One of dad and mom's guards brought his family to greet that morning because his son was born on the same day as Micah.. It was a precious moment, a connection.
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| My mom, ever the teacher! The kids really got into the puzzle once they figured out what was supposed to happen. |
After lunch everyone on the compound, including some who had come specifically to say good-bye, gathered around the vans for prayer. It is a tradition with my parents that whatever vehicle and all going with it are prayed over before leaving for a trip. It is a prayer for protection but also a blessing on those leaving and staying.
Our drive to the capital was not without adventure! We stopped for supper around 4 on the outskirts of the city because there wasn't much to eat on the road to the airport. Dad's chicken was rotten (as in you could smell it fermenting on his plate) and none of us were sure if we'd get sick from our own meals.
There is lots of construction on the way to the airport, through the city. Now, you have to understand that people there put such formalities as lines on the road, but understanding and and following those lines and signs is beyond their comprehension. It's just not an important part of the culture.
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| Signs to tell you to slow down?!? Nope--logs are far better understood. |
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| We hit a pretty major go-slow. Some, like this taxi driver, decided the best way to get out of it would be to turn around in the middle of the congested traffic and drive over the pile of dirt to the left. He didn't make it over the first time and I'm pretty sure it took three times before he finally reached the top. |
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| While we were sitting (more like parked) in the go-slow, we kept noticing cars diving out and driving down the adjacent road. We couldn't see where the road went, all we could see was the miles of parked cars ahead of us. So dad and the driver decided to take a chance and join the escapees. |
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| A couple miles down the road we came upon this scene. No kidding, there were probably close to 20 "lanes" (term used VERY loosely) trying to merge into the equivalent of four lanes. |
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| It was unreal! We only saw one "accident" of one car scraping another. It was only God's protection that kept us from scraping the cars on either side of us several times. These cars in the picture are way too far apart to do the chaos justice. |
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| Looking behind at what we just maneuvered through. We came through the opening on the left. |
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| We had just pulled through and I was breathing a sigh of relief and thanks when I happened to notice this lorry along the side of the road. The saying on its side (Trust In God) seemed so fitting for what we had just come through. |
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| We were through the go-slows, right? HA HA! Thankfully this one was a piece of cake--it was only five lanes trying to merge into one or two. |
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| I, personally, was thrilled to see the sign for the airport. I am such a fool some times. |
The plan was to leave our carry-on luggage with mom in the waiting lounge while we checked our bags (a method we had used for years). Once everything was checked in we would come back out and hang out for a couple more minutes before heading through security and emigration.
The path through:
1. Show your passport to the police officer sitting at a desk.
2. Put your luggage on the x-ray machine and pick it up on the other side.
3. Walk to the seven or eight agents on the far right side of the room, show them your passports and talk to them a minute.
4. Weigh your bags and receive your ticket saying how much weight you had.
5. Go the metal tables and have every single one of your bags opened and looked through. (Remember there were 12 of us flying out--imagine the number of bags we had.)
6. Stand in line and then proceed to another agent at a desk, show your passport, and be told that you needed a special sticker for your carry-ons. (Aaron and I had to repeat the process with all our carry ons, no one else was told they had to but Ibrahim worked his captain magic and got everyone else the needed stickers just in case.)
7. Proceed to check-in counter, deposit bags and get boarding passes.
At this point we all went back out to Dad and Mom who were still waiting in the lounge and hung out for about a half hour before traversing phase two of the maze.
About 8:15pm we all said good-bye to Dad and Mom and headed through:
1. Policeman outside checking all passports.
2. X-ray carry-ons
3. Emigration--check passports and emigration paperwork.
4. Another booth but I don't remember what it was for--but they checked passports again.
5. Up the escalator (waving good-bye to the parents who were standing in the upstairs lounge watching our progress)
6. Through X-ray machine #2
7. Stand in line to have our passports and boarding passes checked again.
8. Have our carry-ons thoroughly searched and put on the benches behind the agents.
9. Patted down before retrieving our carry-on luggage and finally being at the gate before boarding the airplane.
I had just enough time to change out of my skirt, into jeans, and change Brandon out of his dirty shorts (from crawling all over the floor while waiting in lines) into long pants. As I was coming back out of the bathroom they called for families with small children to board the plane and EVERYONE rushed into line. As we're getting into line I looked over and Al and Rachel, who were the last of our group, were just getting patted down. We boarded the plane around 9:15/9:30 pm.
Brandon slept over half of the 12 hour flight back to Atlanta and at the time I thought it was just from sheer exhaustion of the late flight and the busyness of the past two weeks. We found out later, however, that he was already getting sick. But that's for another post.
Good-night.
