Trying to Leave Uganda

We are on the plane.  And when the plane lands, it will be in America.  That is the only thing that is actually important, and it almost didn't happen.


We were supposed to leave the apartment at ten o'clock, for a 3:50 flight an hour's drive away.  Now, I admit that we probably wouldn't have actually driven out the gate at exactly ten, but I had built natural tardiness (even Ugandan-style tardiness) into my calculations.  I was putting the last things that we needed to take into the carry-on by ten, so after a few goodbyes and a few last last trips around the house we would have been ready by 10:30, and someone needing to change their shirt and someone else needing to poop, we probably would have actually been driving away by 10:45.

Instead, as I was putting the last things in my bag, the apartment manager showed up and announced that she wasn't letting me leave.  This manager has shown minimal actual management, and responded to about one of my texts, ever, so she had kind of slipped my mind.  I had emailed with the owner of the apartment a few days before, told him the exact date of my departure, agreed to pay through the 31st because that is what I had guessed earlier, that I would have a friend clear out for me, and discussed utility bills and my husband wiring the money.  The last I heard from him was "okay, that sounds good too," so I assumed that was taken care of.  It turns out that the manager hadn't gotten the message that we were moving and she was all in a tizzy.  I tried to explain the email conversation, but she "wasn't listening" to that.  It took a long time to get the owner on the phone, and turned out that the money hadn't been wired yet, and he was no longer "okay" and said we couldn't leave until he had the money in hand.  The manager had driven her car in so it blocked our car, and kept following me around declaring shrilly that she wouldn't let me drive out, she wouldn't open the gate for me, her boss would kill her, and why on earth had I not told her I was leaving, and she had to check for damages and had I broken this and where were all the cups, she had to check that everything was here.  Repeat.

All this, starting five minutes after we were supposed to drive away.  To begin our trip home.  Which we have been waiting all these months for.  At first I thought she was just being a little unreasonable, but it soon became apparent that she was convinced I was trying to sneak out without paying and was going to go to all possible lengths to keep us blocked in the compound until she held the cash in her hot little hand.

It hadn't even occurred to me that my husband hadn't paid.  I had given them the other's email address, and assumed they had communicated directly.  I guess my husband was busy with a million little details to get us ready to come home, and didn't realize how very, very important this one was.

Before this, the owner had seemed very reasonable.  I will give him this much credit; I had forgotten how absolutely distrustful everyone is in Uganda, for the very good reason that almost everyone else is out to cheat, sneak, and steal as much as they can get away with.  I come from a land where signing a contract is a promise, and when you have someone's bank information and passport numbers, you figure that you have some leverage over them.  I have learned how to be distrustful: to smile but not say yes; to keep my hands on my documents.  I guess I haven't finished learning how to be distrusted.

The problem was, there was no way to solve this cash-in-hand issue.  Absolutely none.  I called my husband immediately, but he is on a business trip so he's not home, and his cell phone went straight to voicemail.  You can't even wake someone up by calling voicemail over and over!  Even if he was aware of what was happening, he couldn't have wired money in the middle of the night.  Although I do think that the owner might have taken him more seriously than he did for me, and he might have been able to make some other kind of assurance.  I can only take a limited amount out of my bank account per day, so if I took it all out it wouldn't be enough to pay the two weeks' rent, and I couldn't get more for 24 hours.  Which is after our plane left, obviously.  Not to mention, I needed money to get to the plane!  (A lot of money, it turned out.  The airport was a hotbed for sneaking your money away.)

Our amazing friend Derrick once again saved the day.  He had showed up to get my keys, because he was going to clean out the house for me.  This was already a mutual blessing that I appreciate; that would be way too much to ask a friend in America to do for you.  But I had offered his family and his school everything we had left over, and from his perspective THAT was an amazing blessing, so it was a symbiotic relationship!  He immediately managed to calm down the shrill and repetitive manager and at least figure out what was going on.  Eventually, he agreed to write them a post-dated check.  We would wire the money to him, and then the manager could cash the check and have the money.  If we were as untrustworthy as they supposed, then he would be responsible for the amount -- which he surely didn't have, so he said with a wry smile that he would go to jail instead.

They accepted the offer, but the whole process took negotiating and time.  Derrick had to go back to his house and bring his checkbook.  The landlord in Kenya needed to be consulted, and the cell reception kept going out.  (That house must be just on the wrong side of a hill, because it the cell phone reception goes in and out constantly.)

