My best friend from childhood, Laura, is coming to visit today for 3 weeks. Or, I hope she arrives today. This is her first trip to Africa and to a developing country. She is supposed to arrive in Lilongwe on Ethiopian Airlines having traveled from DC via Rome and Addis Ababa - 23 lovely hours.
I definitely want to make sure that I am at the airport to greet her when she arrives, but this is complicated. According to the flight status tracker...there is no information on the flight status tracker (very informative site). According to Ethiopian Airlines website, the flights are scheduled (also not helpful). According to Ethiopian Airlines' Malawi office - a literal quote, "the plane should take off and land sometime". "Would this be on time", I asked? "I have no way of knowing that," was his response. Funny. I was talking to the airport office!
So, Laura, you don't know this, but you are already having your first typically African logistics experience. I'll be at the airport around the scheduled landing time, hoping for an on-time "sometime" safe arrival. You're welcome to Malawi!
{UPDATE: she arrived on time, but her luggage did not. Hopefully, it will be on the next flight on Thursday. And, hopefully the bags will arrive with all their contents intact...]
Exciting that you have a visitor - and for three weeks! Malawi will be a fast introduction to the developing world. More often than not, my luggage did not accompany me to Lilongwe but it always arrived within a few days. At least you have clothes she can borrow. Did you ever get your shipment?
ReplyDeleteLuggage is overrated. Tell Laura I said hi!
ReplyDelete