Friday, September 14, 2007

Mission Journal Day 2



We ended up arriving in Zurich only fifteen minutes late. We must have had a powerful tail wind all the way across the Atlantic. Fortunately for us, our departing flight was only two gates over from our arrival gate. We had about an hour to take a bathroom brake and stroll through the terminal. To my surprise, we had to pass through another security checkpoint inside the terminal even though we arrived and would depart without going outside of the concourse. I began worrying about time again when I saw the row of metal detectors. But, the security people didn’t make me take off my shoes or make me take the camera out of the case. We passed through quickly and found our gate with twenty minutes to spare.

Twenty minutes to take in the sights of Switzerland. Well, I was unimpressed with what I could see through the glass walls of the terminal. I expected Zurich to be a large European city surrounded by snow-capped mountains. From where I stood I didn’t see a city. The mountains that surrounded the airfield were more like hills, instead of proud members of the Alps. The view reminded me of what I would see if I was standing at the gate at Asheville Regional Airport back home. I was disappointed I didn’t see fluffy white snow, settled into jagged rock cliffs. Only in the movies right?

We had a good flight into Kenya. It lasted seven hours and was pretty much uneventful. I did have to switch seats with a young mother and her baby. The three of us were together in the center isle. A two-year-old boy sitting in the row in front of us kept turning around in his seat and teasing the baby while the mother was desperately trying to put the baby to sleep. The boy’s father did absolutely nothing to keep the kid from reaching over the seat and tapping the mother on her head. So I gave her my seat and I sat behind the out of control two year old. I must not have been a good target for the boy because he didn’t turn around and try to tap me on the head while I was reading.

We landed in Nairobi at about seven o’clock in the evening. This was the end of our two-day trip. But I still felt like I was having one very long day. The overnight flight from JFK to Zurich seemed short because it was only dark for about six hours. When you are flying east you are flying toward the sun essentially speeding up time. I caught a nap or two on the ride but was never able to sleep longer than thirty minutes. So I had not gone to bed in twenty-four hours. A very long day indeed.



Stepping off the plane felt like da-ja-vu. Once you have been to a third world country you know it when you come back. While Jomo Kenyatta airport didn’t have various military planes performing touch and goes on the runway, the buildings and the character of the place was the same. I felt like I had stepped back in time. Everything looked old and extremely worn. The chairs in the terminal had that retro sixties look. When we got to baggage claim I saw men in various different military uniforms. Some wore green while others had a blue uniform. They were carrying old rifles similar to the ones the Germans carried in old war movies. No American made M-16s here. It felt and looked like the middle east but different.

Grace asked me if I thought everyone looked the same when we walked through the crowd. She was referring to the fact that there is very little diversity in Africa. “No,” I replied. “When everyone is wearing the same clothes and the same cloth on their heads, that’s when they all look the same.” I was talking about the Arabs in the Middle East.

We grabbed a Smartcard and found an unoccupied spot beside the conveyer belt to wait for our luggage. On the opposite end of the baggage claim area from where we stood was a wall of windows with a crowd of people pressing up against the glass. I felt like an animal at a zoo being watched by all those who stood at the windows. Grace said that security keeps everyone out of the entire airport except ticketed passengers. The people pressed up to the glass were family and friends waiting for arriving travelers. Unlike in the U.S., they were not permitted to roam freely in the baggage claim area. “We have very tight security here,” Grace said watching me look at the mob outside.

I strained to see Fr. Lawrence, Grace’s husband and mission trip coordinator, in the crowd but could not see him. As I looked, Grace’s question about everybody looking the same came back to me. Even though everybody was dressed in the Western style I was used to, I noticed just how much everyone did look alike. I didn’t see all the different skin tones and eye colors you find in America.

The bell on the conveyer belt rang letting us know that the luggage was about to come out from behind the wall. I was curious to see if all our bags had made the trip. Since the layover in Switzerland was so short, I wouldn’t have been surprised if our bag were still en-route to Nairobi. I shouldn’t have worried. Grace’s monstrous duffle bags full of medical supplies came rolling out with all the other luggage. But, as it came toward us on the belt, I noticed that one of the duffle bags was ripped open on one end. When I pulled the bag off the conveyor and set it on the cart, clear liquid began running out of the hole onto the floor.