We left at noon.  Two full hours after I had planned, and still more than an hour after the things-always-go-slowly departure time.  I had scheduled in lots of extra time, in case we needed to do something on the way to the airport, and then extra time in the airport.  All of it was gone.

Thank heavens, the traffic to Entebbe was not too bad.  And I realized we did have to stop.  My husband had emailed me an official power of attorney or permission form to travel with all three children.  I had a general power of attorney for conducting the girls' adoption, which mentioned traveling with them in passing, but it wasn't as clear as it could be, and it didn't mention Emerson.  Apparently it's easy to assume that one parent is taking a child away from official custody when they are crossing borders with the child without official permission.... especially when the parent is also doing something highly suspicious like trying to travel with children who are a different color from themselves.

I tried to stop and print it out.  It didn't work.  I couldn't get into my email, which is the problem with having a computer that remembers all your passwords all the time.  I keep having this problem, and then keep having to change the password.  It's actually worked the last few times, but I guess with all the stress and panic I just couldn't get it right, so yahoo shut my email down.

We drove on without the permission form.

Then there was the security check outside the airport, which is always kind of incomprehensible and takes too long.  Then there was getting our bags from the car to the departure area.  There is a nice road to the departures on the upper airport level, just like every other normal airport.  However, the road is closed.  You have to just push the luggage carts up the road.  Our driver and a porter were each pushing a cart, and the luggage kept slipping off and falling on the ground.

Then there was getting inside the airport, which of course is complicated in an incomprehensible way that is nothing like other airports.  It was also an excellent example of people enjoying the power of their petty positions, and using it to make up all kinds of new rules which they could enforce in a draconian manner.  (Which has kind of been our problem with the adoption process all along!)

First of all, there was paying the porters.  The porter who pushed our luggage up the hill wasn't allowed to go in the airport.  The guy who showed up wanted "only 20 thousand shilling."  The sum I had in mind was a generous 5 thousand.  To give some context, if a maid or a houseboy or a driver works for you most or all of the day, they can expect to earn about 10 thousand shilling.  Five thousand for half an hour of work truly is generous for Uganda.  The 20-thousand guy wasn't even interesting in bargaining at my starting point.  He probably guessed by my facial expression and the definitive way that I pronounced my sum that I wasn't actually on vacation, but knew what I was talking about, and slipped off to find a more guillable muzungo.  Another lady showed up who would work for ten.  Twice a reasonable rate, in a closed market, I was willing to accept.  (In general, I am willing to accept paying a little more than Ugandans for the same service.  I do understand that I -- and every other American who could ever end up in Uganda -- have a lot more resources than they do.  However, they need to keep their up-pricing in a reasonable range.)

She brought our luggage over to have it weighed.  The luggage-weigh-er told me that I would have to have some of the bags "wrapped" in plastic, like super-saran-wrap.  At a cost of 25 thousand per bag.  Then we went through the x-ray machine and dealt with the power-monger at the other end.  He went through my backpack in great detail, carefully examining every article that was not obviously food.  Yes, we had twelve pieces of luggage, not included small backpacks or purses for everyone, and he opened one of them so we could have twelve conversations about the items inside.  So it could have been worse -- he could have gone through all twelve bags like that, I supposed.  Except then I think someone would come and fire him, because no one could ever enter the airport.

I had brought a pair of small kids' scissors for projects on the plane.  The kind with two-inch blades and rounded tips.  Oh no, I could not possibly bring those on; put them in the other luggage.  In the extra two hours of pacing around the house, I realized that I could bring a knife to spread butter and cheese and things on our bread and muffins.  I had brought the most delicate and unserrated butter knife.  That knife could possibly do some damage to, say, a baby rat, if you whacked it just right.  Or an adult.... um, mosquito, if you found a mosquito who wanted to wait around for you to to poke it with a small butter knife.  The security guard gave me the most condescending look to tell me what an idiot I was for thinking I could bring anything that was related, linguistically at least, to a tool of danger and destruction.  I must have seemed improperly awed and repentant, because at this point his colleague piped up about how lucky I was that they warned me about these transgressions now, or later I would have just had to throw the offending items away.

Then he got to my water purifier.  In case you don't regularly use one -- which you should because they are very handy -- this is an object slightly wider than a pen, half of which is a plastic handle, and half of which is a long lightbulb that emits the right kind of UV rays to kill the bacteria and stuff in your water bottle.  All of which apparently makes it look like a weapon of mass destruction to busy-body security staff.

