Day One.

Day One.
It is 4:10 pm in Illinois on Friday-and I left for Chicago at 1:30 this morning. I am 6 hours into a 13 hour  flight and to say the least I’m over it. It’s a pretty amazing feeling-traveling across the world- but right now I’m struggling in finding any of those happy thoughts. Our flight out of Chicago went smoothly after we finally got our baggage checked (all four of my suitcases-two of them packed full with items for the orphanage! :D!)  When we arrived to DC to catch our flight to Ethiopia- things started to get a liiiittlle inconvenient LOL! Jessica, the girl I am traveling with, bless her heart! We had to go and check in and receive our boarding passes and for some reason Jess can’t get her boarding pass. Now keep in mind, we have just walked literally like 3 miles across the Washington DC airport, we are so tired we are delusional (since we have been up for about 26 hours straight at this point), and now a guy behind a desk is questioning if she has been put on the “No fly list…”. I’ve never heard of anyone dealing with the “no fly list”….but it is seeming pretty obvious to me what he is getting at. He speaks VERY broken English…is giving us absolutely no explanation… then just disappears for about 30 minutes-  GOOD NEWS an hour and a half later Jess has a boarding pass and absolutely no explanation as to why she wasn’t allowed to get her boarding pass without ease and at the same time as me. Not passing any judgement here…but this same guy told us that our seats were next to each other…23A and 23L-now I’m not saying I know everything…but a good assumption would be that A and L aren’t next to each other…and this man is sick of us and wants us to get away from his desk- we don’t even question and just are thankful jess finally got a boarding pass! (I’m still convinced he just didn’t know what he was doing ;) On a side note- can you imagine working at an airport?! They have to deal with a lot of unhappy people…a lot of the time I’m sure. I learned in Chicago- it pays off to be super friendly to them. My new friend Jesus, a United Airways employee at O’Hare took care of us thank goodness! I’m pretty sure we may have missed our flight if it wasn’t for him…such a nice guy!
So here I am…6 hours into being on a the “Boeing 787 dreamliner”, somewhere over the North Atlantic Ocean. I have no idea what time is it or where I am at. All I know is that it is dark outside, the man next to me snores worse than my bulldog, my watch says 4:15, AND note to the wise…Don’t watch the movie “We Bought a Zoo” on an airplane- I’m not sure if it was a mix of the fact that I am totally sleep deprived right now, but the tears just wouldn’t stop rolling out of my eyes. It was a happy cry, then a sad cry, then a laugh…and then the process would just repeat itself! Whew…I was crying pretty hard at one point. TOTALLY a great heart-warming movie and I suggest ya’ll watch it- preferably in your living room with a bowl of super buttery popcorn and snuggled in your PJ’s. I’m sure those circumstances would be much more enjoyable than mine.
My brain is so fried right now I can’t even remember if or how long of a layover we have in Adis Ababa, Ethiopia! Anyways, we catch a flight out of there to Mombasa (which is a short ride just like the one from Chicago to DC) and then POOF! I’ll be settling into my new home for the next month.
I’m going to do my best to keep up with the blog daily and I will definitely write daily…but it all depends on if I have internet access to post! So I may have to post 2 or 3 on one day…but It will be past days too…if that makes sense? HAHA I’m rambling and making no sense…time for this girl to try and catch a snooze! ;)
Xoxo-abigail.
