The Long Night

I’ll admit I’m writing this quite a while after our travel days, but I want to give you all an overview of what it’s like to travel across the world.

During our last day of Staging, they addressed how early we were leaving, saying that they realized it was really early, but they just wanted to make for sure, for sure that we would make it to the airport on time. Well, we did. We got to JFK airport in NYC at 5:30 am. Our flight didn’t depart until 11:40 am, and we couldn’t even check in until 7:00 am. So the staff kindly made a line for us to stand in, and then most of us collapsed. Our Staging staff warned us that it would be a long day of travel and that we should sleep, but seriously now, who was going to sleep? Not I, not I. (Well, I had intended to take a nap, but then I had to re-re-re-pack my suitcases because I couldn’t find something I needed for session….) So we get into our line, and I eventually lay down on the ground and sleep for about half an hour. Then, just before 7:00 am, they let us start checking in. The sign said it should only take us 20 minutes to get through security, but it definitely took more like half an hour to 45 minutes. It’s definitely the longest airport security line I’ve ever had to wait through. At least this time I made it through without having to be patted down….

Once we all got to the gate, some people stayed with bags while we went to get breakfast. Then began the waiting. We probably got to the gate and settled in with breakfast about 8:00 am, so we had three hours or more before boarding. I sat on the floor with my stuff, just talking to people for a while. One person had brought a book of questions (Something I seriously wish I had!), so we did that for some time. When we boarded, I realized just how huge the plane was. My seat was a window seat next to one of the girls I had come to like (not that I dislike anyone), so I was pretty happy about my seat…until I sat down. I realized very quickly that my hips were just a tiny bit too wide for the seats. At first I tried to brush it off, but it ended up being the worst part about the flight. Regardless, I took some Dramamine, ate lunch (My first airplane food! It wasn’t bad.), and dozed off. Through the flight, I probably got 7-9 hours of sleep, off and on. I forced myself to wake up about 3 hours before landing because it was 6:00 am Uganda time. This helped my jetlag to be fairly little. Whoo!

When I forced myself awake, it was dark outside, which was pretty chill! I could see the stars, and it was so interesting. I knew we were in the air, but I felt this strange mixture of feeling both closer and no closer to the stars I was seeing. I couldn’t pick any constellations out because my window was so small, but it was great. Then the sun started coming up, and that was beautiful. I got lots and lots of great pictures of it!

We landed in Johannesburg on time, about 8:00 am local time. We had to go through passport control and another time through security, and then began our layover. The Johannesburg airport is a great airport! There are so many shops, and the prices honestly aren’t that bad. I bought souvenirs for less than $10. In JFK airport it was $30 for almost the same amount of stuff! I was worried about our layover being basically forever, but it actually was a good amount of time. I feel like if it was less we would have felt rushed, but if it was more it would have been too long. Some of us got breakfast (which consisted of a plate of “chips” and a milkshake for me), then we went shopping, and finally I was able to sit and look at my site bid before boarding. I even have some rand (South African currency) to bring home with me!

The flight to Entebbe was my favorite flight of the entire trip. It was only four hours, and they even fed us! The seats were comfortable, and I was able to sit next to a PCT and have a great conversation most of the way. We both slept a bit at the beginning of the flight, but the last 2-3 hours we talked about TV shows, social causes, and so much more.

Landing in Entebbe actually made it real that I was in a new country. Going through passport control and customs was extremely easy – They didn’t even check our WHO Yellow Cards! – and soon we were walking out of the airport to 10+ Peace Corps staff awaiting our arrival! We had our bags put in a truck to be brought to our training center and then boarded the bus. One of the staff came to get us off, though, so that we could get our arrival picture taken. One of our PCTs was in the bathroom when we took the first picture, but thankfully she ran out while we were all still in the same place, so she got into the picture!!

            

The bus ride to our training center was intense. Ugandan driving laws are…interesting…and not well enforced, though I’ll talk more in depth about that in another blog post.  The most confusing thing, though, was that I couldn’t tell when Entebbe stopped and Kampala began. There were shops lining the road the whole way into Kampala, through Kampala, and then out of Kampala to the training center. When we got here, though, they had dinner ready for us! We ate and went to bed, ready to begin the next day bright and early.