We arrived!

I have a few minutes to post so I'll try to get in the whole story. Here goes:

The first flight was not bad. There was plenty of extra room to spread out though there was quite a bit of turbulence and the flight left Chicago a little late (due to ice?) but not too bad. We had asked when we checked in if our connection was going to be a problem. We were assured that it was not. That proved to be a false assurance. With about 3 hours remaining in the flight it became clear that we were going to be cutting it very close. The flight attendant told us if we hurry we could possibly make it. So they moved us up to the exit row and had us off the plane before the jet way was fully connected. And we ran. No small feat at 11AM in one of the biggest airports in the world. We managed to find our gate, get through security and have our boarding passes scanned before (barely before) they closed the gate. Only to be told that we couldn't board because our luggage wasn't even off of the last plane. I guess it is a security thing to not be on the same flight as your baggage now. So close and so frustrating! What a let down. So we went back through the airport (at a much slower pace) to find somewhere to get a different connection. After standing in line for nearly 45 minutes we were informed that there is only 1 flight a day to Uganda. Strange. Anyway, we were to go to Kenya then get another flight into Uganda. But our flight wasn't until 9pm. We started the challenge of communicating to the rest of the team that we what happened and when we would need to be picked up from Entebbe to get to Kampala. We didn't know our hotel name so really couldn't get ourselves there. We couldn't reach Mike on his US phone because he wouldn't be able to get the message and his Uganda phone was off because they were on the flight that we were supposed to be. We ended up calling Cree's mom so she could call Mike when they arrived. (Thanks Marybeth!)

Then we had 8 more hours to kill in Amsterdam. But we decided that we were too tired to go into the city. Besides missing on flight per trip seems like enough. We didn't want to risk another.

So we wandered, tried to get some sleep, ate some junk food and wandered some more. Finally we departed. But we didn't have our nice KLM flight anymore. Now we were on Kenya Air. It was the longest, most crowded flight I've ever been on. Needless to say we didn't get much sleep that leg. We put down in Kenya around 8am. Right continent, wrong country but we were getting closer. No difficulties with security but it was amazing that we were able to get our boarding passes for the next flight. We were never issues paper tickets for the change, we were just supposed to go to the transfer desk and they would print the boarding passes for the next when we arrived. But "This is Africa" (TIA- you will hear me say that again, I'm sure) and it couldn't just be that easy. It finally worked out fine but for a brief time we thought we were leaving Cree in Nairobi. Anyway, we now had 5 more hours to kill. We did not have Visas and couldn't do customs here so we didn't leave that airport either. It was hot and crowded but we managed to get a few more minutes of sleep. on the upside we ate 5 of the best semosas I've had in several years (with fanta orange of course).
We felt like zombies by the time we were boarding the last time. As they herded us across the asphalt to our plane (Kenya doesn't believe in jetwalks- why bring the plane closer when you can just bring the people to the plane?) It was a pretty small plane but we were only on it for an hour or so. Uganda's airport is lovely, mostly because we were finally where we wanted to be. We were actually shuttled around customs instead of through- I have no idea why but I'm glad because I had the mental functioning of a goldfish by then. We immediately started looking for someone from SM.... and nothing. We had to get some shillings (I'm sure I didn't get the best exchange rate) and tried to find a phone with no success. I finally ended up using the personal cell phone of the person at the information desk (pretty sure I paid way too much for that too) but we did reach Mike and he connected us with the guy who was taking us to Kampala. I'd love to tell you all about the beautiful ride along lake Victoria in the heart of "the pearl of Africa" but to be honest I passed out just before we arrived an hour later. We met the team, had dinner showered and then slept for more than 12 hours. I feel much better now.
It was 45 hours of travel with our best sleep being 2 hours at a time in a crowded plane. Anyway, it is all behind us now. It is time for breakfast and we have a busy day ahead of us. We are headed out to Village of hope to meet the kids. I'll try to post every other day. More stories to follow!