Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Newark
We're sitting in a pub with WiFi internet access at Newark airport, with about 2.5 hours to go until we get on our flight to Amsterdam. They allow smoking in this pub which is nice, there isn't much else to do on an 8 hour layover than sit here and watch Olympic hockey, which I'm thrilled to get to watch a bit more of before I leave. The Czechs played an excellent game against the Germans, and right now the US and Latvia are going at it. I wonder why the Kings players that are on the US team seem to be way better at playing hockey all of a sudden. Let's hope they keep it up after the Olympic break!
We did catch a nap, somehow, in the terminal. We snaked our way around the fixed armrests on the seats and both passed out until a woman with a barking dog woke me up. I had time to dream that, like in that mediocre Tom Hanks movie The Terminal, I was sawing off the armrests to make myself a comfortable bed. I'll be ecstatic once we finally get to our beds in Moshi.
I had a scare this morning that there was going to be a major problem with my ticket. It was purchased under my maiden name because it's the name that was on my passport, but when I realized I had to renew my passport before leaving I decided it would be a good time to finally switch it to my married name. Hence, the name on the ticket didn't match the one on my valid passport, oops! I had to run around to three different airlines' ticket counters to find out which one of them could help me. Finally I wound up at Northwest, who are associated with KLM, and waited for 20 agonizing minutes while the ticket clerk messed around with the system to try and figure out a solution. Eventually he issued me new tickets in my married name, and I was able to breathe normally again. The idea of being stuck in Amsterdam or Tanzania because of something like that was truly nerve wracking.
Anyway, last night before going to bed we played tetris with our luggage, trying to make sure none of our bags were overweight. I paid a 25$ fee at LAX yesterday because my huge duffel bag that I filled with donations was overweight. My mom had a bag that I thought would be too heavy too, and we didn't want to have to pay again so it required a bit of repacking. I'm glad I packed so much in the donation bag though. I sacrificed a bit of my own stuff to make more room for donations, the first of which came from a friend of my husband's, Brandon, who works for a sandal company we love, http://oceanminded.com/. When he heard about my trip and I showed him a few pictures of Masai kids with footwear made out of old tires, he offered to get together a package for me to bring to them. I'm so grateful that he got this to me before I left, I definitely think it'll make a few kids very happy (they're mostly child sizes).
Then, at my going away party last week, my mother in law surprised me with some amazing children's books. They're beautiful, and I'm pretty sure I'm going give them to a school my mother's friend Margaret worked at in Moshi. She helped set up a milk & porridge program to feed the 80-90 kids that attend every day, and we're going to drop by there and check on the program for her. I also got them two of my English dictionaries, pencils, sharpeners, erasers, and a bunch of boxes of chalk for the teachers. It's hard to imagine going through school without even having a pencil. My mom's got more pencils, sharpeners and notebooks for them as well.
I've also got some underwear for the orphanage my mom was working at back in October. One of the saddest things for me about looking at her pictures was seeing toddlers in old, worn out, adult underwear. It's not as much as I would have liked to bring, but it was all I could find at Target last minute and I had space considerations as well.
We did catch a nap, somehow, in the terminal. We snaked our way around the fixed armrests on the seats and both passed out until a woman with a barking dog woke me up. I had time to dream that, like in that mediocre Tom Hanks movie The Terminal, I was sawing off the armrests to make myself a comfortable bed. I'll be ecstatic once we finally get to our beds in Moshi.
I had a scare this morning that there was going to be a major problem with my ticket. It was purchased under my maiden name because it's the name that was on my passport, but when I realized I had to renew my passport before leaving I decided it would be a good time to finally switch it to my married name. Hence, the name on the ticket didn't match the one on my valid passport, oops! I had to run around to three different airlines' ticket counters to find out which one of them could help me. Finally I wound up at Northwest, who are associated with KLM, and waited for 20 agonizing minutes while the ticket clerk messed around with the system to try and figure out a solution. Eventually he issued me new tickets in my married name, and I was able to breathe normally again. The idea of being stuck in Amsterdam or Tanzania because of something like that was truly nerve wracking.
Anyway, last night before going to bed we played tetris with our luggage, trying to make sure none of our bags were overweight. I paid a 25$ fee at LAX yesterday because my huge duffel bag that I filled with donations was overweight. My mom had a bag that I thought would be too heavy too, and we didn't want to have to pay again so it required a bit of repacking. I'm glad I packed so much in the donation bag though. I sacrificed a bit of my own stuff to make more room for donations, the first of which came from a friend of my husband's, Brandon, who works for a sandal company we love, http://oceanminded.com/. When he heard about my trip and I showed him a few pictures of Masai kids with footwear made out of old tires, he offered to get together a package for me to bring to them. I'm so grateful that he got this to me before I left, I definitely think it'll make a few kids very happy (they're mostly child sizes).
Then, at my going away party last week, my mother in law surprised me with some amazing children's books. They're beautiful, and I'm pretty sure I'm going give them to a school my mother's friend Margaret worked at in Moshi. She helped set up a milk & porridge program to feed the 80-90 kids that attend every day, and we're going to drop by there and check on the program for her. I also got them two of my English dictionaries, pencils, sharpeners, erasers, and a bunch of boxes of chalk for the teachers. It's hard to imagine going through school without even having a pencil. My mom's got more pencils, sharpeners and notebooks for them as well.
I've also got some underwear for the orphanage my mom was working at back in October. One of the saddest things for me about looking at her pictures was seeing toddlers in old, worn out, adult underwear. It's not as much as I would have liked to bring, but it was all I could find at Target last minute and I had space considerations as well.
The rest of my bag is mostly filled with Jim's little stepsister's clothes. Last time we went to his dad's I was given a garbage bag FULL of cute clothes she'd outgrown that were headed to Goodwill. Pants, sweatshirts, shirts and dresses. I'm not sure where those are going but I'll find a good home for them all.
Well, this has been a hard post to write. I almost lost everything twice thanks to my laptop and this network giving out, and now I really just want to get it posted before I get on my flight so I'm going to cut it short. Time to call Jim and check in anyway.
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You must be so excited now that you are on your way. Its great that you are bringing so much to donate.
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