Epik Thoughts

Yes, I am in Khartoum, Sudan awaiting my travel permit to Darfur.  While I’m here I’m doing some work in the Khartoum HQ for World Relief.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.  Everyone wants to know how my trip went.  So here’s the gritty details (don’t worry it went well)

I got up at 3:00am Monday morning and hopped into my dad’s car at around 3:30 (thanks again dad, I hope you got some sleep when you got home).  I arrived and went through security in plenty of time to have a nice breakfast and get some reading done.

My flight to NY was uneventful, long and uncomfortable, but what economy-class flight isn’t, eh?  I discovered that in order to get to my next flight in NY I had to actually leave the airport, get on the “Sky Rail” and go through security all over again.  Wee.

No problems getting to Amsterdam, but boy 7 hours is a long time to sit in a seat.  Luckily I had an aisle this time and was able to get up regularly and walk around a bit.  Amsterdam reminded me mostly of an Ikea, I’m not sure why, maybe the funky molded plastic chairs.  Anyway, again through security and I was off to Khartoum.  The only real issue I had was on arrival in Khartoum.  No one told me I had to fill out a little form over on a side table in the corner, so I waited in the painfully long and slow-moving line just to be ask “Where’s your form?”.

So I went back, filled out the form and waited again in line (longer, and just as slow this time) to hear the dreaded words: “wrong form”.  So after a breif search, I found the form I was supposed to fill out under (yes under) a stack of the wrong forms.  By this time the lines were pretty short, so it didn’t take long, but still, argh.

I was met by a guy from WR and off we went “home”.  WR has two appartments in a building a few blocks from the airport.  One to live in that can house 4 or 5 people and another as offices.  That’s where I am now.

As for jet lag, unless it’s going to hit later, I’m imune.  I didn’t really sleep on the planes or in the airports, and I slept just fine last night in spite of the lumpy bed, hard pillows and air conditioner that has only two settings; ice-age, and off (in this position the 100 degree night floods in pretty quickly).

Well, there you go, I’ll have lots more in my next post, but I wanted you all to know that I was alive and kicking.  Or at least alive and typing.

No Comments | In: Darfur | tags: airport, plane, travel. | #

The way I figure it, the chances of two planes crashing at the same airport in the same week is pretty slim.  Right after a crash, everyone is a lot more cautious, plus there’s the whole law of averages thing.

I wasn’t really worried before, but now I feel even better:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/06/10/sudan.plane/index.html

1 Comment | In: Darfur | tags: cnn, crash, travel. | #

One week from right now I’ll be on a plane. It’s starting to settle in that I’m going to be away from everything I know for nearly 3 weeks. Sure, some people may scoff at that. I had an uncle that used to be gone for months at a time. Soldiers leave their families for longer than that. But still, this is a first for me.

So, now that I’ve opened my heart to you, I’d like to ask for prayer. I know that most of those that are reading this are Christians, so if you are, I could use your prayers (if you’re not, just send cash):

• Primarily pray for my family. My wife and kids are used to me being around.
• Of course my safety.
• But also for my success. The more good God can do through me, the easier it is to be gone.

Thank you. I’ll post more later, and as I’ve said before, I’ll post at least once a day (if I can) from Darfur.

2 Comments | In: Darfur | tags: prayer, travel. | #

I figure since the government is already watching my every move anyway, I might as well share that info with the world.  No reason T.H.E.Y. should have a monopoly on my exact location.

So, besides my regular blog postings from the other side of the world, I’ll also try to Twitter as often as possible/realistic and if those both fail me (due to lack of electricity or connectivity) then at least you’ll know where I Plan to be.  Note the link to my Itinerary at the top of the screen.

No Comments | In: Announcement, Darfur | tags: itinerary, travel, twitter. | #

It’s not exactly as I’d hoped, but since teleporters are yet to be invented and FedEx overnight excludes human transport, I guess I don’t have much of a choice.

So it seems that I will be leaving at 6:20 am on the 16th of June, traveling for 25 hours (19 of those actually on an airplane) and arriving exhausted in Khartoum around 5pm on the 17th. I then have to wait around for a day or two while the government clears me for travel to Darfur, then spend the better part of a day doing that plane trip.

I’ll be getting back around 2:00 in the afternoon on the 3rd of July after 16 hours of flying (not including the trip up from Sudan to Khartoum) and another 9 hours of waiting around airports. I guess that’s a little better than the trip over, but still makes for a very sore rear end. The last leg of the trip is a sold 10 hours from Amsterdam to Seattle.

When all is said and done, I’ll have spent over 40 hours in the air in less than 3 weeks.

No Comments | In: Darfur | tags: itinerary, travel. | #