Jude in Africa
 Travelling Home!!! My holiday was almost extended by a day?? I had the worse check-in I`ve ever had apart from Lagos, Nigeria! There were problems with our flight, for some reason it was over booked. I had to stand in queues for the whole 2 hour check-in time. What I think?? happened was that a party of tourist looking travellers somehow were helped to jump the queue and took priority over other confirmed ticket holders. By the time it got to us (me and a group of Zambians) they were saying the plane was full. There was a woman from the UN in front of me and she was wild to say the least!!! She obviously had a very tight schedule :) I asked them (the airline) (in a calm voice) to explain to me what was going on and what they were going to do about it - it being that I wasn`t able to board the flight and that I was going to have to fly Sunday morning!!! Transpires they would have put me up in a hotel, paid taxi fares etc. After waiting for a bit and going to another counter I was able to check in, rush through immigration, upstairs and down to Gate 10. No Java House last coffee!!! Then they weren`t going to let me take my bottle chilli flavoured olive oil onto the plane. You may smile at this (some non accountant friends would). They asked "are you having a receipt for this"???!!!!! See it is good to keep such things and because I could show proof of purchase they let me take it with me:) They weren`t letting people take opened bottles of moisturiser etc through though. Then it was matter of finding a seat and somewhere to put my hand luggage. I got my checked-in luggage thru no bother - almost wished I`d had more excess. I don`t think they`d have dared charge for it today. We went via Lilongwe Malawi and had a really bad landing there. Worse I`ve ever had. People were really scared. We stopped there for a bit and sat on the runway for about 45 minutes while other passengers boarded the plane. (Lusaka passengers weren`t allowed off.) When we landed safely in Lusaka the passengers who had started off from Nairobi all clapped and cheered. I met up with some Zambians in the check-in queue in Nairobi who kept me entertained (they`d been at a conference somewhere in East Africa) and caught me up on the recent elections. (At that stage reports were that Michael Sata might have been the new President. Final results saw the current President Levy Mwanawasa returned with a significant majority). When I arrived in Lusaka I got a taxi to the Flight House guesthouse had a cup of tea, chatted to some missionary folk for a bit and then phoned Brenda Savill (from NZ) and met for coffee. We were having a coffee at `our` coffee place in Lusaka (nothing on the Java House or Dorman`s of Nairobi - I have to say but one shall have to adjust) and as we were about to leave the waiter came over and said they were shutting earlier than normal as there were riots down town about 2 kms from the Mall!!! Didn`t know whether to head for Kabwe or whether it would be difficult getting out of the city ... or stay with Brenda the night and try tomorrow. Opted for today and made it back without incident. There are a couple of roads out the back of the two main malls that skirt round the edge of town. The road was really quiet - only trucks were out. Hmmm one never knows. Thankfully our times are in God`s hands ...
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Diary Photos
| 30th Sep 2006 | |
| Visiting Orphans! | |
| This time its the elephants ... Was really interesting to learn about their intelligence, habits, and especially their memory ... |
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