Sorry for the late update, but I just recently got the idea to be doing my own blog on our Uganda excursion from one of the students I'm with.
The first day was a 24+ hour traveling day that started at 11:30AM on May 21st. We didn't arrive in Uganda until Friday the 22nd at 8:30PM. To get there we took three flight: one from Des Moines, IA to Detroit, another from Detroit to Amsterdam, and then another from Amsterdam to Entebee, Uganda. All of these flights consist of their very own chapter to my book of stories from Uganda.
FLIGHT #1 - Des Moines, IA to Detroit, MI
Getting to the airpoint in Des Moines everything seemed to be looking like we were going to have a pretty good flight. The only hiccup would've been where one of the students went to the gate early rather than meeting us as the Northwest Check-In counter, but that's not a big deal at all. I was looking forward to a rather comfortable flight because the night before I had managed to reserve an exit row window seat. It worked out perfectly that Dr. Bishop ended up sitting right next to me after switching seats with another gentleman who wanted her seat evidently. After that nothing really too interesting happened. Dr. Bishop and I talked most of the flight and then we landed. Everything was still looking up!
FLIGHT #2 - Detroit, MI to Amsterdam, Netherlands
While we were at the Detroit Airport some of us had decided that we were hungry and went to get a bite to eat. I thought it would be a good idea to get a gyro for my last "American" meal for three weeks. After that a few of us had decided to play a game of Spades to help the time pass. For this flight I'd also checked my seats online before hand, and as far as I was concerned they were going to be just fine. A window seat is my favorite because I can lay my head against the wall. It helps me to sleep a little because I don't sleep very well on flights. As I was getting situated I saw my seat partner and didn't think this was going to be a very bad trip. I was wrong. It turns out that the gentleman ended up being from Africa, and as such didn't feel the need to shower. By the way, this was an EIGHT HOUR LONG FLIGHT! After I got use to the odor engulfing the tri-row area they delivered us a decent meal, but certainly not too delicius because that'd be far to much of an expense for the airlines. After this meal my african amigo passed out immediately. Which normaly wouldn't have been a problem if in doing so he didn't sprawl out all over into my seat. This made me rather uncomfortable and therefore made it difficult for me to sleep. Not to mention that up until this point he'd been stealing the armrest, which seems like a petty thing, but on an either hour long flight it becomes important territory. After a while I got rather annoyed and had to come up with a solution. At this point I decided I had to "go to the bathroom" (code for wake him up and get him out of my area). After I came back from the bathroom the man got up for me again and I speedily sat down, claimed my armrest, and spread my knees as far as they would comfortably go in my spot. With that I though, "HA, take that territory hog!" Little did I know that he was a "pusher." So a couple minutes later he'd pushed my arm off the armrest and taken over my leg room. I was not happy about this, but I wasn't about to have a throw down with some stranger I don't know in a flying tin can. So I just let everything be and decided the next eight hour long flight was going to be a better one.
FLIGHT #3 Amsterdam, Netherlands to Entebee, Uganda
If nothing else this flight was certainly interesting. The layover ended up not being very long. Just long enough for us to grab a qucik bite to eat, then relax a bit, and board the plane. Upon boardinig the plane I passed through a group of people who seemed to be together and they consumed and entire three rows. I'm not going to say a nationality, because people throw hissy fits about stuff like that, but that entire cabin smelled because of them. Thank god I was in the next cabin down. Anyways, just by looking at my ticket I was sure that I was going to be in the single last row of the entire plane. I was wrong, I was in the second to last row, AND in the center seat between two people who were wearing matching green shirts, who were with the other 30 or so people who were wearing them too! They were all going to Uganda, and we figured that they were on a mission trip because on their shirts it had a reference name/number to a Bible verse. Upon sitting down in the nose bleed section of the plane one of my friends mentioned that people who sat in the back of planes, apparently, had a higher chance of living if the plane got in a crash. My friend had already started this conversation with some of the green shirts that were in his row, who were with the same green shirts in my row. Therefore, the lady answered my freind's statistic with, "Well, if the Lord meant for me to die then I would be in a better place. If he meant for me to live I would continue to serve him." With that I just sat back in my seat and decided the lady was trying to seem religious.
As soon as the plane was about to take off I figured out that the green shirts I was surrounded by were Evangelists. During this time it was almost impossible for me to switch seats...I was past the point of no return for eight more hours! I've never been a racisty person, but as far as I'm concerned stereotypes exist for a reason. That reason being: people of a certain group act a certain way. It's as simple as that. And these Evangelists upheld their stereotypes without flaw. The gentleman sitting on my left had passed out for the first two hours of the flight, and the lady on my left just decided to play with the tv screen that was fitted into the back of the headrest infront of her. After a while the flight attendants came around with a snack and eventually a nice meal. Everything tasted pretty good with the exception of the main dish. I still have no idea was it was. Then the flight attendants brought everybody a hott towel to clean our dirty paws with at which point the man on my left had turned to me and asked randomly, "Do you think you're going to Heaven?" With which I answered in wonderment, "I think so." "Well what makes you think that?" the man replied. I told him that I thought I was a good person, and I've never done anything terribly wrong. Then he went through every single one of the Ten Commandments and asked me if I'd violated any of them. Obviously, I had. Basically, over the next hour, he told me that if I was ever going to be forgiven for any of those violations that I would need to immediately adopt Jesus into my life. He made sure to explain EVERYTHING to me. At this point in my educational plane ride Bible study I decided that this would be the wrong time to inform him that I was a homo! With that I thanked him for educating me further on Jesus, put my headphones in, and shut him out.
EIGHT HOURS LATER - Entebee, Uganda
Finally, we'd landed, cleared customs, and retreived MOST of our baggage. Unfortunately, my bag was one of the two that didn't make it. It decided that Africa wasn't very much fun and that, instead, it would take a trip elsewhere (more on this later). Obviously I had to go file a lost baggage claim with the baggage claim office in the airport. It was quite a process. My first observation of Uganda: their work ethic is FAR different from ours. So now I was stuck in a foreign third world country with nothing but a carry-on full of food, my laptop, my camera, and a pain in my ass!
Upon arriving at the Red Chilli, which is where were planning on staying until the following Sunday, I noticed that it was an interesting little place. It was rather hidden back behind one of the more busy streets in Kampala, and was kind of quaint. Nothing was very well finished and didn't really need to be. It seemed to be a place where people were just looking for a place to stay reguardless of what it looked like, and it showed. This was my first shock of Uganda. I walked into our "hostel apartment" into our living room and found two wooden chairs with a coffee table and couch to match on the right. The fabric on all of the furniture was stained and worn, the paint was chipping off the walls, and each room only had one florescent light dangling from the ceiling covered by a cheap thacker shade. Upon entering my bedroom, which I'd managed to score a queen bed and no roommate, I noticed most of the same conditions as the living room with the addition of my mosquito net hanging over my bed. Then I moved onto the "shower room", "toilet room", "kitchen", and "dining room." In one quick sweeping summary...disgusting. The kitchen I never planned on using for fear of infection, the dining room was just dirty, the toilet room was even more dirty and smelling, and the shower room was smelly and had mold growing everywhere. With those calming thoughts in my head, including my lost baggage and how I was going to survive with not toiletries for as long as I didn't have them, I peacefully passed out under my mosquito net.
