Salama! from Madagascar
We took a taxi to
the Premier Inn at Heathrow on Monday and spent the evening doing
some last minute rearranging of our hand luggage (Becki) and watching
England beat Switzerland (Matt). By 5am we were aboard the shuttle
bus to Heathrow, with a bus driver who couldn't quite believe how
many cases he had to load/unload.
All our luggage which amazingly made it to Antananarivo |
We were pleased to get a very
helpful check-in lady who decided to ignore the fact some of our bags
were overweight and was very helpful. The rest of our journey through
Heathrow was not so easy, with numerous staff stopping us to tell us
we could not take all our hand-luggage to the plane and then deciding
there was not enough time and we should go through after all. It was
a bit of a mad dash to the plane and we were the last ones to board
but they didn't mind that we were carrying our bodyweight in hand
luggage!
At Paris things were
a lot smoother as we had 3 hours to get across the terminal. In the
departure lounge we met Karina and her daughter, Faith, who are our
new MAF colleagues. Everything went smoothly until we reached row 17
(again fully laden with hand luggage) on-board the plane. It was here
that Bethan decided it was time for a nap RIGHT NOW and she was going
no further! Our seats were in row 52 so this was not so helpful and
meant Becki had to go to the seats to dump the stuff, then come back
for Bethan who was holding up all the other passengers. Bethan slept
through take-off and we both managed to watch a film in peace. It was
a good flight and we passed the 10 hours with stories, playdough,
colouring and a supply of snacks. Bethan travelled really well too!
Bethan fell asleep again for landing so we tied her up in a sling
still asleep, meaning she got a bit more sleep and we got to jump the
line thanks to our ''sleeping baby'' – being small for her age
comes in handy sometimes!
Goodbye Europe |
Hello Africa |
And so we arrived at
Ivato International Airport, Antananarivo. Despite this flight being
a weekly occurance, it seemed as though a plane full of people had
caught them by surprise. The queues were long and painfully slow
moving as people invited their friends to jump the queue and join
them in getting their visa's stamped. Luggage successfully collected,
we then gained an entourage of ''helpers'' who were going to push our
trolleys whether we liked it or not. Once we had convinced them we
really did not have anything to declare we met Bert, the program
manager for MAF Madagascar who firmly dealt with the demands for
money from our ever increasing number of helpers.
We were very pleased
at 1.30am when we were in our new home, with all our luggage and able
to go to sleep! We also felt very blessed the next morning when we
unpacked and put cards up from people back home reminding us of how
much support we have from England.
No comments:
Post a Comment