Africa Part 10 of 10

By the time we got done with dinner, we were running a bit behind our planned schedule so when we got to the airport it was rushed again. More like hurry up and wait. It was dark out and I quickly opened my other suitcase to get my tickets and itinerary. They were not where I thought they would be. So I started to panic just a little. There was a line just to get into the building (they were x-raying all bags at the door). Well, actually there was a mob outside the door, not a definable line. As we tried to keep our spot and move toward the door, I had no space to search the suitcase anymore. When we did get inside, it was just a short walk to the next line (which everybody seemed to want to be in). While in this line, I reached in and fumbled around some more, trying to remember exactly where I had stashed the paperwork. I wasn't finding it. I was getting more and more nervous, wondering if I was going to be able to get out of the country. I am usually pretty organized and prepared for this kind of stuff. I save most of my records longer than I need to. I think I still have some homework from the third grade.

I was stressed, and this line was going really slow. About an hour after we got to the airport, some of us finally started to hit the ticket counter. I let a few of those with tickets go through first so that the service rep would hopefully have a clue what was going on before I got there without any paperwork. Well, as was par by now, the first people hit a snag. Turns out, none of the tickets matched what was in their system, so they had to reissue tickets to everybody. But, this had to happen at a different counter across the lobby. No way man, I'm not getting out of line now. Eventually things got taken care of, although they would only issue us tickets as far as Washington; which is where we switched airlines. Hey, I figured I'd be happy just to get to America; I could handle things from there.

Shortly after the ticket counter fiasco, the plane was ready to leave. I boarded and eventually got back to row 75 or somewhere thereabouts, I had the window seat again and some lady was already in the aisle seat. The middle seat was still empty. Everyone got seated; the middle seat was still empty. The stewardesses closed all the overhead bins, the engines started; the middle seat was still empty. I had visions of stretching out, maybe setting my laptop on the extra tray and going through the photos. The lady in the isle seat set a couple of her belonging in the seat. Just as I began to stake my claim on part of the seat, the captain came over the intercom and made an announcement that; international regulations require them to spray the cabin with some sort of pesticide. He went on to say something to the effect that if we value our eyesight and/or lungs, we should close our eyes and cover our face while they do this. A couple questions come to mind:

1) What the?
2) What difference is 20 seconds going to make, isn't this the same air that will be recirculated throughout the plane for the next 8 hours?

I looked back as one of the stewards set off a couple of bug bombs in each hand and began walking through the cabin. After about 20 seconds (which is apparently the magical time at which the Black Flag will no longer melt your cornea), I opened my eyes and it happened. A panicked man came running down the aisle, totally out of breath and sweating profusely. Nooooooo! I felt my space being sucked away. He slowed and came to a stop in the isle beside my row (huffing and puffing). He looked at his ticket, at the seat, at his ticket, at the overhead label, at his ticket.... I was thinking, "Dude, look around, this plane seats 400 people, 399 of those people are seated, where else do you think your seat might be"? Well, once he figured out that it was indeed his seat, he slid in, leaving a long sweaty streak on the back of the headrests in front of him. He plopped down; overflowing into my space, and murmured "I almost missed the plane!" Yeah, my thoughts exactly. So there I was, now plastered against the window trying not to touch the glistening, heavy breathing guy in seat J.

Well by that time in our adventure, I was getting pretty worn out, so luckily, I got to sleep soon after take off. But then I woke up about 3 hours later. The plane was very dark and quiet, most people sleeping, including my now normal breathing, but still slightly sweaty, buddy. I tried to get back to sleep, wasn't happening. I decided to turn on the monitor and see if I could watch a movie or something. Problem being, mountain man had his arms on the armrest where my controls are located. I could get the monitor turned on ok, but changing channels was a challenge. I had to try to sneak my pinky, slowly and surely within millimeters (a small unit of measurement used in most of the world) of his overly hairy arm and use my fingernail to gently press down on the button. The whole time, praying that we didn't hit any turbulence for fear I might catch some exotic disease from one of his beads of sweat. Remember, this guy came in after the bug spray.

