Thursday, July 29, 2010
IDP camp!!!
Today we worked with the Red Cross to distribute food to people affected by the mud slide back in February. I now have a blister on my hand and I don’t think I have ever been so dirty. We gave them beans and posho (finely ground corn). Each person got 1 kg of beans and 4 kg of posho. We counted it out per family (sometimes up to 44 scoops per family). We estimated about 400-500 families today with over twice that to go. Now time to relax and of course no power tonight!
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
The flight over
The trip to Uganda was definantely interesting. We checked in in St Louis without any difficulty (they even waived to overage charge for one of the medical boxes). Then we went in and sat at the gait. We boarded a little later than expected, but that went smoothly too. Until….we heard the overhead announce that due to severe weather in Washington we were going to deboard and wait until it cleared. About an hour later, it was announced that we would be boarding shortly, then again announced that the delay would be longer. Needless to say it was eating up our layover time in Washington. We were scheduled to take off at 2pm but in reality, we took off at about 430pm. We landed in Washington at 7:15pm and headed to terminal B (where the stewardess informed us was the international terminal). We later discovered it was the D terminal that was connected to the original terminal we had landed in. We got to the gait for Ethiopian Air at 7:50 (we still had to check in to our international flight). After quickly checking in we boarded immediately because we were scheduled to take off at 8:30.
The plane was fairly empty so we had extra room to spread out on the long haul flight. After 3 meals and lots of sleeping, we touched down in Rome, Italy to refuel then took back off and landed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia at 8:45 pm (1245 pm eastern standard time.) It was about a 16 hour flight, not fun. After landing in Addis we checked into our flight to Uganda, scoped the airport and decided what to do. We fought through all of the smokers to see if we could get food to eat. We ended up in an internet café that cost $5 for 1 hour of dial up internet (see face book post).
At 10 pm we headed to the gait only to find a long line to get our bags checked again (boarding time was at 10:30. We stood in line and finally got to the front about 20 after only to find out we were in the wrong line. So we went to the other line only to find 2 lines (not well defined). One was for Dubai and one for Entebbe. Long story shorter, we eventually ended up through the line at about 11pm. Not to worry though, apparently time isn’t an issue there. So both the Dubai and Entebbe flights were sitting there waiting. Finally they call the other flight passengers and took them down an escalator. About 4-5 minutes later they called our flight and took us down the same escalator only to find that the other flight was still sitting there and we were having a pile up at the bottom. We then filed into a line (no one seemed to know what a line was though and everyone was just pushing to get to the front). We then boarded a bus to take us to the flight which was completely full and smelly.
After an uneventful 1.5 hour flight (and dinner served during) we landed in Entebbe, Uganda. Only to find out that we landed at 1:30 am instead of 3:10. So we went through customs (again lots of shoving to be first) got our visas and waited for the driver, who took us to a hostel to sleep until he picked us up at 8:30 am.
We then drove an hour to Kampala, Uganda and exchanged our money (20,000 shillings = 1 USD). Three hours later we entered Mbale and took a restroom stop (the driving is insane and dangerous). Then 1 more hour of swerving to miss potholes (and I mean back and forth across the road the whole time) to the foundation guest house.
Now we are settled in and chilling out until we help the American Red cross tomorrow. So far, definitely an adventure.
The plane was fairly empty so we had extra room to spread out on the long haul flight. After 3 meals and lots of sleeping, we touched down in Rome, Italy to refuel then took back off and landed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia at 8:45 pm (1245 pm eastern standard time.) It was about a 16 hour flight, not fun. After landing in Addis we checked into our flight to Uganda, scoped the airport and decided what to do. We fought through all of the smokers to see if we could get food to eat. We ended up in an internet café that cost $5 for 1 hour of dial up internet (see face book post).
At 10 pm we headed to the gait only to find a long line to get our bags checked again (boarding time was at 10:30. We stood in line and finally got to the front about 20 after only to find out we were in the wrong line. So we went to the other line only to find 2 lines (not well defined). One was for Dubai and one for Entebbe. Long story shorter, we eventually ended up through the line at about 11pm. Not to worry though, apparently time isn’t an issue there. So both the Dubai and Entebbe flights were sitting there waiting. Finally they call the other flight passengers and took them down an escalator. About 4-5 minutes later they called our flight and took us down the same escalator only to find that the other flight was still sitting there and we were having a pile up at the bottom. We then filed into a line (no one seemed to know what a line was though and everyone was just pushing to get to the front). We then boarded a bus to take us to the flight which was completely full and smelly.
After an uneventful 1.5 hour flight (and dinner served during) we landed in Entebbe, Uganda. Only to find out that we landed at 1:30 am instead of 3:10. So we went through customs (again lots of shoving to be first) got our visas and waited for the driver, who took us to a hostel to sleep until he picked us up at 8:30 am.
We then drove an hour to Kampala, Uganda and exchanged our money (20,000 shillings = 1 USD). Three hours later we entered Mbale and took a restroom stop (the driving is insane and dangerous). Then 1 more hour of swerving to miss potholes (and I mean back and forth across the road the whole time) to the foundation guest house.
Now we are settled in and chilling out until we help the American Red cross tomorrow. So far, definitely an adventure.
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