May 15th and 16th

I am blending these two days together because that's how they exist for me. We got up yesterday (yesterday, right?) at 3:30am to drive to Denver International, and our flight left for Washington Dulles International at 8:05am. Everything has mostly seemed like a blur since then. Layovers and long flights. Talking to strangers from all over the world. Good coffee. Bad coffee. Blurred contact lenses and compression socks that are leaving a nice argyle imprint in my shins. From Washington Dulles we landed in Brussels, Belgium- which I would have loved to have seen more of but sadly we only saw the insides of two terminals and that's about it. Oh, and one very crowded bus that transported us from one terminal to the next. 

 I am currently sitting on my last connecting flight from Brussels to Entebbe, with one stop in Kigali, Rwanda (about a 10 hour flight). I'm trying to stay awake for this entire flight so that I have some hope of adjusting to the time when we arrive- approximately 9:30pm. Tavia and I are both less than thrilled at this point because we haven't been able to eat anything on this flight- gluten and dairy and steak are coming between us and our balanced meals. But fret not, because there is still coffee and red wine to be had. We still have about 7 hours on this flight, which seems almost unreal to me. I have hit a fairly solid wall of delirium. About 5 hours ago. I am not a person who is able to sleep on airplanes. For one because my limbs don't quite fit into these seats (particularly the one I am presently occupying as the person in front of me is fully reclined and the person behind me has asked me not to recline my chair at all). Plus I am a super light sleeper anyway. But hopefully I will be completely exhausted and then we can just sleep through the night once we arrive. And go through customs. And get our visas. And pick up our luggage. And OF COURSE everything is going to go smoothly.

 I'm trying to decide what to do with the rest of the flight time. I just watched the movie Wild, which was good, having read the book. But I'm not sure you would be too enthralled with it without the back stories that the novel itself provides. I am also reading The Handmaid's Tale, which is thoroughly captivating, if not terrifying and a bit confusing. I told Tavia that I think the author must have read Beloved before writing this novel. Something about Beloved feels to ring through in her narrative- at least for me. She often doesn't use quotations (only when speaking in the present tense) and the reader is left to ponder her stream of consciousness, which is provoking yet befuddling. But, yet again, I digress. 

I arrived at the airport with two surprises in my purse- a letter from my mother and a bundle of cash stuck haphazardly in the corner, which I later discovered was from Brad so that I could buy myself a cup of coffee (okay, yes, SOMETIMES I need a cup of coffee, but I don't NEED it, I'm totally fine without it. Totally). I don't know what I would do without the people in my life. They are so supportive of me. So loving and generous, and they make me strive to be a better person. I don't think the reality of this situation- of being gone in East Africa for two and a half months- completely hit me until I was sitting in the bus terminal waiting to be transported to the terminal for connecting Africa flights. And in reality, it hasn't entirely hit me yet. I don't suppose it will until we actually arrive and get settled.