We landed in Entebbe at eight o’clock this morning, having left Heathrow at five o’clock yesterday afternoon. We had hair raising transfers at Paris and Nairobi – first we had to get from one end of Charles de Gaulle airport to the other in twenty minutes, including a shuttle transfer. We made the connection from Nairobi to Entebbe even more narrowly, our search for the gate ending in a mad dash through the duty free section with an official shouting, ‘Follow that man!’ at us. There was no time to check we meant the same man; we took a punt and ran. ‘If we make this plane,’ I promised, ‘I won’t complain about anything else ever at all. Ever.’
We made the plane.
So I have forsworn the right to complain that, although we arrived, our bags didn’t.
We waited for the next flight in from Nairobi and they weren’t on that either.
And tomorrow at crack of dawn, we take the MAF plane (a small plane run for NGOs) to Gulu.
So at the moment, I am sitting in the tiny pocket of the B&B garden that has wifi. My travelling companion, Peter, is recovering still from what was a full-on and long flight, but he had most of personal needments in his hand baggage; it’s the project that will lose out, because he was taking a laptop computer for them. I, on the other hand, am contemplating life in a remote Northern Ugandan location without fresh clothes, underwear, or toiletries beyond the toothbrush I brought with me for the flight. I travelled in an Autumn-weight dress and tights with my walking boots. I have no socks, and no other shoes. My sun protection and hat are in the bag with my clothes. So are eight penny whistles, a deflated volleyball with pump, two badminton racquets and a tube of shuttlecocks, four multipacks of M&S cotton knickers, various sports shirts and a set of sewing kits. My period is due, and everything I need for that is in the bag too. Plus supplies of Nurofen, and my malaria tablets, and a big chunk of my self respect.
I’ve spent a lot of time this afternoon chasing the airline, who will only say they ‘have no information’ about our bags. Theu didn’t come in on the last flight this afternoon, so any hope of them being delivered to our B&B in time for the next stage of our journey is gone. In the morning, we are off to Gulu and beyond, to the kind of remoteness to which no airline is going to worry about repatriating a lost bag.
It’s all kinds of awful. I’ve come to help and support, not to be a nuisance and to drain resources that are already scarce enough. I’ve come to give carefully selected gifts, not take. Everything I packed, I packed with the intention of leaving behind if there was use for it. I wanted to enrich; instead, I have no choice but to absorb. I planned and prepared as carefully as in me lay, and yet here I am.
I don’t do this. I am the strong one, the one who helps other people. I’ve been that person all my life. I dealt with the baggage office in Entebbe, and I got the cash at the airport, and found water, and paid the taxi driver, even though I was uncertain in this new environment. But right now, I can’t seem to find that strength for myself. The B&B are happy to receive my bag if it’s delivered, but there’s no mad coincidence waiting to happen – a previous guest leaving a bag just in case this happened to someone, or another guest on their way home and willing to leave me the remnants of their toiletries. There’s no one to own this right now except me.
I knew I’d need courage here. But I wasn’t expecting it to be on the very first day, or about something as mundane as socks and pyjamas.
Leave a Reply