Day 6 – Tuesday, 2/4/2010
So I just want to start off with the fact that within 24 hours, I was on a plane, train, bus, and underground (no automobile, but then it wouldn’t be like the movie if I left that out). I empathized with the disheveled and disoriented feeling that Steve Martin and John Candy projected. I woke up bright and early ready for my flight to Kenya, an hour early in fact. This makes a big difference when it’s 5:30 vs 6:30 (7 hour time change to AZ, 6 to TX) in the morning and I didn’t get to bed until after 2am. I realized many of you would still be up from the night before. What a funny feeling as I was already onto an entirely different day while many of yours were winding down. I grabbed my stuff, tottered along with both giant bags behind me to the underground and boarded a subway.
Sidenote (as this becomes important to the story later): I think I need to explain the difficulties I had with packing. First off about the group: 90% of the group is from Prince Edward Island, Canada, where my mom grew up. My uncle is one of the main organizers of the trip and has gone many times now. With this experience, he gave us a packing list quite long, including binoculars, toilet paper, only 2 changes of clothes, and other random selections. He then said we can only bring one carry on suitcase for ourselves, implying small. Either the list or restriction of one bag could be followed, but no way both could. I decided to manipulate the system and bring a backpack in addition to the suitcase. Initially my intentions were admirable, as all of it would fit in the carry on. Then I arrived in England and saw all the candy…well and the shipping debacle of yesterday, along with finding a couple of really cheap books I wanted in the airport. I now have two bags. Hopefully this will not be too big of a deal. Anyway the main reason for the restriction is that both suitcases we can check should be filled with medical equipment for the mission, and the weight of carrying extra heavy bags would be taxing for the vans. I completely understand this. However, The group leaving from PEI had someone organizing what would be brought in those medical bags. One of my bags is full of stuff my mom got from this guy in a warehouse downtown….literally, that I then got to tote back from San Antonio in my tiny car. I’m not sure if they can use any of this, but hopefully they can and it all works. The other bag was clothes for an orphanage we visit for kids 0 – 5. Lindsey’s sweet sister and a coworker from work donated a large portion, and I filled the rest of the bag with cute onesies from Goodwill. In addition to the packing confusion, I had to try to include clothes for the cold England weather, but that made it hard considering I was only allowed 2 changes of clothes. I left the small bag I clothes I wore while in England behind…maybe Lisa needs a pink or green vneck….who knows! Another fun part of packing is that I didn’t want to have 3 suitcases and a bookbag throughout London…how could I get anywhere!? So I distributed the small bag into the very packed mission bags. I redistributed these once I was at the airport and 34 bags were now manageable.
Okay, back to the day. I started chatting with this nice man on the subway who eventually gave me his email address. Kinda funny, I thought, because we didn’t chat that much, but he seemed cool enough. He’s in an 8 person acapella group that did some of the music for Glee – the background bits that really do enhance that show. Like do you remember the episode with the slushies? The music while you were chasing the slushie cup around was great! Anyway I thought this was a pretty good start to my day, but was surprised 8 people could make a living in a group like this. Awesome work if you can get it I guess! I go through heathrow, check my enormous bags, get through an appalling poor security. They asked us to take out our liquids in a bag, like in the States, but I realized I left a pretty big bottle of mouthwash, lotion, and washing detergent (as I’ll be washing my clothes in the sink every night from here on out) in the carryon. Before you assume I was trying to be sneaky, I wasn’t. I thought these were in the checked bag. Also, I think I accidentally left my little girl watch at security. No I didn’t steal it from a little girl, but for some reason, little girls keep coming up and telling me they like the watch I bought purposefully for this trip. That sucks! Anytawho, I caught a bus to my terminal, met up with my new group, of which I know at least ½ of everyone’s names already! Okay…maybe a 1/3…but I’m getting there.
Final thoughts on England: I had the greatest sense of independence while in England. Truly on my own wandering around new and old places where I wanted, when I wanted. I would seriously consider travelling alone more often, but am somewhat fearful for security purposes. Additionally this trip put England in a much more positive light. Apart from my friends that I still keep in touch with at school, everyone was nasty to me while I was in England, especially the British teachers. The weather was so dreary, and I missed the conveniences of Target and up to date movies. Now though, I can see that was really just high school, which sucks in some way everywhere. Why should my experience have been different? Coming back, everyone was lovely to me and really helpful when I was lost or looking for things. Also the weather wasn’t nearly as bad as I remember, and not having driven yet at 16, I didn’t appreciate the convenience of the bus and train system like I do now. Additionally, the movies are finally up to date and there are two superstores in Harrogate! This was a really great trip for closure. I really wouldn’t mind visiting England again!
In London, I met up with about 20 people from the KenCan group, including 4 teenagers, a few doctors, nurses, a dentist, and the rest of us that will comprise the vision team. Onboard, I’m in coach as coach can be, but on British Airways it didn’t feel like it. I got a nice serving of wine for free with my amazing hot Tiki Masala Dinner (not a McDonald’s wrap like before). Free wine! No way! Maybe this 12 hour flight won’t be so bad. Sadly I read this really scarring book that I’m not sure I would recommend as it was really scary and awful with what this poor girl went through in her life, but kind of uplifting how she started to overcome it. Kind of…. Anyway it’s called Push by Sapphire (Yes I know there’s a movie based on the book called Precious but I haven’t seen the movie and after reading the book I don’t think I will). She had a neat style of writing as you could see how she was learning, but it’s such an awful thing that happened to her by so many people.) Anyway I spent the rest of the 7 flight getting caught up with this journal and getting excited to see my mom! (oh and uncle ted too!) The cute little tv screens showed our journey and I’m pretty sure they use STK (engineer program used for tracking satellites and orbiting information). That’s neat!
During the flight I glanced out the window as we were over the Lybian desert. It was so much of the same in every direction. There was not a cloud below us and it was so beautiful. Later, as the sun was setting, the view was gorgeous! There was black above, and black below, and the brightest orange in the middle. Surely the prettiest sunset I’ve seen from a plane! Then we landed, made our way through a fairly benign immigration, and waited for our bags. At this point we met up with a few more team members, including my mom and Uncle Ted. Getting baggage sounds simple right? Well each of the team members has two large hockey bags that look identical with a giant number on the side. There were only 3 bags missing! Unfortunately, we had to isolate which tags matched the missing bags, which was not a trivial effort. We then got on combies (a ten person van that has a roof that will raise for the safari) for a 5 minute drive to the hotel. About 25 minutes later we got to the hotel and were informed that Kenyan time is not measured by a watch. The hotel was lovely with a very large pool and really nice rooms. There are two single beds and mosquito nets over each bed, and a small bathroom that has the luxury of toilet paper and a shower. I was quite impressed! We unloaded all of the bags, got checked in, and crashed for the night. As it was dark, I didn’t really have an impression of Nairobi, but was surprised to see everyone drove on the left side of the road. I thought I had left Engalnd! A marvelous start to the Kenyan portion of the trip!
Books finished: 4 (additional audiobook by Kristin Hannah: Harvesting the Heart)
Time on a plane: 20 hours
Summary: Another day of travel, with a lovely group of people.
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