Lights Out, Uganda

I have a story to tell. The story is one the wildest rides I’ve experienced yet. On the afternoon of January 11th Mimi dropped my mother, Rita Martinson, and me off at the Jackson International airport. We were bound for the East African country of Uganda. As any one from the Northside knows the airport is one of the most awkward places to kiss your main squeeze goodbye. They give you about 30 seconds to get your bags out of the car, get a smooch and a hug before they start hollering about the white zone is strictly for loading and unloading and to move on quickly. Luckily we knew this and had previously smooched and hugged.

We had talked about the details of the trip and how Mimi would pass her time safely until the 25th of January. Mimi had her plans to go to market to buy next years goods for our store. She was also going to keep the store and the house tied up nice and tight. We had previously talked about how and when we would try to communicate with each other since the time difference between here and there is 9 hours backwards, that part was weird to me and I couldn’t get that to sink into my thick skull. I wanted to be able to call her at the times when she would be finished with her work but not after bedtime. Working at market is no time for an interruptive phone call about an elephant eating my peanuts and cell coverage in those buildings is close to impossible.

We decided on the perfect time to get a call through so we could update each other. I had to google a time map to keep it straight, it looked like a 4:30 am call would be about right to

catch her at 7:30 pm the night before, that confuses me and I had to check my chart several times. I had made up my mind that I would have two major goals to keep my mind occupied and to keep it fun. The first and foremost goal was to get Mom to Uganda and back safe and sound having the trip of a lifetime while we got to know each other on a much higher level than we have ever achieved. We have a great relationship as it is but with life and separation through my marriage that occurs naturally we have been forced to keep things on surface level visiting and calling each other as much as we can but still you never get know someone on a deeper level until you get to travel with that person overseas for a couple of weeks. I was really looking forward to the opportunity to do this with my 88 year old mother.

The second goal and thing to keep me occupied with something I was excited about was my new camera. In my regular fashion of jumping in with both feet I went to Deville Camera and let the owner set me up with the best camera and lenses that would be appropriate for this kind of trip. The owner there is a former student of Mimi’s from when she was a teacher at MRA. He was happy to see Mimi and we discussed lenses, size of the camera for traveling without needing a separate bag to lug through the airports and tips on keeping it as clean as I could in what I presumed would be a dusty environment. It turns out that what he recommended to me was exactly perfect for what we did, I will be forever grateful to him for his advice because I was able to do some on the job training with that camera and produced some photos that I am proud of. Safaris are all about the photos that you come home with and I captured some Lulus.

If you are familiar with our social media posts then you are familiar with with the very talented Dawson who produces our photo features we call Dawson’s Picks each week. He has a magic eye and has collected some great camera gear over the years, he also gave me some tips about using the camera that he also steered me towards. I think he had some doubts about me being able to pull it off as I was leaving and so did I. I had 1 day to familiarize myself with the camera so Mimi and I walked around our yard and in the woods snapping away between packing and getting ready to be separated. I felt pretty good about it and had no choice but to move forward and do the best I could.

The fist leg of our trip was the easy one, Jackson to Atlanta, a 1 hour flight. We got the the international terminal, went through security and had just enough time to sit down at the gate to hop on a 7 hour flight to Amsterdam. Getting on to that flight is when one of mine and Moms plan to not check bags got changed before we knew it. We had decided that we would carry our luggage on for two reasons, the first being that we would be way more comfortable in our minds if we stayed in control of our bags and knowing that wouldn’t wind up in Timbuktu would be important. We also realized that the bigger the bag that you carry the more apt you are to overpack. We spent a lot of time the the days previous to leaving making sure we would have what we would minimumly need packing and unpacking, shucking what we would be able to live without and keeping the essentials. We knew that there would be opportunities along the way to wash some cloths and air dry them since we would move from place to place every two days.