 Hi again! Mombasa is unlike anything I have ever seen before. I am going to try and do the best I can at describing it—but I know I won’t be able to paint the picture I want you guys to see. Anyways before I get too far ahead of myself I’ll start from when we landed in Ethiopia after our 13 hour flight. When arriving to Addis Ababa we got off of the plane and walked into what was called an airport. You guys…I’m not even kidding this was unreal! When we were landing and driving down the runway towards the airport…I was looking at what appeared to be an old airports junk yard. There was literally crashed planes in the grass between the runways…weird right? Well then we get off the plane and walk into this “airport”. It was a big open area (resembling the size of my dads shop that is concrete) with tables set up with blue and pink table cloths, a couple stores, security guards dressed in blue camo, and zero air circulation.  We don’t have boarding passes for our next flight yet so we decide to go to the line at the desk to get them. This is the point in the traveling experience that I almost lost my nerve. Other ethnicities have this way about them…they don’t care if they run into you, they don’t have any sort of organized lines…ANYWHERE, and don’t mine interfering with your personal space one bit. Uggh…annoying. Anyways we tell the guy that we don’t have our boarding passes and we need to figure out where to get them. He asks for our passports and says “go stand over there…”. I thought to myself…yea let me just give you my passport while I’m stuck in Ethiopia and walk away….ha ha…well anyways I did..and he came back with my passport and boarding pass. We got on THE LAST plane ride of the trip thank goodness and holy turbulence!  At this point I was so exhausted all I wanted to do was sleep…and I did. I fell asleep within like 25 minutes of getting on the plan and wake up to a lady offering tea to people (Hot tea is apparently the thing to drink on planes over here) and the turbulence was so bad she almost fell over and spilt her tea all over and screamed. Then she sat down and put her seatbelt in the empty seat in front of me. Poor thing was terrified…and on top of it she had an awful burn on her hand from the tea. Anyways we then arrived to Mombasa and got off the plane and made it through customs and went to get our visa. Well Jess went to the lane to the left of me and got to the desk before I did…when I got up there I got through with no problems and looked over and Jess is still there (looking shocked). She finally comes through….and come to find out she had a counterfeit 20 dollar bill that the ATM had given her! NUTS, RIGHT!? So make sure you guys are checking those 20’s…one of our other friends said there had been a lot floating around the Macomb area.
Walking outside through and breathing in fresh non airplane/airport air was sooo nice! And it was even better when we saw an elective Africa sign with our names on it! Benson, Benard, and Sang where there to meet us and helped us load our suitcases…and off we were to our new home for the month. Until about 10 minutes later (still in the airport parking lot) and BANG! A car slams into the back of us…great start right? So Benard takes care of that and we begin our 25 minute drive home. This is where I really see what Mombasa is about.
Shacks, and by shacks I mean imagine stacking two hog houses on top of each other and they are made out of very old metals. These shacks are just lined up side by side by side by side (you get the picture) down every main road. What’s inside these shacks varies. Some of the things I noticed on the drive was soda for sale, ladies braiding one another’s hair, car washes, shoes, jeans, brushes,  couches, anything you can imagine people are trying to sell over here! Dresses, purses, toys, wallets, luggage….I could go on and on.
The children and working people is what killed my most. There were people running around with big yellow 8 gallon buckets getting water from trucks that come in to supply water. Old men were pushing these giant for lack of a better word, wheelbarrows with flip-flops on that were so worn they probably were doing nothing for protection of his feet.  These wheelbarrows were full of bags of seed. I’m doing a poor job of explaining but it is just crazy. Everyone over here is working so so hard to do the simple things. There were children working car washes-and no, not to raise money for their local baseball team.  Most of them with old worn flip flops or no shoes at all. There is GARBAGE everywhere on the sides of the streets. Gosh…I am going out tomorrow and venturing out I will be sure to post some pictures for you guys! It’s crazy!
The housing here is another crazy thing. It is mostly apartment buildings, but not anything you’ve ever seen. No one has screens and the doors are wide open with the windows every day, since most of them have no air conditioning either. Again, I’ll get some pictures tomorrow to give you guys a better idea!
My living accommodations are really very nice compared to what I was expecting after the drive through Mombasa. I took some pictures that I’ll be sure to post either later tonight or tomorrow!! I am so tired right now…I can barely keep my eyes open! I’ll be sure to update you guys tomorrow with more details and pictures!!
XOXO!
Love, Abigail.