He spent a long time examining it, apparently looking for the part he could point to in order to make fun of me for trying to bring it on board.  Eventually he asked what it was.  I told him a water purifier and flashlight, because it is also a flashlight, and I figured that was a little more understandable.  He immediately started saying "oh, no, no."  It took a while to figure out what was so awful about a flashlight, and he eventually explained that starting fires is very bad.  Starting fires.  Luckily, it took me only a moment to realize that he didn't know the word "purifier," so was extracting the dangerous syllables.  I explained purification in a little more detail, but not a great deal of patience. He either realized what I meant, thought that his fire explanation wouldn't hold water (haha), or started to realize that it was pretty hard to argue that a glass pen was particularly dangerous, because he moved onto a new tack.

"Does it have batteries?" he demanded.  "It is electronic, it has batteries, and batteries are not allowed on the plane.  No batteries.  See, look here, it must be a battery here, to make go.  No batteries allowed.  Put in the checked bag."

See what I mean about making up your own rules?  The last thing I read was that battery items are not allowed in CHECKED luggage, which was part of why I was bothering to argue about it, because I didn't want it thrown away in the checked bag.  (Also, because it is useful.  Also, because the whole thing was just so stupid that he was making me stubborn.)  Think about what you bring on a plane: laptops, cameras, i-things.  Things with batteries.

So that argument was pretty fruitless for the guy, and besides, there was another bag with interesting things beckoning him from the other side.  He pulled out a black stick with buttons on it, and asked the (young, hip, jewellry-laden, black t-shirt, Ugandan) owner suspiciously "now what is THIS?" and the man replied with obvious frustration in his voice "it's just a (something) and a flashlight."  The two security checkers cut their eyes and me and said "this one is a brother to that mama there."

We moved our procession on.  Past the plastic-wrap machine, which actually cost 18 thousand (ridiculously high, but mysteriously 7 thousand less than what I had been told), because you have to check your bags before you can wrap them.  Then checking in, which was slow but relatively normal.  Then back to the plastic wrap machine.

And then the argument about the carseats.  I had carseats for both Emerson and Buttercup, and was told that I could not possibly take them on a plane, which was the entire point.  I have read this airline's car seat policy, admittedly not the last few days, but nothing jumped out at me that I couldn't bring a seat for a child.  I always have small children ride in a car seat on a plane, just like the FAA recommends.  Almost no one actually does it, though, and the airline personnel always seem a little annoyed that I actually follow through with their official recommendations.  Emerson arrived in Entebbe in a car sea, via the same airline.  I admit, I hadn't thought about how although he was the same exact size, he is technically a year older, and maybe 5-year-olds aren't allowed to ride in car seats.  So I would have given in gracefully for Emerson's seat, but the thought of trying to manage OVER TWENTY HOURS of airplane time with an illogical toddler who officially believes that it is her job to bounce all over unless she physically can't manage it, made me stick to my guns.

Of course, if they had told me, "stand here for 15 minutes or half an hour or so, while we wander away and find someone else who won't help you," I might have worried about getting through the rest of the airport.  But they kept acting like help was right around the corner.  And then "help" would arrive, with again such ridiculous arguments about made-up-on-the-spot policies, that I just couldn't go along with them.  That, and the 22 airplane hours ahead of me.  For instance, that only babies under two were allowed to use car seats on the plane; that is what carseats are for.  Dude.  Hello.  Babies under two DO NOT BUY seats on a plane; they sit on laps.  That is the distinction for babies under two.

After way too many ridiculous conversations, they let me take Buttercup's seat, but we had to go plastic wrap Emerson's.  I told them that they had better not charge me for checking it, and they agreed as a special favor since I was traveling with children to not charge me.  I am almost positive they were planning on charging me money up until that moment.  I promise, I used to have a very mild and friendly personality, but in Africa I have learned my "don't mess with me" voice.

Speaking of carseats, I had to use that voice to get it on this plane, too.  In the middle of the long and confusing boarding process, some flight attendants offered to take the seat for me.  Since they checked my boarding pass, I assumed they were putting it on the plane for me.  Several minutes later, an attendant returned and cheerfully told me I could get it in Seattle.  I told him that I had brought that seat in order to USE it, and he had sure as heck better get it back to me RIGHT NOW.      (Okay, I didn't use those words, but I did use that tone!)  He brought the car seat back.