We both had it down to perfection and it did feel good to have them in the luggage bin above our seats on the flight to Atlanta. Right as we were boarding on to the flight Amsterdam a lady caught moms bag and told her that the overhead bins would be too full and that she would take her bag and check them all the way through to our final destination, Entebbe, Uganda. I looked at Mom, she didn’t seem nervous, she had her other carry on with the stuff you need for two long flights, she said she was just as happy to not mess with it. For some reason they did not think my second carry on was going to be a problem even though it was the same size as hers. I was relieved because that bag had the camera in it, as far as I was concerned they could have lost everything I had and it wouldn’t have bothered me but not my new camera.

We arrived in Amsterdam and had 3 hours to blow until we would board our next 9 hour flight down towards the bottom of Africa. I was excited to get Mom to the sky room and settle into some serious coffee and food in the Delta sky lounge. I love those places on long trips. In those lounges it’s like you get to leave the airport bustle and relax and recharge your stuff while waiting to get crammed back into a sardine can. We drank too many cappuccinos and had some great vittles while I studied my camera stuff and Mom journaled. We made it to the gate and on our flight with plenty time to settle in and pick out a movie or two to bide our time with. I noticed when we got settled that most of our fellow travelers were Ugandans and most of them were made up of a Ugandan athletic team in their uniforms, I assumed it was a soccer team since their football is everything to them. The athletes were excited and seemed happy to be getting home after what must have been a major matchup in Holland to have traveled so far. They were our first Ugandans to experience and talk to, our first time to hear the language which I had never heard before, we were on our way to Africa.

On this second 9 hour leg we read, watched, dozed in a foggy haze and tried to have some friendly conversations with our seat neighbors until the announcement came on that we were about to land at midnight. My biggest worry now was whether or not Moms carry on bag would be on that squeaky carousel after we got through customs. My travel head was a little rusty since it had been a while since I had taken a big international trip. I forgot that in most other countries people don’t politely stand in line for anything. They just rush it and see who gets there first, they literally will push and shove you out of the way, survival of the fittest. I looked over at Mom when people starting piling in front of her and I could tell that she was about to let it fly, we smiled and winked at each other and held our breath while we joined along in the reindeer games and got to elbowing our way to the front. It

looked like it surprised some folks that we didn’t give in but hey, like they say, “when in Rome”…

After customs we made it to the luggage carousel to watch breathlessly as all the bags flowed past us, no sign of Moms bag. My feet and pits and forehead broke out into a sweat as the conveyer emptied more and more, uh oh. We were just about to give up hope of the bag having making it to our destination and I was looking around at the dismal chances of finding anyone that could help us figure this out, after all we were not in Kansas anymore and it was well after midnight by then. I stood there staring at that conveyer praying to see it. There were no bags left and most of the people had headed out of that area. When all of the sudden, while we listened to eek, squeak, eek, squeak there it was, that beautiful bag all alone, had been thrown on last since hers was the last to be checked was chugging towards us. All that dread was now up in smoke, we could move on to find the guy with the sign with our name on it so we would know who the guy was that was there to give us a ride to a place that we would stay the first night until we could meet the people who would brief us on the next morning so we could get going on what we came there to do.

There was no guy with a sign with our names on it so we found a guy who seemed nice enough to taxi us to our lodge. We had stopped at the money changing booth and changed some dollars to Ugandan Shillings so I honed my rusty haggling skills and arrived at a price that seemed fair to me. Of course I had no idea how far the place was from the airport and no earthly idea what a fair price should look like but it was a price that I could live with even if I was wrong so we hopped in and crossed our fingers that this guy was as nice as he was acting. Turns out he was, we checked in around 1:30am with heads swimming among all the sights and sounds, this is what we travel for, new sights and new sounds, ones that were unfamiliar to us that bring wonderment and a new kind of excitement.

I have found that it is easier traveling in these kinds of countries to cautiously put your trust in folks and things will usually work out. Otherwise you are better off not traveling in these kinds of places or you will be upset and nervous the whole time and likely not have very much fun. Luckily Mom feels the same way about that theory so we were going to get along great as travel partners. After checking in the staff wrapped our beds with mosquito netting, explained how to get hot water in the shower, asked what we would want them to prepare for breakfast the next morning and at what time then let us slip away into la la land. It felt great to be there and to stretch out for a few hours and rest. We had made it.

Tomorrow would be a new day. Lights out.