Twawebwa Mukama

It’s going to be a long trip to Uganda (+more to come)

Yes, we’re making another unique journey. A cheap ticket, so there’s more to spend on the project, but a trip not without obstacles. It started in Antwerp, where we had to take the train to Amsterdam Schiphol. Once we’d shown our train tickets at the airport, we would be allowed to check in. But the computers at Antwerp Central Station were out of order, so we were given a piece of paper attesting to this fact, which we could show the train conductor. The conductor was prepared for this, but not for an e-ticket which began with a train trip. However, it was there on paper, and he couldn’t object to that.  Our transfer at Schiphol should have been  1 hour and 45 minutes, but the train was delayed by 20 mins.  The automatic check-in didn’t work, and the KLM desk wasn’t running particularly quickly. We were finally informed that a smaller plane would be used on the route, and that not all booked passengers would be able to get on board. And, guess what, thanks to our late arrival, we were not among the lucky few.
Next flight this evening… gave us the opportunity to get to know the enormous Schiphol airport in a leisurely fashion.
OK…. so it’s now after that evening flight and we’re in a hotel in Masaka……….uuuh, Masaka! Yes, Masaka! After that evening flight we arrived 20 minutes late in Nairobi. We only had one hour for our transfer, and we were waiting for the door to open… for 25 minutes. 20 minutes late plus 25 makes 45, which meant running. We made it, though, and that last flight went by really quickly. So quickly that we were afraid that our bags couldn’t possibly keep up. At the baggage reclaim we waited for our 6 suitcases. There they came: 1…2…3…4…5…??? Sure enough, suitcase number six didn’t show. After checking with the computer, it appeared that it was still at Schiphol, where they’d had all day to load it.  So we whiled the day away with visits in Masaka. Tomorrow we have to go to Entebbe to retrieve our prodigal suitcase. We wondered if there were any suspicious contents in it which had showed up on a scan. After Christine’s comment, that must have been the case. In it were a mobile for Apollo, a laptop and …… peanut butter! A deadly combination for a terrorist attack……
More to come.