The Final Leg

          I was again fortunate on the leg from Kigali to Amsterdam to be seated next to a Ugandan electrical engineer on his way to Haiti.  He had been working there trying to re-establish some infrastucture for several years and would come home to visit his family occasionally and go back.  He said going to Haiti was so odd for him, because he flew thousands of miles and landed and found a place so much like home it was eerie.  He said Haiti was like Uganda with an ocean!  He was  insightful and pleasant company, and I concluded that the people of Haiti were very fortunate to have his assistance.
     It was a long flight and I can't really remember what time it was in Amsterdam--early in the morning I think.  I had time to snoop around a little, but I spent most of my time going through security.  Didn't it used to be that once you got through airport security at one airport you didn't have to go through it again at the next airport (if you never left the second airport of course)??  Well, if it WAS that way before, it sure isn't that way now, and I had to go through security in Amsterdam and then again an hour later in Paris.
     And how weird is this?  I ran into some one I knew in the Amsterdam airport!  It was the principal of the high school at home.  He and his friends were on the way to Slovenia to do some mission work.  I thought he meant for just a short time, so didn't think much of it, but when I got home, I found he was resigning his position to this sort of thing more.
     All of a sudden it seemed everyone was a missionary!  Both of my seatmates on the Amsterdam/Paris leg and the Paris/Chicago legs were American missionaries returning home.  I was a little uncomfortable talking with them, especially when one of them laid his hand on my arm and prayed for me, but I survived.
     Time is such a fluid concept when you're on such a long flight.  You sleep, and you eat, and you may watch a movie and look outside once in a while, but for me it's so disorienting.  I like to watch the map on the screen to see WHERE we are, but I almost never have any concept as to WHEN we are.  But soon enough where we were was Chicago.  I was there but my luggage was not.  I thought it must be in Paris since I had so very short a layover there, but no, turns out it was in Amsterdam.  So they promised to deliver it to me at home in a couple of days, and I felt that if it was going to happen (as surely it must), it was a lot better to happen on the way home than on the way over.
      So, I was back in country, not even having gone through customs or anything since I had no luggage, and there was SCOTT, beginning to worry because I had been

so long waiting for my luggage.  It was so reassuring and wonderful to see him!  We had a fine full evening ahead of us, visiting his family, and a pretty early start the next morning to drive HOME.  Aramis was happy to see me.  The weather here was a little different from Africa.