Our group, Fr. Isidore, his nephew Sebastian, Ada, Eula, Austin, Ian, and myself met at the airport for out 11.40 am flight. We met another member, fr. JC at Washington DC, and from there we all flew together.
Before relaxing at the DC airport we first waited in line to print out our boarding passes for the Ethiopian Airlines flight. That is where we entered the African time.î Everything was so slow. They weighted everyone's carry on bag, even though it passed the check in Austin, to make sure it is not more than 15 lbs. Many people had more than that, and the airline wanted to charge them $60 for the overweight luggage fee. Some from our group had suitcases that were 15lbs when empty! WI was able to transfer some heavy stuff to my day pack and pass the weigh at 16.2 lbs, down from 20. Only fr. Izzy had to check his carry one, because it, when empty was 15lbs. Crazy rules. The whole process of getting the boarding passes was REALLY slow, an hour. Again, a need to adjust my expectations and patience to a whole different world.
We spent another 3-4 hours hanging around the airport and then boarded the 15+hrs flight. There were many groups on our flight; church, mission, and summer youth programs groups. 90% of the passengers looked American. It was interesting to me to see the safety instruction video with the animation characters that were Ethiopian looking. The Ethiopian women are very beautiful. The seats were very narrow it seemed; I guess majority of Ethiopians are very slim. But, the food portions they served us were as usual.
After some 9 hours, we landed in Rome for what was supposed to be a 30 min stop. It turned to be 2 hours of cleaning, re-stocking, re-fueling, and crew changing ñ all with us still sitting on the plane. We continued toward Africa and entered via Libya, where narrow coastal region soon turned into the Sahara Desert.
In Addis Ababa we had a 3.5 hrs layover, to finally stretch our legs. By then, we were already traveling for more than 24 hours. The layout of the airport reminded me a bit of the one in Sarajevo, with glass walls. Smoking was allowed everywhere, which forced me couple of time to leave the restaurant to catch some 'fresh' air. Most of the people from our DC flight were again on the next flight to Uganda, which then continued to Rwanda. Many of those groups work with children and orphans, some were even going there to adopt.
We landed in Entebbe at around 1.30, and we were again reminded that we are on Uganda time.î It took us an hour to get through passport control and get our luggage, and then another half an hour to load up the van. I had a room to myself with AC and a bed net. By the time we settled into our rooms, took showers, set up the AC and mosquito nets. It was 4am when I laid down. My mind was struggling for a little while longer to sort the event of the past 36 hours before I could fall asleep.
And sleep I really needed.
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