However, I did not use that tone with the customs officer.  We finally managed to get all our luggage going in the correct direction and our hand items loaded on a cart, and went around the corner to customs.  Let me clarify, there is not the slightest reason for customs to be difficult for us.  We all have all the visas and documents that we need for our departure and destination countries, and aren't carrying anything we shouldn't, which I believe is more or less the job of the customs officials.  It would make sense that they would question why I have the girls with me, since our names don't match and our documents don't mention each other, so I wouldn't be at all insulted to be asked to produce the paperwork showing that I am their legal guardian.

But Ugandan customs officials seem to think that their job is to re-adjudicate our entire legal case.  I handed him out guardianship order (which states clearly that we are their only legal guardians), the judge's ruling (which explains the entire case in detail), and he read over both of them.  Very.  Carefully.  I also gave him a copy of Mark's passport and his power of attorney allowing me to travel with the girls.  Then he called someone else, and then asked me for more paperwork.  He needed copies of our passports, and visa photos of the girls, and half a dozen other things, mostly about my husband and I.  I had wondered if I needed anything else from our dossier -- which had just disappeared into the luggage hold a few minutes before -- but it hadn't ever occurred to anyone whom I had talked with that we would need visa photos.  I told him respectfully but firmly that we had not been told to bring those things.  He read a few more pages of our documents, and finally said that I just had to bring copies of our passports.  Despite holding the actual passport in his hand, of course.  So we went back into the luggage area, found someone from our airline, and asked her to make a copy.  She disappeared  cheerfully, and to my relief she actually did it.

By then there was a line at the customs counter.  When we saw our official again, this time he asked for the girls' birth certificates.  (Which are not relevant, because they had passports, which proves they had birth certificates that were already approved.)  But I had them, and handed a copy over.  He read them carefully, and asked some questions about their birth family situation.  Then he asked for releases from the birth parents.  (Which are not his business, since the judge has already rescinded their rights and given them to us.  Not to mention, she has looked for releases from the birth parents.  Which were also needed to get the visa, which was also right in front of him.)  But I handed him copies of those, too.  He read for a while longer.  Then he said that he needed to take a picture of me with Buttercup, so to take her out of the wrap.  After a long time more, I held up Hibiscus so he could take a picture of our faces together -- and of course at that moment, someone else came by with a question, which he answered with way too much back-and-forth for holding my big girl up at face level the whole time!

I am glad that he didn't give us any more of a hard time about leaving the country, since I know some families have problems with these self-appointed judge-and-juries.  But I really longed for that missing hour or two we had spent arguing with the apartment manager.  While we were standing there, we heard the warning for boarding for our flight, and then the boarding announcement.  Then we heard the final call.

And what were the children doing this whole time?  They could have been worse, but they could have been better.  There was a little too much wandering around an looking at things while I waited and argued in the luggage area, and then everyone got hungry.  By the time we got to customs, the older two were mostly quibbling with each other and complaining at me to make the other one stop doing things.  Buttercup watched quietly from the wrap for a while, but by customs she was ready to lean her way out and run away, but she knows that she can't actually escape the wrap and stays pretty calm.  Thank heavens for toddler-wearing!  I doubt my ability to hold a sane conversation with an arrogant and illogical customs official, while also trying to hold on to a toddler who is bent on running somewhere.  And I am not sure that the customs official would think that I had the best interests of the children in mind if I was clutching a child who was screaming to get away from me!

Luckily, the Entebbe airport only has about four gates, so we were able to speed-walk through it quickly.  Also, the children found speed-walking much more interesting than anything else so far, so they walked right along with me (except for Buttercup, who was wrapped up tight).  And also luckily, no one desperately had to pee.  When we got to our gate, the flight attendent said that actually boarding was closed, but it's okay, we can get on.  So we went through security and x-rays at the gate, and kept on going to our plane.  I hadn't even had a chance to tell the children about the seating arrangements, which was that we were sitting in two pairs, one behind the other, and I would be sitting with Buttercup.  So both of the older children had to throw a small fit about not getting to sit next to me, although the fit would have been much bigger if either of them had to deal with Buttercup's incessant demands and fussiness!

Once we were seated, we heard an announcement about a technical issue, that probably had delayed the plane long enough for us to get on, and then a little longer.  And then the plane started to move, and the children were all very excited.  And then we taxied faster and faster, until the plane took off.

And I looked my last looks, as Buttercup blithely chirped "bye-bye, Uganda! bye-bye, Uganda!"  We will be back, but it will never be the same.  The girls won't be Ugandan any more.  We will be travelers, not residents.  It will all be so different.

And frankly, on days like this, that sounds pretty good!