The last 48 hours have been CRAZY! Sunday night we leave for the airport about 8. Brendah, Jayan, and Felix came with us, so we laughed and laughed and laughed some more.... That is until our car broke down. All of the sudden is makes an awful shrill, and the car starts smoking.. Big time smoking. So, we all jump out and start joking about it until we realize what happened. The boys run down the street to grab a "mechanic," and the girls pile into an already full Ugandan taxi with all of our luggage. (Someone should have taken a picture. We got so many stares from our fellow cab riders). We're almost to the airport, and the guys call us and tell us to jump off because the car is fixed. Once we finally get there, we sprint to the gate only for the lady to look at us and say, "It's closed." When Sarah asked her what she meant, the lady stared at her for a good 8 seconds and said, "The flight is closed. You have to go in that door and to the office." Jayan and I take off running, and all we find is a closed KLM office. So.. (Dont worry. We're just getting started). We come back and she says, "You were late. We can't check in anyone after 1030." We explain to her that we were there at 10:30, and she just ignores us. She grabs the KLM manager, and he completely blows us off and says he will talk to us at midnight in the office. All the while we have 5 Ugandans with us that have to be at work on Monday, and the airport is an hour and a half away. Finally, midnight rolls around and the manager comes in. One of his colleagues waves us to sit down in his office, right across from him. We never once greets us or says anything. After 10 minutes of him eating, watching soccer, and working on his computer, Sarah says, "Sebu, do you have time to talk to us or should we come back tomorrow?" Without looking up, he says that he will be with us in a minute. And then the fun begins... He's trying to book us a flight for Tuesday! That would mean that we had a day and a half in Rome, which we felt wasn't worth the money we spent. He said that he couldn't compensate us for our hotel in Rome or the Rome flight. So, we take it because he tells us it's our only option. We ask the lady for her name, and she won't give it to us, which is illegal. How am I supposed to know she even works at the airport if she won't show me her badge? And! why are you hiding it if you've done nothing wrong? She calls 2 "supervisors" that I know are not her supervisors. One says her name is Jacqueline but won't tell me her second name. I'm also like 98% sure that that's not her name because when I would say, "I know your name is Jacqueline, but I just want your last name, she would smirk. After a heated discussion, we just leave. One of the "supervisors" says he's going to take down my name, so he can handle the complaint. I say ummm.. Absolutely not. If you give me her name, I will give you mine. Of course he wouldn't do it that way because he's not the supervisor. I'm buying Skye credit when I get home and making a phone call. It got that bad. I recorded most of it on my phone too so that I could have proof. Anyways, I get to sleep around 345 or so. We wake up at 630 to work on flight stuff, and we get nowhere after holding for about 6 hours. Everyone keeps saying that if we want to leave on Monday, we have to pay $600 each. You can imagine the frustration level. At this point we were fine with just going home, but not if we still had to pay for Rome but no one would tell us that we got any compensation. After getting nowhere on the phone, we go to the KLM office in Kampala. Benon walks up to the counter and says he needs a manager. This woman said, "Well, what do you think a manager looks like?" We knew we were in for a real treat. (Hopefully y'all can catch that sarcasm). She is sooooo sassy, raises her voice at us a few times, and even tries to tell us that we have to pay for the flight the guy put us on for Tuesday. She asks how we can prove we were there at 10:30. We then ask her how she can prove we weren't. - It was basically a cat and mouse game. She was super unhelpful and said that Delta needed to handle everything. Delta always says KLM has to handle it, so we just told her no that she needed to. Sarah is feeling really sick, so we walk out feeling a little defeated. Keep in mind we're running on about 2 hours of sleep. And to top it all off, Sonja can't meet us in Rome. :( -- Anyways, we go home and say that we're going to try one more time. I text my mom and tell her to rally her prayer warriors together, and I'm finally like, "Okay, God. Please take care of this." Not 3 minutes later, Sarah is on the phone with a lady that says, "Yeah, no problem we can put y'all on the flight tonight with no extra charge." (Ummm.. hello! Straight up miracle. After trying for almost 12 hours. I wonder what would have happened if we had just prayed about it first. :/ ) Anyways, She signs Sarah up, cancels my Tuesday flight and then doesn't schedule me. We call about 3 more times, and we finally get it solved at 630. We had decided earlier that day that we needed to leave at 6:30 to be safe, but none of the EAC drivers will answer their phones. So, they hire a driver that comes at 8:15!!! And there is a HUGE traffic jam.. Well multiple jams. They were so bad that our driver turned his car off a few times. I was getting pretty anxious, not going to lie. He ended up pulling those "I'm going to be really obnoxious and drive on the side of the road to pass all of these cars." That's a little more appropriate in Uganda, but still definitely frowned upon. Then, he just flies down Entebbe road, spending lots of time in the opposite lane driving past cars. We get there at like 10:10 only to find out that Sarah is on the flight but not me. Guess who is helping us? The same KLM manager that was so rude! However, this time he was actually pretty nice and helpful! (And yes, as much as my flesh didn't want to, I shook his hand and told him thank you). Our flight from Amsterdam to Rome was cancelled, so he says we can go to Paris first. Awesome, no big deal. We'll get there about the same time anyways. After our flight to Amsterdam, Sarah and I realize that they put us on 2 different flights! So, I'm sitting in the airport, and she's flying to Paris. So yeah.... It's such a good thing that God is in control. Praying for both of our safe travels! When things like this happen, I always have an uneasy feeling about it.
Saying "see you later" to Jayan, Brendah, and Felix this morning was so hard. No tears, but I was close. Those 3 are just so special to us! Thank goodness for Skype and for Jesus, that binds our friendship together.
Sweet Liz came over for a surprise visit, and what a great surprise it was!
Love. Love. Love these 2 girls. They love Jesus so much and are such a wonderful source of encouragement.
We wanted Melissa and Lola there. :(
Praise The Lord!
Angie Brooke
