“Going to Rwanda??? Follow me…”

After a long layover in Amsterdam we traveled on an 8hr flight to Entebbe, Uganda. We get off the plane walk on the tarmac and breathe in our first breaths of African air. Since it was pitch black out and cloudy it didn’t really look like or feel like we were in Africa, it just looked like any small airport. We go inside to wait for our luggage and after a LONG wait and a few “how much you wanna bet our bags didn’t make it” we finally get all our bags. How many bags you ask, six plus four carry-ons. To clarify, the reason we have so much stuff is because two of our bags are filled with items to donate, soccer balls, school supplies, clothing etc. a lot donated from my mom’s generous colleagues. The other reason we have more stuff than we should is because we also had to pack for a trek up Mt. Kilimanjaro, in which you need sleeping bags, cold weather clothes and other items we would not have brought with us if we were not doing the hike. (side note – Dad, the bungee cords definitely came in handy, thanks)

Ok so any way, we get our bags and are looking around like two lost children trying to find their mother. We had NO CLUE where to go or who to speak with to get to our connecting flight which would take us to our final destination, Kigali. Steph spots an airport employee who is directing people this way and that and telling them which immigration line to go on. She asks, “We have a connection to Kigali at 9:50, where do we go?” He says, “Going to Rwanda? Follow me.” and proceeds to walk us past the huge group of people waiting at immigration and tells us to go through these doors ::points::. We want to double check before we start walking around the entire airport so we ask the next employee we see. He says o you are flying to Rwanda? You need to go upstairs and check in. OK we figure 2 people are telling us the same thing must be correct.

We walk through the doors and try to find a lift (elevator) to get us and all of our luggage to the 2^nd floor. After a quick bathroom break, we found the lift and pressed the button but the light does not come on. We wait and I press the button again and again and finally we ask a passer by, if the elevator is broken. Of course it is. So Steph and I look at each other with a kind of o sh*t what now expression. Six bags 50lbs each not including the carry-ons which probably weigh 20-30lbs each. Well over 300lbs of luggage. So we start to figure out the best possible way to carry all of this up the stairs and we heave the bags up on our shoulders and go. We finally get all the bags up stairs together and Steph runs to grab another cart for us so we do not have to carry them to check-in.

We bring our bags to the all too familiar dynamic duo of x-ray machine and metal detector. Send all of our bags through and then Steph realizes, there is no one here for Rwandair (our airline that is going to take us to Rwanda). So we ask the airport staff who are closest to us and they say in unison, “Rwandair is closed, the plane has already boarded and is getting ready for take off.” Remember that o shi*t expression we had over the elevator? You should have seen our faces this time. Suddenly all at the same time, our stomachs drop, our hearts race and we feel a lil sick. Thoughts start rushing through my head, ok well if we miss the flight we will just get on the next one, only thing is the next one is probably tomorrow morning, Mireille (the girl we are staying with in Rwanda) is going to be waiting for us at the airport, I hope we can contact her and let her know we won’t be coming, hopefully she can meet us there tomorrow, ahh why is this happening. Then I thought wait a minute its still before the plane was supposed to take off, we can still make it. So we start frantically asking the airport staff to help us get to Rwandair and onto our flight. Initially it seemed hopeless, but one young man got on a walkie talkie and started to radio for anyone to stop the plane and wait for us.

To sum up the next few minutes (about 15 or so, but it felt like much longer) we find out that we never needed to bring our stuff up the stairs, the people who gave us directions downstairs were wrong, and the airline has been looking for us. Finally some good news, the airplane was stopped, has not yet taken off and a woman from Rwandair comes over walking as fast as possible before jogging. She has us put our luggage on the conveyor belt so it can be taken downstairs to the plane and then off to another x-ray, metal detector combo.

