fee, wasn’t even in Uganda! It somehow missed the connection, and was sent on another flight via Kenya, and would arrive two days later (and did arrive, safely).

After a one hour delay in Uganda, we were off on a small Rwandair jet and a flight that lasted no more than 40 minutes. After a short line at immigration, and reporting the missing bag, I was met by Danny Bey (a 3rd year ONU law student finishing his last week of an internship here) and Geoffrey, one of the drivers for the USAID project. I was greeted with smiles, a 1L bottle of water, and my mobile phone. It was an excellent way to end a long and stressful day.