After a hectic day of packing and leaving everything to the last minute (like I always do), I arrived, bleary eyed in Manchester Airport at 3:15 and I was actually early… because Dad had told me to be there 30mins early…. I definitely run on Ugandan time normally. I met the rest of the team who had got the coach from Kirkby Lonsdale and we managed to check in around 34 suitcases/ boxes of medications smoothly and easily – very surprisingly (thank you Brussels Airlines)! After a leisurely breakfast/ coffee, we boarded the 06:10 plane to Brussels, then, a few hours later, from Brussels to Uganda (with a 1 hour stop over at Kigali, Rwanda – but we didn’t get off the plane… does this count as having visited there?!) At 22:45 Ugandan time (19:45 UK time), we emerged, stiff legged, even more bleary eyed and rather disorientated, into Entebbe Airport, Uganda. The heat hit us straight away - A stark and rather welcome contrast from snowy England!
At the airport, we got through passport/ visa control very quickly to find all our luggage had arrived with us! To make things even better, we were allowed to take all of our medication to the hotel immediately! Last year, there had been a great deal of problems with the correct paperwork for our boxes of medication (from International Health Partners) so the team had to leave them with security at the airport, for them to be delivered later on in the trip. This caused a lot of issues for the medical work so the team were, understandably, concerned about this happening again. This time however, our wonderful pharmacist, director and one of the GPs had spent a great deal of time ensuring that the correct paperwork was completed and therefore, we managed to take everything to the hotel straight away! Fitting it all on the bus, along with ourselves was a feat in itself however! It never ceases to amaze me how, when I fall over backwards after a suitcase (that apparently contains dark matter) refuses to let me move it, our Ugandan team members (namely Ibra, Joel and Jojoe) will throw it effortlessly over their shoulders and onto the bus/ up the 3 flights of stairs to our hotel rooms!
When we arrived at the Kolping Hotel, we found that some room renovations were taking place which meant that, unfortunately, some of our team members were unable to be allocated rooms for the whole 2 weeks. The members whom this affected were very gracious about it and have now (as I’m typing this retrospectively on 25th January) all finally been given rooms that they can stay in for the rest of the fortnight.