Kenya Trip Day 1: Seattle to Amsterdam to Nairobi

Sat Sept 2, 2006

I haven't slept for about 48 hours. The amount of sorting and packing and re-packing and getting the hatches battened down at both my home and my practice, getting my dog situated, bills situated, etc... has been incredibly daunting.

The amount of stuff that we have been asked to bring into the country (medical supplies, medicines, etc), trying to get it all donated and accounted for and organized has been completely overwhelming. Mostly the students have not been a lot of help. Just a few days before the trip we found out that 1) we would not all be going to the same locations (so, some of the students that were supposed to be under my supervision would not even be in the same part of the country as me), AND that the medical supplies and medications that we had worked so hard to obtain, were actually illegal to bring into the country!!!! WTF. And that we were essentially sneaking them in, mostly hoping that our bags would not be searched.

So, bleary eyed, and nearly hallucinating with sleep deprivation, I cooked breakfast for my friend Kelly who had agreed to take me to the airport that morning.

And, because something else stressful obviously needed to happen, the stove caught fire. So we were running late to get to the airport.

My bags were over weight because I had too many (contraband) medical supplies in my bags - I needed to meet with the other students before we checked in to transfer things from one bag to another.

No one had phones (since we couldn't use our US phones in Kenya).

I finally found Theresa, Nate and Brooke in line, just about to check their bags. Kelly talked folks in line into letting me cut so that we could check in together and get seats together.

We got all the stuff swapped at the last second, bags checked and headed for security.

We all had a second breakfast at the terminal and Bloody Marys.

The flight was excruciatingly long, but we were kept well fed and well hydrated. I was exhausted and managed to fall asleep. At one point, when I was finally, deeply asleep, there was a "medical emergency" on the plane and they paged for a doctor. The students I was traveling with were REALLY excited, so they rang the bell and woke me up (not thinking about the fact that if it were a real medical emergency I would not actually be qualified). It turned out that a woman was freaking out because she was ... constipated... seriously. WHO even wants to poop on an airplane??? Yes, that was the medical emergency that they felt the need to wake me up for. We arrived in Amsterdam the morning of Sept 3. The Amsterdam airport is much like an ultramodern mall, complete with massages, museums, cafe's and pubs, food courts, internet spots, sleeping and showering facilities, and lord knows what else. It would be a good place to have to spend a lot of time... We had a chance to wander around and sample a couple of Dutch specialties at a cafe before catching the next 8 hr flight to Nairobi. I almost missed that flight because after eating we still had about 90 min and I fell asleep on the floor under a large potted plant. My students found me just in time.

Interestingly they had no problem with us carrying water bottles on in Amsterdam (water bottles were a homeland security crisis in Seattle). Our bags were left on the tarmac in Amsterdam in a rainstorm, and so all of our things were soaked. By the time we got to Kenya my legs had swelled up like balloons.

We (and miraculously all our luggage) arrived in Nariobi. Our host Wendy met us at the airport (thank God) and luckily we made it through customs without getting arrested for smuggling US medications into the country. I really didn't fancy spending my vacation locked in a Kenyan prison. Went to Wendy's to have dinner and some sleep, here's a picture from her house: