Thursday; July 27 – Picking up the Bags
Well, this day started off very early after a late night with Joshua and Deb talking about U-TOUCH and the challenges we are facing, but that is not the story. The story was my ride back to Entebbe Airport at 4:30 AM to pick up our bags before our drive to Mbale that morning. We were promised that our bags would be at the airport at 3:30 AM and they promised that they would deliver them to us. I told them that at this point we didn’t trust them and we would pick the bags up ourselves. So, Amin Mohamed picked me up at 4:30 AM to drive to the airport in the dark. Remember I said I never wanted to make that drive again in the dark!
So, we arrive at the airport at 5 AM and the person who spoke with us in Kampala from Turkish Airlines, Stephen, was walking out of the airport to go home. I asked if he could take us to the baggage area to help us find our bags. He just said go downstairs and ask the person in baggage handling and they will get them. By now I am sure you have realized that our bags were not at the airport, Turkish Airlines messed up again, and Stephen just wanted to avoid a conversation.
I arrived back at Joshua’s house at 7 AM and Joshua was awake. We talked for a few minutes and he took the business card from me for the Director at Turkish Airlines. Joshua was able to get Erbil on the phone and the conversation did not go extremely well. Joshua was very angry and was ready to jump down this man’s throat. After Joshua threatened him with lawyers getting involved we agreed to meet at their offices at 9 AM. I headed to Kampala with Joshua and we went straight to the Turkish Airlines offices. Before entering I told Joshua that he was the bad guy and I was going to be the good guy. Erbil was waiting for us and was actually very apologetic. He offered to compensate us significantly for our lost luggage beyond the original amount given the day before and was willing to upgrade us to first class on our trip home. Only problem is that we are not taking Turkish Airlines home from Nairobi.
Anyway, the solution was for Turkish Airlines to ship our bags to Mbale the next day so we could leave as scheduled. This plan actually worked out extremely well because the car that we were taking to Mbale was just big enough for the bags we had. If we had received our bags that day it would have been a miserable drive for all of us to Mbale. I truly believe that everything, I mean everything, happens for a reason. In the end we lived in a couple of sets of clothes for 4 days and those clothes were a bit over worn, but in the grand scheme of things, not a big deal! Life is good!
‘til next time …..
Larry Kesslin 