Home Again
April 29, 2006
We are back home.
It feels odd to be here. I don’t know how to explain. It is as if we never left, but also like we don’t quite belong.
All of our flights went smoothly. We boarded in Cape Town and flew two hours to Jo’burg, arriving at 9:30 pm. Three hours later we boarded a four hour flight to Nairobi. We all passed out during the flight. Upon landing we discovered that Z had wet himself and the seat he occupied. Fortunately we had some time in Nairobi.
I had a button down fleece with me so we put him in that. It dragged on the floor. This allowed Carrie to remove his wet things and take them off to the restroom for a rinse and blow dry. Then we proceeded through security and onto our next plane. This one was an eight hour flight to Bamako. It’s almost four thousand miles from Nairobi to Bamako! Africa is a really big continent. It was excruciatingly long, but uneventful.
At Bamako we had to gather our bags and then head off to the departure terminal to catch the charter to the mine. Bamako is perhaps the slackest airport I will ever be in. Upon reaching the terminal, everyone is required to fill out a slip of paper with pertinent information. Once this is complete you wait in line to give your passport and the document to the officer in the cage. After that you can go to baggage claim. The airport itself is very small. From the line you can see the carousels and the exit door. As we waited in line a woman came through from the other side (baggage claim) to chat with the man behind us. He left the line and went with her, returning to his place several minutes later. No one even blinked an eye. There is no customs desk. One just has to claim their bags, have them x-rayed, and leave.
Our layover was only supposed to be an hour, but that dragged into two. After having traveled for twenty hours we were ready to get home so those two hours seemed to last two days. We tried in vain to contact Mohammed so that he could pick us up as our phone quit working. Zman passed out on Momma’s lap and just as we started our descent he upchucked all over both of them. We disembarked, the heat hitting us like a right hook and noticed that Mohammed was nowhere to be found. Wimpie was there though and he agreed to take us home. We took Mohammed by surprise, I’m afraid.
The good news is that the car is fixed and running like a champ, and the sandbox is complete and filled with sand. Unfortunately, the washer is still broken, the electric kettle no longer works, and we still don’t have internet at the house. We are spending our Saturday catching up and sorting out these issues.
I am not sure why it feels so odd to be here. This is, after all, our home. Nothing changed dramatically while we were gone, although the new development is now fully lived in. Our things are exactly where we left them, yet it doesn’t feel quite right. It is a very strange feeling that we will all have to explore. Tonight we have been invited to a dinner party. Monday we start back to work. Perhaps once we establish our routines again things will feel different.
MJR
We are back home.
It feels odd to be here. I don’t know how to explain. It is as if we never left, but also like we don’t quite belong.
All of our flights went smoothly. We boarded in Cape Town and flew two hours to Jo’burg, arriving at 9:30 pm. Three hours later we boarded a four hour flight to Nairobi. We all passed out during the flight. Upon landing we discovered that Z had wet himself and the seat he occupied. Fortunately we had some time in Nairobi.
I had a button down fleece with me so we put him in that. It dragged on the floor. This allowed Carrie to remove his wet things and take them off to the restroom for a rinse and blow dry. Then we proceeded through security and onto our next plane. This one was an eight hour flight to Bamako. It’s almost four thousand miles from Nairobi to Bamako! Africa is a really big continent. It was excruciatingly long, but uneventful.
At Bamako we had to gather our bags and then head off to the departure terminal to catch the charter to the mine. Bamako is perhaps the slackest airport I will ever be in. Upon reaching the terminal, everyone is required to fill out a slip of paper with pertinent information. Once this is complete you wait in line to give your passport and the document to the officer in the cage. After that you can go to baggage claim. The airport itself is very small. From the line you can see the carousels and the exit door. As we waited in line a woman came through from the other side (baggage claim) to chat with the man behind us. He left the line and went with her, returning to his place several minutes later. No one even blinked an eye. There is no customs desk. One just has to claim their bags, have them x-rayed, and leave.
Our layover was only supposed to be an hour, but that dragged into two. After having traveled for twenty hours we were ready to get home so those two hours seemed to last two days. We tried in vain to contact Mohammed so that he could pick us up as our phone quit working. Zman passed out on Momma’s lap and just as we started our descent he upchucked all over both of them. We disembarked, the heat hitting us like a right hook and noticed that Mohammed was nowhere to be found. Wimpie was there though and he agreed to take us home. We took Mohammed by surprise, I’m afraid.
The good news is that the car is fixed and running like a champ, and the sandbox is complete and filled with sand. Unfortunately, the washer is still broken, the electric kettle no longer works, and we still don’t have internet at the house. We are spending our Saturday catching up and sorting out these issues.
I am not sure why it feels so odd to be here. This is, after all, our home. Nothing changed dramatically while we were gone, although the new development is now fully lived in. Our things are exactly where we left them, yet it doesn’t feel quite right. It is a very strange feeling that we will all have to explore. Tonight we have been invited to a dinner party. Monday we start back to work. Perhaps once we establish our routines again things will feel different.
MJR
posted by Bronx to Timbuktu at 9:06 AM
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