We made it through our 31 hours of travel and arrived in Uganda last night. The flights were relatively uneventful and the time passed pretty easily. We had a 3 hour layover in London, which is much better than the 12 hours we've had on past trips. Floyd and I enjoyed a sit down breakfast at a small place in the airport, so going through security and sitting to eat took up at least half the time.
The first sign of Ebola prevention was on the airplane. When you fly internationally they give you a landing card to fill out if you will be staying in a country for which you don't have a national passport. We got our landing cards to fill out for Uganda, but we also received a health history form. We had to answer questions about any symptoms we may have experienced recently and all countries we have visited in recent weeks.
As we exited the airplane and walked to the customs area, we noticed a line backing up at the entry way. That was definitely unusual because they've always had plenty of snaking lines inside the large room. As we got to the entrance, we realized that there were two workers with giant bottles of sanitizing spray (basically hand sanitizer). Each person had their hands and arms sprayed liberally with the sanitizer, then you had to rub it in. As we continued to walk, we noticed another stopping point. This time, each person had to turn in their medical history form, have their temperature taken, and, if there were any uncertainties, answer questions. After passing the medical screenings, you could proceed to the normal customs process.
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| We re-covered and taped them, so hopefully they'll hold up this way. |
We got our visitors Visas and picked up our luggage without any delays. We did have one box that did not come through fully in tact. One handle had broken off and the luggage strap was barely hanging on. Fortunately, it seemed like nothing fell out. As I entered the luggage collection point, I even saw a gentleman who noticed the box was open and as it quickly passed on the belt, he reached out to push things in and close the lid as best he could. I love seeing little glimpses of kindness. We brought luggage that contained things that we wanted to bring with us and we didn't need now, so we'll leave them here.
Today was uneventful because they had to take a large tractor to the house property to compact the dirt under the floors. The dirt had to be compacted so they can lay the concrete floors. As silly at it may seem, I did have a WONDERFUL breakfast! My friends who've been to Uganda would understand if I say that it was really close to a rolex, it just didn't have tomato or onion. It was chapati (the flat bread made over here) wrapped around an egg omelet with just a hint of green peppers and the perfect amount of salt. As I said, it seems silly, but after more than a year away, it was a taste I have missed. :)
We'll update again soon!
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