“Oh God,” Grace whispered when I pointed out the puddle on the floor under the damaged bag. She said she had packed a couple of one-gallon jugs of hydrogen peroxide in that bag. “I wrapped them in garbage bags just in case they started leaking.”

I guess we were lucky enough to have that gorilla from the old Sampsonite TV commercial handling our bags on this flight. Grace opened the bag and tried to rearrange the medical supplies to stop the leaking peroxide while I got our other bags together. “We better get this out of here before the customs officer sees this,” Grace whispered as she wiped her wet hands on her pants. I piled all our stuff on the cart and rushed out the door to meet up with Fr. Lawrence.

We took a short drive through Nairobi to the guesthouse where we would be staying the night. It was dark so I really didn’t get to see much of the city. They didn’t have a lot of streetlights and the buildings were not lit up like the one’s here in Charlotte. I did notice we were driving on the left side of the road. I also noticed that they didn’t use stoplights at intersections. They also used those horrible roundabouts like the ones I became so familiar with in Kuwait. I was very thankful someone else was driving instead of me.

In the parking lot of the guesthouse the leaky duffle bag caught our attention again as the driver lifted it out of the trunk of the car. It left a puddle on the floor of the trunk.



We were staying at the International Bible Society Guesthouse. On the outside it looked like a hotel. But when I saw the inside I was reminded of a college dormitory. The first room I walked into was the dining area. It had four large tables where groups of folks sat enjoying tea and watching television. A staircase off to one side lead up to the second floor and to our rooms. My room was small and the bed consisted of a three-inch thick foam pad. No box springs and no headboard or footboard. A mosquito net hung from the ceiling. There was a closet but I didn’t see any other doors in the room. Where was the bathroom? The single bathroom for the entire floor was at the end of the hall. Did I mention this place reminded me of a college dorm? I dropped my bags on the floor and rushed back down to the dining room for my first Kenyan dinner.



The chef brought out three plates piled high with meat, rice, pasta, and a variety of vegetables. I recognized the vegetables to be carrots, cabbage, and spinach greens. The meat I wasn’t so sure about. I popped a piece of meat in my mouth but didn’t recognize the taste.

“How do you like the Gizzard,” Grace asked watching me chew with a puzzled look on my face. So that’s what it was. I liked it. It was tastier than chicken and wasn’t dry or chewy like the bird I’m used to eating at home. Once I had wild duck prepared for me by a friend who was an avid hunter. The gizzard was very similar to the duck meat. In any case, after two days of eating prepackaged airplane food, I would have devoured pretty much any home cooked meal placed in front of me. I enjoyed every last bite of my first Kenyan meal.

Once my belly was full I was ready for the bed. I can hardly sleep on an airplane so I had been awake for two days. I opened my suitcase to discover the Sampsonite gorilla baggage handler had struck again. Everything in my suitcase was covered in Gold Bond medicated body powder. Nice. I was shocked because my suitcase was a hard plastic shell. The bottled water was intact. The tubes of antibiotic cream and sun block were fine. But somehow the lid of the powder had been knocked off during the flight.



Grace went and got a wet towel, and helped me beat the powder out of my clothes. When we finished the floor was covered in white powder. I didn’t mind, the air in the room was a little stale and the powder made the room smell much better.

I was more than ready to get a shower and hit the sack after all of the excitement of our journey. I took my powdered underwear and walked down the hall to the community bathroom. I got a shock when I saw the shower. There was no showerhead above the tub. Instead, the tub faucet had a hand held shower attachment with a tube coiled around the spout. I was going to have to hold up the showerhead with one hand while I washed with the other. Then I got another shock when I turned on the hot water. There wasn’t any hot water even after I let the water run for several minutes. Oh no, was I going to have to take a cold shower? I decided to try the cold water just in case the two were backwards. Sure enough the water started getting warm after I turned on the cold water knob. Man that was a relief.

I had expected my accommodations to be a little less convenient than what I was used to in America. But I have to admit I was a little baffled with the mixed up shower faucet and the foam mattress bed. Not quite roughing it, but it definitely had the feel of living in a third world country. But, once I lay down on the musty thin mattress I was out until rays of sunshine warmed my face the next morning. As long as you get a good night sleep and wake up feeling refreshed, who cares about anything else?

