Travel days
So let me tell you about our travel days. These are any days where the squad moves from one country to another, and every few months from one continent to another which are the Big travel days. Many of my squad mates say they love travel days because it’s a time to rest and relax on a 29 hour train ride or check out mentally as they get herded through an international airport and enjoy a nice flight where we get yummy airplane food (not sarcastic when you live off $4/day for food) and all the free drinks you can pee out on an international flight.
Me on the other hand, not my favorite days other than the excitement of arriving in a brand new country and adventures. Personally im not a big fan of packing up all my stuff and tying to figure out how i’m going to re-cram all my stuff in to my backpack, seeing as how it barely fit 1 month ago and now I’ve added 2 more t-shirts and new souvenirs that I picked up in the current country. Thats really just the calm before the storm though. As one of two logistics leaders with my partner in crime, Tom Kowatch, we have the privilege of getting our squad of 47 Americans and 2 Canadians across boarders, to the right terminals, through customs and security, on to busses, and finding each teams local transport once we’re in our new country. Oh yea, and we tend to always catch the red-eye or the 7am flights, I’m guessing to save money. So this is usually done with not much sleep or none at all. But seriously I’m always up for the challenge and realizing how God has gifted me to be logistically minded and not become overwhelmed by bigger tasks.
Allow me to briefly recap on our most recent travel day from Ireland to Kenya. Due to an unfortunate incident, that I hope to be able to blog about in the future, none of our squad got more than 2 hours of sleep before heading off at 7am to catch our flight. That will all make more sense when i post a blog about that night as God showed up in a big way. So anyway, we all ended up packing up our wet tents anywhere from 3 – 6am in the wet cold weather. Ya, a little uncomfortable but not a big deal considering what had been going on. So we get to the airport and herd the squad to an open area where we can relax for a bit before checking in. Not bad so far… But wait, whats this? One of the girls can’t find her backpack. It’s got to be among the sea of 100+ big packs and day packs, I thought. Let’s just look harder. Not to be found. Shoots, this was probably the one pack that had the most expensive gizmos and gadgets in it too; I’m talking like $9000 of computer, camera, lenses, etc in it. To protect her identity, this squad mate will remain nameless, but I love her to death. Wheels start turning, did she leave it on the bus? At the camp site? We track down phn #s to call and find out. Nothing! What to do now… This girl is in freak out mode, people are starting to check in. Let’s go for a risk and hope it pays off, I think to myself! Let’s get her on a taxi asap, have her do a double sweep of the camp site…worst case scenario she misses her flight (then I get fired from my position, maybe not really), acceptable outcome is she looks and at least has peace of mind she did everything she could. Best case scenario is she somehow finds it. Praise the Lord, not only did she find her bag sitting right where she left it, but made it back with plenty of time. I felt so happy for her and proud that I helped avoid what could have been and even more miserable morning for my friend.
Now we’re on our flight to Istanbul, Turkey where we have a lay over and experienced a couple “first Evers” on the flight. Not trying to scare you mom, but just reporting the facts. As I woke up from my nap, the airplane was just about to touch down. I was still groggy but I could tell there was runway out the window. But wait a second, why are we ascending? What’s going on…everyone around me is so calm. My first thought is somehow I fell asleep on the plane before leaving Ireland and we are just taking off. I was so confused! Since I was crammed between two strange men that hardly spoke english, i couldnt just ask one of my friends. Finally, I catch the eye of one of my mates and confirmed something strange was going on. We indeed almost just touched down before the pilot put thrusters on full blast and shot back into the sky. The captain made an announcement and tried to play it off that the winds had suddenly changed. Baloney! I’ve landed in some pretty bad weather before and besides it was sunny blue skies out. Later I found out from some locals, that had a window seat, that the pilot was actually going to land on the wrong shorter run way and was not going to have enough room to stop. Then, on the second attempt to touch down, I kid you not, I thought the plane was going to tip over as we literally skid sideways for a second. This might have been one of those drunk pilots that had become infamous over the past couple years. Yikes!
Well, now we were late for our connecting flight because of the pilots antics and having to circle around for a good 20 mins. So we had to shuffle our squad through security again, and hop on our flight that would shoot us out in Kenya around 2am. So from the time we landed, it had been a full 24 since waking up at 2 the previous morning. Then the joys of packing the whole squad plus luggage in an African bus plus two minivans…fun times!
But alas, it’s all worth it when everyone finally gets settled into our hostel for the night and I feel a sense of calm and accomplishment. I’ve come to really embrace the challenge and honor of serving my beloved squad in this capacity.
