Day Four of transit. Four flights completed. I’m currently sitting in the Nairobi airport awaiting my next Kenya Airways flight to Accra, and then, at long last, Freetown. The last time I was in this airport I had arrived here with Kim and Katie via a painful journey by matatu—the Swahili word for “taxi”—more than twelve hours in cramped minivans across East Africa’s potholed and fabulously bumpy roads. The airport seemed like a luxurious oasis—certainly a pleasant place for a lengthy layover. Well, I’ve changed my mind. I suppose I need a bit of reacquainting with the continent, as the sweaty, cramped, dank terminal has lost all sense of invitation. Sadly, the Giarrdia I apparently caught in Guatemala (which I have no idea how to spell) has forced me to take an antibiotic that precludes any consumption of alcoholic beverages on these back-to-back eight hour flights.
That said, the trip really has been perfectly smooth thus far. I arrived in Uganda on Wednesday evening after surprising my friend Mary, a fellow SIT alum, in Amsterdam. In typical Ugandan style, power died twice in the process of getting our luggage on the conveyor belt, but my bag finally appeared and another SIT alum was waiting with her pop-star boyfriend to give us a lift to town. As I settled into my guesthouse I heard the ubiquitous CelTel jingle, “Af.Ri.Ca: So Good to Be Home.” Yes, indeed!
Arriving in Kampala really did feel like returning home—a reminder of my love for the city and country. I spent several hours roaming the familiar streets in search of gum boots and a mosquito net for Sierra Leone’s rainy season, and I just sort of grinned the whole time as I wondered favorite avenues and passed through familiar markets and shops. Lunch—greasy deep-fried meat patties called chaps—was in one of my favorite take-aways, and I passed bars and restaurants reminding me of all kinds of fun memories.
The energy in Uganda was always palpable in its laid-back African sort of way, and many of the construction projects underway last year had finally been finished. The British Commonwealth Conference bringing the Queen of England to the country in November had inspired road repairs and beautification projects, and I actually did see a difference. That said, some ripped apart roads and buildings looked identical and one planned hotel was still just that—a plan, filled with complications and featured in today’s paper.
I hung out in the SIT resource center and reunited with my favorite program staff and then had dinner with a good expat friend still working away in the city. Then off to a grimy airport guesthouse for a few hours of sleep before the 3:30 am cab to the airport. If all goes well, in just a few hours I’ll be arriving in Freetown, with a former rebel commander, Sparrow, waiting to meet me. A former Duke PhD student now teaching at the University of Washington made the connection, and Sparrow sounds like a great guy with a huge network of connections. It has been rather exciting to email, call, and wire money to Sparrow in Liberia and Sierra Leone, and if all goes well, the plan is to proceed straight-away tomorrow morning into the heart of the country to find research staff and plan the summer of study. A bit of nervousness has finally set in, though I am ridiculously excited to finally be starting. Only a few hours left to cram information about the country, so for now, back to work!
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