Rushing Go Great Distances

"Why can't I ever go anywhere in a normal fashion?"

So two minutes after I wrote the last post, Julie, Our RD, rushes into the room shouting commands.
"C'mon! C'mon! C'mon! Everything needs to be packed up right now. We moved up our flight and it's in half an hour! It leaves at 6:30pm. Let's Go! We have to make it to the airport."
Everyone, with graces of gerbils, rushes for our luggage, carry-on's, and any other little items we might regret leaving behind (snack bags are necessity), and shove into FH vans. In the vans, we talked and looked at the stoplights that were holding us up. We make it to the airport half an hour before boarding. All ten of us stand in line with our hiking backpacks and duffel bags. But at the ticket counter, apparently the clerk has never checked in a group flying internationally and does not know a way to get our luggage from point A Phoenix to point B Ethiopia without having to recheck our bags at each of our five stops. Besides, there was the additional fee required for all our extra luggage. Teresa, our program manager, is an insistent woman. We wait 30 minutes for this woman to finally renig and handwrite each and every bag ticket and receipt. Plus take our wad of cash. None of this is making any sense. Our plane is boarding right now. The clerk is pissed because it's the end of her day and this was the last thing she needed. Two girls manage to check their luggage ahead of me, and when it's my turn and it's all done, Teresa,the program manager, turns to me and sternly gives me my mission.
"Roshanda. You are going to run in front of everyone in security. You're flight is leaving now. They're going to stop you at security anyway. RUN and make that plane."
So I sprint. I spring like a flip-flopping wind with my backpack that weighs approximately 293,374 pounds and I negotiate my way to front of security where, wouldn't you know it, they stop me in the "holding cell".
I wait 7 minutes for someone to pat me down.
7 of them.
By the time the woman comes over and begins to spot check my laptop, it is 6:17. Interestingly enough, the woman is very chatty in my controlled frantic-ness. "Oh, so what time does your plane leave." Now. RIGHT now. It takes off at 6:30. "Oh! You need to go then, don't you?" (#_#)

So I run again. Like the wind, the wrong way, and by the time I make it to the gate, it is two minutes before United Air locks the gate. Panting like the elderly emphezema victim, I stumble onto the plane looking for the two familiar faces that should have made the plane before me. However, I slowly realize, they aren't there. They are not on this plane. I sit down and wait for my equally frantic team to board the plane that has miraculously been held for them. But the flight attendant shuts the cabin door. As we take off it begins to sink in: No team. Just me. I am alone on a flight to Atlanta and I don't know where anyone is or how I can meet them. I am slightly frazzled.
Why can't I ever get anywhere in a normal fashion? At 1am, I arrive in Atlanta and call Teresa to see if she knows where everyone is. I'm instructed to take a connecting flight to Washington at 5am and meet them in Washington D.C. I share this hilarity on a payphone to my parents in the lock-downed Atlanta airport.
When I see them in D.C., I raise my arms in celebration! We cheer! Thank God! I was worried I'd have to take a 15 hour plane ride to Ethiopia by myself! Julia and Kirsten even hug me. However, even at the point in the game, was possible impending disaster because as Julia went to check in, they informed her that her ticket had been canceled. She's our young house mom! There was nothing she could do about it but buy another $1,000 ticket. We thought all ten of us were going to have to leave without her and catch up with her later.

At plane ride hour 17, 3 hours of good sleep, I looked outside the window on Ethiopia Air, and saw the sunrise in Sudan's sky. It was like a magma ball of deep orange, levitating up above clouds, the air navy, yellow, pink, red and then exploding the sky with bright light, washing everything white. I smile and turned away. I'm almost to Addis Ababa.
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In Kampala, It's completely different than what I imagined but I'm so pleased. Poverty is evident even in the midst of downtown. I didn't think I'd see it so soon. Thing is...this poverty is.... different than what I've experienced before. Uganda is kind of like what you see of Africa on T.V. and then not at the same time. My mind is still taking in the co-existence of chickens, goats, metal shanty houses, barbed wire, high rises, taxis and food stands on rolling, green hills. I'm bothered, feel helpless and couldn't even begin to tell you what to do for them, let alone grasp the picture I see in front of me.
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There's a quote that stands on a billboard made by past GoEd teams in our (beautiful) compound house:

"Don't convince yourself that the suffering of others reinforces your moral status."

oof.
In four words: I am learning quickly.