Steph’s stuff goes through but they want to check my bag again. They tell us one of us should go downstairs to show the pilot that at least one of the two missing passengers is coming, almost as an incentive to wait for the 2^nd. They have to inspect my bag and finally after taking everything out, they realize what looked suspicious was the stack of AA batteries I had in my bag from Costco. Apparently, AAs stacked in a tight sleeve resemble ammo on an x-ray machine.

I grab all my stuff we run down the stairs and I am met with a woman who is going to take me to the plane. Of course it is a pretty far walk from the building and now I’m booking it because I am literally the last person to get on this flight. As we are walking she asks me what happened, why were we late for the plane. After I tell her the story and how numerous people gave us the wrong information she apologized profusely explaining that we should have been brought to the “transfers” booth where they would have taken our luggage and us to the plane (on time).

The few minutes separated from Steph during this nerve-racking time was not fun. All I kept thinking was something was going to happen to her, or the plane was going to leave with out me or who knows what.

I finally get on board and am VERY relieved to see Steph sitting in the first seat. The ecstatic feeling of knowing Steph was ok, we made our flight and we were both all good was instantly shot down by the piercing stares of all the other passengers on the plane who have been boarded for quite some time now and were waiting for us.

Steph and I have to separate again because I have to walk to the back of the plane (tiny plane) to find an empty seat. I sit down and the man next to me just starts laughing. I apologize for holding up the plane and then strap myself in for the flight that will take us to our destination.

A little while into the flight the man next to me asks me if I am going to Kigali (I think that is what he asked at least) so I say yes Kigali. He asks me something else but I can not make out what he is saying. I ask him to repeat himself and then he asks if I speak French. I reply “no sorry” and thus have my first of I’m sure many experiences of the language barrier. A little while later we continue the conversation and we understand each other well enough, but I immediately recognize the extreme handicap I have since I do not speak any French besides the few words/phrases Steph has taught me.

The flight is short about a half hour or so and we finally touch down in Kigali. We get off the plane walk to the building wait to go through immigration, a quick and painless process. The only questions the officer asked me where “What is your profession?” and “Is that your sister or your wife?” I quickly responded, I do not have a job, I actually quit my job to come here, he laughed. I then tell him that Steph is my girlfriend and when he asks me where we will be staying, I tell him a friends he responds with, “No I don’t think you will, you will want a hotel with her, not to stay at a friends.”

We walk downstairs to get our luggage. As we are walking I say to Steph, there is no way our luggage got here. We were the lasts ones to go through immigration so if it was there our luggage would be the only things left on the carousel. Sure enough everyone was gone and there was no luggage in sight.

Steph and I walk up to an airport official and Steph asks “Est-ce qu’il ya a plus de valises?” (“Are there any more suitcases?”). It was the first time I heard her speak French to someone for real. Sounded pretty good, although for all I know she could have been saying the completely wrong thing. As soon as she asks another official waves us over. I’m wondering does he have our bags or is he going to tell us they never made it here? “Our excuse, your bags are not here, in Entebbe” the man says. He says five bags are in Entebbe and we can pick them up tomorrow around the same time. We both answer excitedly, “we had six bags not five.” The man looks at his paper, looks at us and looks at his paper once more and says, they told me five, ok no problem. Haha no problem for him, it’s not his stuff that is missing.

He asks us for our contact information in Kigali, but we do not have any. We say a friend is meeting us and then I start to wonder, hm…I hope she is actually here. The three of us walk to go find Mirellie, half uncertain if she will be there. Sure enough she is! That made this whole ordeal feel a lot better. At least at the end of this night we would be able to go back to her place (the house we will be staying at for the next three months) and she could give this man her contact information so we can hopefully retrieve our baggage tomorrow.

Mireille was so sweet and brought us a bottle of water and some pizza, figuring we would be hungry and thirsty. The drive back to her place is surreal. It is extremely dark outside, so at first it is hard for us to feel like we are actually in Rwanda. Soon we start seeing some small shops, hill side, some people walking by and although we can’t really make things out, and we can’t fully tell where we are, we know we are definitely not in New York any more.