Tuesday June 28
Big travel day for us. I went for a six mile run this morning from the motel, and then met everyone downstairs for breakfast and the shuttle to the airport. Everyone seemed excited. Including our fearless leader Michael Madison (in his own calm, unflappable way). By 11:30 we'd worked our way through check-in, security, and boarding,and took off around 12:30 Eastern.
The plane is huge, getting everyone aboard was a length affair, but nothing compared to the 13-hour flight time. Right now we're winging our way towards Addis Ababa somewhere over the Mediterranean, and it's either really late Tuesday or really early Wednesday, depending on your point of view. We're sprinkled all over the plane, surrounded by a folks from all over the world. The ticketing gal was able to switch me to a coveted exit row aisle seat, so my legs are happy.
On my right are two tall fellows (one of them maybe 6'8”) going home to Sudan for a visit if I understood them. Friendly, but talkative. Really talkative. Oh my gosh do you ever sleep talkative :-) Interesting to hear about their country's conflict first-hand, though. On my left is a lady and her two rather, umm, undisciplined kids. But after awhile they fall asleep and then their just cute. Giggly chair-thumping teenage girls next row back. Fun stuff. Not gonna be sleeping tonight. Oh well, a test of my patience, something I need to work on anyway, and a small inconvenience compared to the work ahead of us.
Time to get up and stretch again, maybe find some munchies. They're supposed to serve breakfast before we land in another 3-4 hours, then we'll hop planes and start working our way towards Ruwanda and then Burundi. And then the fun begins!
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