A white haired man just approached me with a red pocket camera hovering near my face and asked, “can I take a picture of your hair? You have the most gorgeous hair I have ever seen.” I think my face turned as red as my hair. That was a little embarrassing. In three days when I have my frizzy Africa hairdo he definitely wouldn’t have asked. I suppose this is how my adventure begins.
I am at the airport. I’m sitting behind the checkin desk on the floor hovering near electricity, hoping somehow I can figure a way to bring power with me to Africa. With that said, I should warn everyone who checks in daily with my musings (thanks) that in Africa I might not be able to blog as often as I want to and I don’t want anyone to worry that I fell in a hole. If I go too long without power, I’ll navigate Craig into my blog and he can reassure you that I’m just fine. And I’ll save all my words for one long pour when the power returns.
I woke up at 3:30am to begin two long days of travel. It is Thursday morning and I will arrive in Uganda late Friday night. All I can say is I’m thankful I’m not toting a two year old with me. I can handle any upset that comes my way when I travel alone, but when I’ve got a testy toddler in tow I experience travel anxiety. I’m watching a group of people whose flight has been delayed. People reveal their true nature in airports. There are some tempers clashing around here and it seems that some people are more important than others, or so they believe. I wish I had the audacity to tell them who I think they are….average folk just like everyone else.
I have a philosophy about traveling specifically, but problems in general. Why fall off center about something that is completely out of your control? Why do we expect the airlines to be perfect? They don’t have a prior to reinforce such a high standard. I appear at the airport expecting to be flexible, knowing anything could happen and most of it isn’t worth losing my sense of humor. I have my security blankets with me and they include, a kindle full of interesting reading material, bible, journal, music, computer, camera, needlepoint and a couple of movies. Really, I have enough to entertain myself for as long as they make me wait. I actually like having all this free time to let my mind swirl around its own thoughts.
An altered course can just be time found. And if that time finds me in the company of all these grumpy people complaining to the poor ticket agents then that’s a good time to find my ear plugs, avoid eye contact, and pull out the kindle. I really don’t want anyone to confuse their problems with mine. I’m walking into a lion’s den in a couple days…and I know they can’t touch me, but I hope they don’t try to scare me too much. My devotional this morning said, “consider it joy when you experience trials”… yikes. I’m deep breathing joy, exhaling fear.
I wonder what that old man is going to do with the photo he took of my hair….watching people in an airport is endlessly entertaining. It never occurred to me that people are watching me too.