Well, as we flew into Heathrow, I was able to see some of the sights of London along the Tymes River. I saw the Tower Bridge, a very cool Old World style drawbridge that has an observation deck across the top. I saw the new (relatively speaking) London Eye, which is the huge Ferris wheel type thing that was put alongside the river to celebrate the millennium. Also, I saw the Houses of Parliament (Palace of Westminster) and Big Ben. So who names a clock anyway? Let's see, we could call a wristwatch "Little Ben", and a grandfather clock "Gentle Ben". That would make the alarm clock "Not-so-Gentle Ben". Any non-digital clock could be a "Has Ben". The time clock at work could be "Where-you Ben". And let's face it, a pocket watch could be "Ben Gay" or to be a little more subtle "Ben and Jerry".

We had a rather lengthy layover (something like 5 hours). I toyed with the idea of trying to catch a bus downtown and back to see some sights, but to do so I would have to go through customs, and also downtown was a 40 minute ride from the airport, I'd have to be back a couple hours early and blah, blah, blah, So after weighing the time it would take and the risks involved (especially in light of all the airline problems we had been through already), I opted for the safe way out and stuck around the airport. I did a little bit of browsing the shops and had a nice sit down breakfast. Then I just killed some time before heading to the gate.

When we boarded the plane in London, for whatever reason, the plane was once again hot inside, and the air conditioning wasn't on yet. As we walked from the upper class seats back toward ours, it got progressively warmer and warmer. I finally found my seat, which was about (1st class + 20) degrees. I had an aisle seat, but I thought that might be kinda nice, especially if that fish-head-soup finally caught up with me. So, after a bit, the captain came on and informed us that they were going to have to find and unload luggage for 11 people that "got lost" on the way to the plane. Well, that's interesting; it's usually the luggage that gets lost, not the people. But, hey, this is Europe, who knows... maybe the people will show up in a few days with some contents missing...Anyway, it turns out that we sat there for about an hour and a half (yeah 90 minutes) while they located and unloaded said luggage. I was starting to wish I'd worn shorts, or maybe even my Speedos. Once they finally offloaded the "bad" luggage and reloaded the "good" luggage, we were set for takeoff.... Not so fast. Next the pilot came on and said something about an electrical problem. I was only half conscious, but I think it was about another 30 minutes before we were able to get outta there. So we took off a couple hours late from Heathrow. This means that the 3hour layover in Washington had been cut to 1 hour. So, we would have one hour to get off the plane, find our luggage, get it through customs, find America West (because we have no paper tickets), check in, get through security checkpoints and get on the plane. Yeah... no problem.

After a long flight, we arrived on American soil. Once we got to baggage claim, while we are waiting, we asked a British Air rep how to go about getting tickets and seeing if they will hold the plane for us. I was one of the first to get both of my bags, but decided to wait and see what she had to say before continuing on. She came back and said that we would need to run to the America West counter as soon as we made it through customs. So I rushed through customs. Like I had any control over the speed at which the guy asked me questions. He asked "Where do you work?", and I said "Micron Technology. Where do you work?" He was totally not amused at my sarcasm and he stared at his monitor like he didn't know where to look or maybe he was trying to figure his next move for solitaire. Regardless, he eventually stamped my passport, and I walked briskly to the door (so as not to arouse suspicion) before running.

I ran to the America West counter (which was around the corner, down the hall, up the stairs, around the counters and down to the last one). Big surprise, we missed the flight. It was still there, but they had stopped taking luggage and wouldn't let us get on it. They said that because British Air caused the problem, we would need to talk to them. I had her double check, so she went over and talked to them at British Air and said, yes, they will take care of you.

