Travel

The sleek body slicing through the fluid effortlessly whilst passengers relish every moment basked in pristine luxury. Truly a bygone era. This adventure started Sunday afternoon in Columbus with a rather familiar airport, cramped seat, lack of luggage space (because of people bringing 63 changes of clothing for their 2 days of meetings), and other usual drab. The first leg took a little over an hour to get to Charlotte with a second leg going to Washington Dulles. From there, things amazingly took a turn for the better. The flight to addis ababa is rather long and the direction of flight made the day incredibly short. Much to my surprise, the seat adjacent to me remained unoccupied until Ethiopia (we made a fuel stop in Rome). The airline even put me up for the night in a lovely hotel. The hotel tried very hard to look good and did rather well, with king's adopted cousin written all over. The next morning, I proceeded to Lilongwe, Malawi. Here the mystery began.

Statistics would seem to indicate that someone like me would be a rarity in central Africa. Upon finishing customs, I walk toward the airport exit having no idea who is looking for me (I knew a name but no face). A person holding a sign saying "Mr. Reddy" seemed like a good bet (yes it was incorrectly spelled but rather close, could have been a pronunciation error). I go to him and he informs me he's going to take me to "my people". After a 30 km taxi ride, I arrive at a hotel. They say somebody from Zambia (which was actually to be my next destination) called and reserved a room for me. While appreciated, I wasn't convinced this was for me. A couple text messages later, the truth erupted. I had taken and paid for someone else's taxi, nearly paid for their room, and missed my job entirely. After about half an hour, all was solved and Zambia approached. For those of you who know me, travel is never something that goes well for me. This happened to be my error than someone else's. All I know is that it could have been worse, and I am thankful it wasn't.

Sabbath is going to be here very soon. I don't know what it holds, but it does beckon. I will gladly heed.

(from my iPod)