Saturday March 18, 2006

I’m currently sitting on the 747 that will be taking me to Africa for the 3rd time. I’ve already been in transit for about 17 hours, and am preparing for takeoff from Heathrow. The flight is quite empty, so I have my row to myself, and I even have those little screens in the seat back in front of me. Dare I say this will be the most luxurious flight I have ever taken to the Dark Continent?

I managed to get about 4 hours of sleep on the flight from Miami to London, and I had some familiar company. Geoff and Kathi Gathercole were on my flight to London to celebrate Geoff’s mom’s 90th birthday. With that said, the sleeping pill (extra strength) didn’t seem to work too well, I took it before take off and it was 3 hours before I first dozed off. I also had a chance to see Mom during my short layover in Miami from Orlando. We got to see each other for about 30 minutes. Hopefully we will get to visit for a little longer on my return flight; I have a longer layover then.

Now, having been to Africa before, I thought I knew what type of clothing would best suit the climate there. However, nobody told me it would be 0 Celsius in London. This was not too pleasant since at Heathrow, they move you between terminals and from the gate to the plane on buses…which are outside…in the cold. Lesson learned, hopefully.

My lay over in London was about 3 hours, I treated myself to a Chai Tea at the Starbucks there…I was curious to see how that transaction shows on my MasterCard statement with the exchange rate factor and all.

I imagine I’ll watch a few movies on the flight, which is close to 8 hours long. There is an 8 hour time difference between Nairobi and home; I told everybody it was only 6, oops!

Can’t really put into words how much I’m looking forward to some time off of work, although this is my first international trip where I will have to be without Jessie since we’ve been together. Good thing I’ll only be gone for a week! The wedding is only about 4 months off, and she is just wrapping up her spring break.

My flight to Nairobi landed a few minutes early, and I have to say, it’s great to be back in Africa! We all disembarked and headed to the Visa counter. James had found on the Kenyan Airport Authority website that there was a special stamp I could get with my visa, “Visitor Pass,” that would allow me to pass freely from Kenya to Tanzania to Zanzibar and back. Unfortunately, nobody knew what on earth I was talking about. But, I asked a few people, and some supervisors said that the Visa itself was good for that type of local East African free transit travel. My bags made it on time too, good thing, cause it’s gonna be a hectic week, and I gotta hit the ground running it seems.

James was waiting outside of the baggage claim area for me. It was pretty cools to see a familiar face in the crowd, especially this far from home, and it was just great to see him. We drove back to the mission and talked about the folks who work here, the other missionaries, etc. It seems that Ryan left yesterday for a cluster meeting in Uganda, and I won’t even see him! James and I stayed up, going through the stuff I brought him and getting ready for tomorrow. We are headed to the Masai Mara national preserve tomorrow morning, flying out at 9:30 or so…hit the ground running right! The weather here is beautiful so far, but James said it will be warmer when we get to the Mara and then on to Zanzibar. But, it’s about 68 degrees F tonight.

I took my Malaria medicine, James made sure I drank lots of water with it, because apparently if you don’t, the pill will burn your esophagus. Eventually I got to bed at around 12:30. Gotta be up at 7:00 tomorrow, if I can sleep through the night…I’m pretty excited. James also introduced me to some of the missionaries that were here tonight, the Mays family, who apparently will be hitting me up for Disney tickets sometime in the not so distant future.