My Jammies Journey

Thank you to all that follow me I as wander the world. Remember last year when I told in detail the sad tale of our missing luggage as we headed to a cruise? I had a multi-part story titled “My Pajamas Need a Passport”. In case you’ve been wondering, my pajamas have been wandering... again.

Husband, Doug, and I made it home from Uganda and Morocco on a Friday. Doug took Big Red (my suitcase) to the carwash on Saturday for a bath and I repacked it Sunday for a 6:20pm flight from Tulsa to Gulfport, Mississippi. I was looking forward to Travel South, a conference for travel buyers to meet with travel suppliers in a professional setting. I had appointments with 70 travel businesses plus a number of industry related activities. It’s fun, overwhelming, interesting and challenging… especially when your pajamas are a no show.

Back to that Tulsa flight. Our boarding time came and went, and we knew our flight was being delayed. My connecting flight was at 8:00pm in Dallas, so I had a tiny bit of wiggle room. That was, until American Airlines delayed twice more and now I wouldn’t reach Dallas to make my connection. And… there wasn’t another flight to Gulfport until 1:00pm… the next day. This is the moment everyone gets anxious.

Business travelers, like me, are scrambling to figure out how to make work and meetings. Spring Breakers are trying to figure out how to get home or to their vacation spot without losing any more time. I wait my turn in line to get Plan B. AA can get me to Dallas, and since it is a mechanical issue, they will put me up in a hotel and I can get to Mississippi Monday afternoon. But I have no pajamas... or anything. The professional traveler in me hates to admit, that I didn’t pack a carry-on bag for just such emergencies, because it’s just supposed to be a short couple of flights. Sigh.

I ask the agent if there was a chance to have my bag retagged to Dallas, so I could get it for the overnight. She made some calls to where ever bags lay and wait and said it was done. It wasn’t.

When I finally made it to Texas, Big Red was nowhere to be seen. After a few laps around that airport, and a demand audience with a supervisor, I was shuffled off to enjoy three hours in a hotel, without pajamas, before needing to be back to the airport to catch my United flight to Gulfport.

Dallas to Fort Worth, Fort Worth to Gulfport, finally. My luggage is nowhere to be seen. American Airlines blames United, United blames American. Sigh. I fill out the required paperwork, and head off to the conference wearing the T-shirt, jeans and tennis shoes I wore to church Sunday morning. I’ve missed 16 of my 70 appointments. I ask at the front desk if they have an amenities kit that I might have as I have a business dinner at a nice restaurant Monday evening. Housekeeping delivers a laundry bag with 19, yes, 19 things to bathe with. No toothbrush, no q-tip, but bars of soap and body washes. Sigh.

The story does end with my pajamas showing up late Monday evening. If they could only talk, they could tell me where they had been, as the airlines didn’t know. But I learned a lesson. I may wear my PJs to the airport next time.

The Art of Food

We have returned from Morocco, but I’m still reflecting on the many memories. One thing I certainly will associate with Morocco is Berber Whiskey. We drank it at every meal, it was offered when we entered places of business and hotel lobbies. It was available along the side of the road, and everyone drank Berber Whiskey. Tea, I’m talking about hot tea. But it is so much more than a dunked bag, it is a tradition and an art.

The Berbers are indigenous people of Northern Africa which includes Morocco. Kings, wars, and the quest for power and properties down through the years have resulted in culture jumble in these modern times. French and Arabic languages are woven into the fabric of Jewish and Muslim people.  The result is colorful and rich. But there is a constant, and that is tea and food.

We were students at the Lotus Chef Cooking School in Marrakech.  As we took our seats in the garden, our lovely hostess began to set the pace for the morning’s class… slow. We started with our “whiskey.” The tea-man brought out his giant tea kettle of water and placed it on the small, round, metal charcoal stove. He was seated on a floor cushion in his traditional costume. As the water began to boil, he prepared the tiny tea glasses which reminded me of slender jelly glasses. As a hot tea drinker myself, I was ready to grab a mug and dunk a bag when I saw the steam curl from the spout.

But no, this was just to heat the pot; fresh water was added and reheated to a boil. Then the hand-selected mint leaves were dropped in the kettle along with several chunks of sugar off a block. The tea-man poured an artistic arc of tea into the small glass. He then poured it back into the pot. This was repeated, until the tea was deemed steeped and ready. But not yet, as the tea had to be poured from amazing heights to mix the sugar.   It was almost a bit difficult to sit patiently and listen as everything was explained in beautiful detail. It starts with the tea, a slow ceremony for enjoyment. 

The tea is never stirred, as that gives the impression of being hurried and it breaks the tea leaves. The high pouring creates foam on each glass plus helps with the cooling. The process is quite impressive.

