Far Country

3 continents, 13,000 miles, 24 hours. Goodbyes and hellos. Tears and smiles. The Hobbit and Andrew Peterson. Not so bad airplane food and pretty terrible coffee. These are the moments of the last two days of my life. Then there was the window seat…

When I asked Brody if he wanted aisle or window while walking onto our second flight to Kigale, Rwanda, I was hoping he would say window… but I got “stuck” with it. I crawled in and began setting up residence along with a pillow, blanket, and a rather large, overstuffed backpack.

Sleeping on planes has never been a talent of mine, but I was oh so tired, so I dug out my headphones and started up my go to music selection, Andrew Peterson. I have three of his albums, so I told it to play randomly and tried to settle in for the long flight. I didn’t pay much attention to the window; we took off in pretty dense fog and clouds. But I soon realized I was missing quite the sights…. Beautiful snow-capped mountains. (I think they belonged to Eastern Europe. I really need to play more Stack The Countries!) I finally figured out Greece, then Egypt, the sand, sand and more sand of the Sahara Desert.  The Nile River, then Sudan, over Uganda to Rwanda… (I may have pulled out my phone and checked the map on Stack the Countries…)

My brain had a hard time wrapping around what I was actually seeing; and it seemed every time I woke up from a short uncomfortable doze, Mr. Peterson was singing his song “Far Country.” The gist of the song is that we are all living in a “far country” because earth is not our forever home. And I have to say that this many miles from my family and “home,” it was an interesting concept to think about… All my fears of missing home and family and my fears of the unknowns that I will encounter over the next few days seemed to lessen. This is just part of my journey and I’m blessed that it brought me here.

But enough of my babbling…. We arrived in Entebbe around 10:30pm local time. 24 hours after take off. First thing I noticed was the warm air, and my mother is right… Africa has a very distinct smell. It’s not bad, it’s just there. Then we found our luggage, piled in Ishmael’s “Tourist Van” (as it says on the side…) and drove about 20 minutes to our hotel. Which is lovely! It reminds me a bit of an Ernest Hemingway novel. (That just made me sound really smart, didn’t it?) tall ceilings, warm English looking woodwork, simple and comfortable… I’m gonna sleep well tonight….

And there it is… sleep. Now that I’ve said it, I can’t stop thinking about it. I’m so very tired…. And with that… I say goodnight…..  shhhh. I’m sleeping….