Arrival

We arrived much later than we expected after one of our doctors was pulled aside in Amsterdam at the last moment of our boarding the plane to Kenya. Her passport it seems was due to expire within 6 months, and although valid, African countries will not allow entrance, a fact that somehow was missed by both our travel agent and by Delta in Portland. Officials in Amsterdam were insisting that we should have been aware of this. Three other passengers were in the same position, and despite Miriam trying her best, we had to board without Dr. Deb, leaving her behind to figure out what to do. We were horrified. None of us were aware of this condition in Africa, including Miriam who IS African!

Of course what this also meant was that the airline had to locate and unboard the luggage of Deb and the others which took almost two hours. This was a huge 747 plane with 6 containers of luggage inside. Of course Deb's was in the last container to be checked. The rest of us were left to pray that some how, some way Deb would be able to sort all this out and still join us.

We survived the chaos that is also known as baggage claim and customs, barely. We located all but one of the 15 extra trunks that we checked, loaded those along with our 48 suitcases, and 48 carry ons in three vans and made our way to our guest house, crawling into bed about 1:30 am.


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