As we sipped our tiny teas, our hostess explained the art of the table. I loved her statement “Food can be nice when you have it, but it can be nicer when you share it.” Moroccans share, usually a large portion, in the table center. No silverware is needed as the flat bread is the fork. Lunch is the largest meal. Guests are served an abundance of food using the best utensils and linens. Our hostess gave credit to their long life span because of social skills with family and friends. Being social over food can recharge tired bodies. She said that in entertaining guests it is not polite to ask what the nature of the visit is or how long they plan to stay until after three days. 

Herbs and spices were discussed and passed around to sniff. We have dozens of pictures of these colorful peaks from the spice market that you can see on our Facebook page (facebook.com/G2GwithPB). It’s hard to think there could be that much demand. Ginger, cinnamon, cumin and “red gold” saffron. She was clear that most women grind their herbs fresh with a mortar and pestle. When asked about using a food processer, she smiled and replied, “No, sit down. Drink tea and make your music.” Her little brass bowl and wooden utensil chimed in agreement to her statement.

 I hope you will take the time to drink some tea and make some music.

Takin’ a Taxi

If you want to discover an area, travel by road. Criss-crossing a country in an airplane and hopping airports is certainly faster, but there is something kind of great about the observations

made through a windshield.

Doug and I had a plane to catch in Entebbe, Uganda for the second half of our 2018 adventure. We left our tiny town near Kamura, Uganda (south of Gulu) by taxi for a five hour drive to overnight before our flight. Five hours, you read that correctly. We had the same driver, same taxi for the trip out, but I was pretzeled in the back seat with the items we were delivering for the hospital that we were going to volunteer. I can’t really comment on the scenery except the side of some suitcases. I was promoted to front seat for the return and the journey began. Driver Eric did his best with some broken English to answer my questions, and I had a lot of them.

Most of my queries , I just had to wonder.  He asked if I wanted the air conditioner on, and I guess “yes” was hard to understand because we did the drive with the windows down. This part of Africa drives on the left with the steering wheel on the right. It had taken me all week to not go to the wrong side of the Restoration Gateway van to climb in. I had hopes of AC when Eric rolled up his window, but I discovered every smoking diesel bus or truck we passed, he got that window up and then it was down. Gasoline costs about $7 a liter, so I can’t really blame him.

The dirt there is like western Oklahoma, red clay and dusty. I watched folks in their daily lives. Whenever I saw a small crowd, I knew there would be people filling plastic cans with water. School children in tattered uniforms walked along the side of the highway headed home. I wondered what American parents would say if their little student walked alone down a busy blacktop. We passed through some small towns, women selling bread, jack fruit and eggs. Motorcycles buzzed by with entire families on board. I saw four adult men on a small cycle and then I couldn’t be surprised when I saw four big kids on a bike.

Traffic was a tangle as we reached the bigger city of Entebbe. Horns honking everywhere, motorcycles passing vehicles on both sides, cattle in the road...it seemed to be a huge game of chicken. I noticed many of the public mini-buses had sacred sayings on the back window such as “Jesus is Lord,” and “God Saves”. Trust me, that crazy taxi ride, I think I got saved three times. Six and a half hours later, we were there.

Fast forward to our next taxi ride which was after we landed in Casablanca. We are joining a group tour to check out Morocco. (You are asking yourself, “Does she really go on group tours when she’s not on a group tour?” Yep.) So we negotiated a price with our French speaking, Moroccan driver. I guess I’m going to drive, because we are back to right lane driving and left side steering and I can’t find my spot in the cab. We left for Rabat where the tour starts. We aren’t on the road five minutes and he pulls over and reaches into the glove box. Doug and I shoot each other a look, as he flings open his door mumbling something that sounded like “one minute”. Fifteen long minutes later he returns with a paper. (We didn’t ask.)

I notice his amber ornament that looks like the Koran on his rear view mirror. About this time Doug starts reading me the daily devotion our brother-in-law Mike sends us. All the while the driver’s playlist is pumping out The Beatles singing “Mother Mary comes to me.....Let it Be” Somehow it made me grin. Then the playlist cranked out Dolly Parton and Celine Dion. But my favorite moment was when Mr. Driver held up his fist, concert style, on “We are the World”. As it turned out, he was very expressive with his hands. I thought the Italians had top marks with hand gestures, but he displayed his dissatisfaction with other drivers with such complex moves, I wasn’t sure if he was cussing them out or giving them coaching directions to steal third base.

After a couple of phone calls and more stops to ask for directions, he finally found our hotel. He stopped in the intersection for us to get out. I was ready. 

Maybe next time we should look up Uber.

Greetings from Uganda!

The first week of volunteering in Uganda has gone by fast even though we are in a world where things are much slower. In many ways I feel like I’m at big kid church camp. It’s just camp is just on the River Nile. A few nights we’ve heard the hippos as they come out to graze.