So we lugged our bags back around the far end of the ticket counters and around the corner to the British Air counter. We engage the counter dude in some lively discussion, as he seems totally confused as to what the problem is and what we need him to do. After much confusion, I told him that a rep from America West had just been over and talked to someone at British Air and that they told her that they would take care of it for us (hoping this would give us a new customer service person). But he replied, "Yeah, she talked to me." What?

So we had him get his supervisor and she told us we would need to go to America West counter. I said, ok, could you go with us? She did, around the corner and down to the end of the counter. After more confusion, the conversation started down the spend-the-night-and-fly-out-in-the-morning road. I was trying to be calm but firm, I wanted to get to Boise tonight. I had a bit of an incentive, it was our 10th anniversary and I really wanted to at least see my wife for an hour or two. So, after having to call another supervisor to see if the flight was "Endorsable", they finally agreed that they would send us out on another flight. Problem was, the only one that was available was leaving in 50 minutes. She ran down to see if they had the room and the time. She came back and said we had 10 minutes to get our tickets from America West, and haul our bags down to the Frontier counter to be checked. So, after getting seating assignments from AW, we run down past the end of the counters and on to the end of another set of counters (about 100 yards or so), and checked our bags.

Then, seeing how we purchased our tickets at the "last minute", we were tagged and had to go through extra security. So we had to then run back down beyond the America West counter and get all the bags X-rayed. For what ever reason, they decided to open mine and search by hand. Then we had to run back down past the Frontier counter again and keep going to the security stop. A Frontier lady ran with us to get us to the front of the security line, I'm not sure how much pull she had, but we eventually got to the scanners. After making it through the metal detector, in a strange reversal of roles, the security guard who is of Middle Eastern decent and wearing a sheet on his head, tells me to get in another line to be searched further (again, because we had been red tagged). There were only a few people in this line, but it moved slowly as they had to search each bag by hand and also make us stand in odd positions so that they could use some little gadget to scan our bodies.

I don't know what they were looking for, but the thing buzzed so then I had to empty my pockets so he could scan me again. He then scanned the items that had been in my pocket and my Breath Savers and my anti-bacterial handi-wipes made the gadget buzz. So I guess terrorists usually have clean hands and fresh breath? Whatever, just let me go. So he gave me the go ahead, and after putting the video camera in its case, after putting the digital camera in its case, after putting the laptop in its case, after closing up my carryon, after putting my shoes back on and grabbing my jacket, I was off and running to the shuttle. The shuttle took us to the Frontier terminal, where we had to run to the last gate again (I'm not exaggerating; I don't know why we can't get a flight that leaves from a gate somewhere in the middle). I was totally stressed out and sweating like a dog (do they sweat?).

I finally rushed onto the plane; luckily I was in the aisle seat again, so I plopped down and let out a heavy sigh of relief. I notice that the plane is rather warm again and that just makes me sweat more. I had officially turned into the heavy-breathing-sweaty-guy in seat J. There was nothing I could do about it, I was just happy to be on the plane. After a short period of trying to act normal even though I was sweating off a few pounds, the engines start and the air comes on (slowly). We get out to the tarmac and the engines shut down (No!!!!). The pilot comes on and says that due to a severe thunder storm in our path, we will need to get a new flight plan and that will take up to two hours.

Furthermore, he had to cut the engines to conserve fuel, so we would not be getting any air for a while. That was more than I could take. I got up and stumbled to the restroom, well, I guess it's more of a rest-booth. I went in and used the cereal bowl sized sink, and the water conservation faucet with auto shut off, to take a small shower. Of course there is no cold water, but at least it was wet. Due to the whole disappearing items act from the last leg of the trip, my carryon was full of souvenirs and cameras, leaving no room for an extra change of clothes, and mine were ripening.

Of course, once we took off 90 minutes late, we no longer had a layover at all in Denver. As a matter of fact, we should be landing about the time the other flight is taking off. Sheesh, maybe we should have spent the night in Washington. At least I could have taken a midnight tour of the sights. Who wants to be stuck in Denver? The main thing I know of Denver is, a few years back, they had some fancy multi-billion dollar baggage handling system that wasn't working very well. That made me feel much more comfortable.