Sunday, September 9, 2007

Journal Day 1, Part 2



By watching my best friend Jeff and his wife having to pack half of their clothes into a cardboard box, I had an idea of how to deal with the situation if Grace’s duffle bags were overweight. She thought maybe the ticket clerk wouldn’t charge her if the bags were just a few pounds over. I knew better. I guess it’s just the cynic in me but if these bags were even a half of a pound over, we would be forking over the extra fifteen bucks they charge for overweight luggage.

In an effort to prevent wasting time at the ticket counter, I decided to be proactive and started weighing the bags at an empty ticket counter. I wrestled the first bag up on to the scale and it weighed in at 52.5 pounds. This was not encouraging so I quickly dragged the second bag up on the scale. I cried out, “its 54 pounds” as I read the digital screen. Grace looked at me with horror on her face. “Don’t shout out the numbers,” she said to me in a hushed tone.

I checked myself knowing my voice gets louder and louder when I get anxious or nervous. But, I had an idea of how to solve this problem before it was our turn at the ticket counter. I had weighted my suitcase last night after packing. It was only 37 pounds. We just need to transfer some stuff from the duffle bags to my suitcase. We were the next in line so we had to move fast. I opened up my bag and told Grace to start moving stuff out of the duffle bags. She still believed the ticket clerk would let the bag pass without charging the overweight fee. I pitched the last duffle bag up on the scale and it read 57 pounds. Now I was worried that there was too much weight even if we used my suitcase.

Sweat popped out on my forehead as we opened up three duffle bags. To my surprise, I found boxes of Band-aids and packs of diapers inside instead of clothes. I had no idea we were taking donated medical supplies with us. I reached into the pile of gauze and boxes of latex gloves to find the heaviest items I could find to remove. After a few minutes of juggling cargo and losing a few places in the growing line of travelers, I had all the bags evened out at 50 pounds each. But, we had a small pile of stuff we needed to find a place for. I quickly packed the leftovers into my backpack, which I was using as a carry-on bag. Crisis averted. We checked in and rushed to the security line.

Navigating JFK Airport in New York turned out to be a bit of a challenge. When we got off the plane, we couldn’t figure out how to go to catch our connecting flight. We were not in a concourse with multiple gates and monitors with departing flight information. It was just a hallway leading away from the plane. I began looking for some kind of airport map while Grace looked for someone to give us directions. Grace found a person before I could find a map.

Once again my anxiety level started creeping skyward when Grace told me we would have to leave the terminal and take a train around the airport to our destination. Leaving the terminal meant we would have to go through another line at a ticket counter. We would also have to go through security again which meant I would have to take off my boots and open up my camera case again. I thought once you got checked out at the first airport you wouldn’t have to do the dog and pony show again. I was wrong.

Of course we got on the wrong train. Turns out that JFK has three different trains moving between ten different terminals. Some helpful fellow travelers set us in the right direction when they saw the panic on my face. As always I was worried about time. It took us two hours to get from our arrival gate to our connecting flight. Hopefully in Zurich we will not have to leave the terminal and go through the ticket line and the security line for a third time. I’m a bit worried that we only have a little over an hour to make our connection and we have been sitting on a runway in New York for the last hour and a half. We are on our way now but I feel our flight out of Zurich may be in jeopardy. But hey, I’m on vacation. I need to chill and enjoy all the in’s and out’s of international travel. We have an eight-hour flight ahead packed with free movies and a gourmet dinner. How could life get any better?

Monday, September 3, 2007

Happy Birthday Bro



Happy 37th Birthday Jeff. Yea, I know, you had to call me to remind me your birthday was today. I bet you thought I was going to let your special day just go by without any congratulations or well wishes. It may have been to late to send a card by snail mail but we live in a modern world with much faster ways of communication. Instead of something on paper that you would just toss in the trash after it sat on your desk for half a year, how about a special blog post in honor of your birthday. I dug into your old wedding photos and found this picture which shows just how I feel about you on your birthday. Now my feelings for you are immortalised on the web so if you ever have any doubts, just come back to this special birthday post.

I love you bro and I hope you have a very happy birthday even though you are spending most of your day driving down that lonesome highway between North Carolina and Florida.