The Team House that we are staying in has 6 bedrooms, each with its own toilet and shower. We have a solar panel system for electric power and hot water. It’s the end of the dry season, so we’ve had hot, sunny days which means a warm water shower.

Dr. Carena from Waco, TX and her mom, Christine, are here. They have been coming for seven years. Dr. Kevin from CA and his friend, Danon, a videographer, are here. Allisa and Chelsey are nurses that are repeat visitors/volunteers. We have all our meals together and share limited wifi and clothesline space. Two very important online activities.

Most Ugandans have been given American sounding names. Richard is the mechanic and welder. The sound of grinding metal rings out all over RG as he works to complete the 180 hospital beds needed for the hospital that is being constructed. We hauled four extra pieces of luggage over that contained a portable digital XRay machine. We were glad TSA didn’t ask us to operate it. We did stir some interest flying into Casablanca, Morocco. We had an overnight there and they wouldn’t let us take it into Morocco. They locked the stuff up in customs office. Which worked out fine because that kept it safe overnight and yes, a little “money for coffee” the next morning and we got them back to continue on to Africa.

The vision of RG is to have a medical school and eventually a hotel/resort here on the Nile. We sat with the McCalls and listened to how God has provided as they were faithful to make this happen. Amazing stories, especially considering it wasn’t that long ago this area was overrun with the LRA, Lord’s Resistance Army. Genocide, slavery, and total destruction of the country ensued. Many of the workers have horror stories of their lives, running for safety, education and life totally disrupted. The 140 orphans at this campus are some of the casualties. HIV/AIDS has also taken its toll on the population.

The children are finding a new normal. Though they may look ragged and poor, this life affords them a bed, food, clothes, education and… safety. They have care for their wounds-physical and spiritual. They are loved and protected. These will be Uganda’s leaders. We want them to be educated and compassionate and not use terror to rule.

I organized a ward full of donated medical supplies that I could hardly identify. I taught a sewing class for the mommas as they begin to sell crafts. They use a Singer treadle sewing machine so no button-hole feature, so I taught them how to make a buttonhole by hand. My mom would be proud.

RG has expanded their agricultural with a hope to be self sufficient. Emmanuel hatched their own eggs and the chicken flock has more than doubled. This means protein for a diet of mainly cassava, rice and beans. Each momma gets a chicken a week to cook for her kids. A highlight of the week was when Doug offered to kill our weekly chicken. They use a what we would consider a dull knife and chop the head off. Doug did the spin and snap move. They were so impressed that he was asked to demonstrate for the mommas and drew quite a crowd! Again, my momma would be proud.

These wonderful people are full of love and  potential.  It makes a person feel good to be able to assit others who are not in a position to return the favor. We feel so blessed to be able to help. We are all in this world together.

A Lovely Mystery

When the Good to Go gang takes off on a mystery trip, we always have a little fun with guessing 1) where we will spend the night and 2) how many miles our round trip will be. The travelers get some very vague clues from the trip flyer. Remember this is mystery as in they have no idea where they are going, not a murder mystery event. 

From the travelers perspective, it’s all about adventure and experiences that one might have rejected if given the choice.  It’s the fun of the unknown and what will be around the next corner. From my perspective as their Fearless Leader, it’s all about taking folks to places they didn’t know existed. Enjoying their trust to find activities and attractions that are fun and varied with a little something for everyone.  I find these gems though networking with peers, reading travel articles and keeping my ears open. 

No one guessed where the “Love is a ... Mystery” trip would wind up. There are lots of things in life to love and we found many of them in Merriam, Kansas. Maybe you’ve seen the sign as you were driving the interstate to Kansas City.  We took the time to explore and this is what we found.  We love music. A visit to K.C. Strings enlightened us on the entire construction of stringed instruments. From the wood, through the carving, to giving a violin, viola or cello it’s ‘voice’, this process is hundreds of years old. We turned it up a few notches with a visit to Guitarlamp studio where a rock and roller spends his off stage time engineering unusual lamps made from the body of electric guitars. Strum the strings and it lights up.  The artist’s “playroom” and rock and roll themed apartment has been featured on a number of TV shows including HGTV. 

We love nice smelling stuff and we got a nose full at Mixtures. Maybe you’ve seen these boutique candles and spa items in gift stores. We saw where they are all made by hand with love.

We love food and we took a trip down memory lane at Strawberry Hill, one of the few bakeries left making potivica, a swirly, tasty pastry. We had an ice cream soda made just like they used to make them. It almost spoiled our dinner appetite. Almost. 

We love our blue jeans and Lee has a great museum about the way our romance has evolved. We love history and the Mchaffie Stagecoach stop on the Santa Fe Trail allowed us to step back in time. We love getting acquainted with new friends and traveling with our old running buddies. 

No one guessed Merriam, but we had a sweetheart of a little mystery trip to visit!