Well, it turns out that our flight called ahead and we were told that the next flight would wait for us. Our captain said that they would have an airline cart waiting for us at our gate to take us to the next flight. He also asked the passengers that were not continuing on past Denver to please stay seated so we could get out of the plane smoothly. A few of us got off quickly and rushed to find our waiting cart. Huh, no waiting cart? But we saw one coming, knowing it must be ours, we jumped on. Turns out the driver was just out giving a kid a tour, but she cruised us over to our gate, the one totally on the opposite end of the terminal (yeah, you guessed it, the last one again). The whole team made it just before take off. Well, in all the rush and hubbub, we have not had a chance to call anybody to tell them we are not only coming in a little later than planned (about 30 minutes), but that we were not even on America West or coming from Phoenix!

Once in Boise, in udder disbelief that the flying ordeal was over, I hurriedly walked toward the main part of the terminal and through security. Our original flight was supposed to arrive at about 10:30 (it was now about 11pm), so I wondered if anybody would still be hanging out looking for us, or if they would be wondering why none of us were on the original flight. As I was coming around the last corner, I saw familiar faces.


As it turns out, the original America West flight got delayed somewhere along the line and was just getting in about the same time we did, so nobody even knew we weren't on it or anything about our airline ordeal. Even though my clothes felt like wilted lettuce and, I'm sure, smelled much worse, everybody in my family hugged me. The biggest surprise came when I actually saw both pieces of luggage come around the carousel.







Summary:

Phew, you made it. Did you really read all that? You really need to get out more often.

So I have been trying to figure out exactly what I got out of the entire trip. It's really been hard to process everything. Once I returned home, I was thrust back into the American schedule. I have been really busy. That's part of the reason why it took me a month to get this done. People keep asking me "How was the trip"? Well, it was very good; sometimes sad, and sometimes sorrowful but I didn't regret being there for an instant. I loved being exposed to all that I saw, and continue to be amazed at the diversity of Gods creations.

The Kenyan people were awesome. I was self conscious because I stood out, but I was always treated well. As I said before, this is a very young population (however, I still didn't qualify for the senior discount at Taco Bell). The children impacted me so much. I wish I could ease their hunger, comfort them and cloth them. The young adults impacted me so much. I wish I could bring them over and show them our country, but I don't know if that would be more beneficial or detrimental. I think they deserve a lot of credit for trying to reach and teach their people, especially in light of their own living conditions. To see how the missionaries work impacted me also. They are in a foreign land and must try to merge two cultures within themselves. There are many inconveniences that they face everyday, but they deal with it all so that they can take the word of hope to a suffering people.

Do I feel the need to sell my belongings, quit my job and move to Africa? No, not at all. Would I like to go back sometime? Definitely, but I don't know if I will get a chance to return. There are many many people in this World that are in similar situations. We must not forget that we are very, very blessed to live where we do.

Now I pick up on a lot more when anyone mentions Africa. Whether it is the animals or the AIDS problem, I can relate on a closer level. Maybe someday, I will be able to help them, even if it is just in a small way.

A few years ago, I made a list of things I wanted to do and places I wanted to see. I only wrote down three places outside of the US that I would like to visit. One of my goals was to visit the Serengeti Plain. Well, the portion of the game park in Tanzania is called Serengeti; the portion of the park across the border in Kenya is called Masai Mara. So, yes, I was thrilled to be able to experience the game park and see the animals. I never even imagined that I would be able to visit small villages in the bush and be welcomed into their homes. At the same time, I felt like I had a purpose, helping to spread the word of salvation (even if I am only a nearly-silent partner of the team).

So, if any of you ask me how my trip was, be prepared for a short answer, because I cannot possibly put into a few words what the experience was like. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to talk about it. But I would need more specific questions (a starting point) to be able to answer concisely. Oh yeah, I have over 3000 pictures and some video if this small book is just not enough.