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We have been so disjointed with emails since leaving Uganda so don’t know what Danny has sent but had a brief moment to send a bit of update if we can get it to go.
They are a young couple…early 30’s with 3 year old daughter and 1 year old son. They took to us very well….candy bribes do help. HA It is moving into summer here so warm but not unbearable….lots of humidity which gets worse as summer gets here and temps get into hundred plus. I brought 2 outfits which are needed for here and went to market and bought material yesterday to have 3 more made. Can not go out in my American clothes but can wear in the house here. Get my other outfits tomorrow. I call them Punjabis but that is not the name for them here and she in language at moment so won’t disturb to ask her. We can see the foothills of Himalayas at distance…can’t always see them because of pollution from Dhaka and Calcutta. We hope to all go to Darjeerling, which is 4 hours from here and they say it is beautiful. Known as Hill Station…lots of tea and coffee planatations because of mountains. Snow capped mountains there….so I would love to see that.
WOW, what a ride we have been on. Sweated out getting our visa….got it at 5:00 p.m. last Thursday and had to leave for airport at 12:00 noon….so that was close. Friday was holiday and also Monday was holiday for Uganda. So had we not gotten it we could not have left for Dubai on Friday and wanted to do that so much in hopes that Tim\Janet could come for couple of days since they were in Jordan. We could have not left Kampala for India until Wednesday but might not have had the visas even by then because they had been applied for late. But God worked it out…because they had only had paperwork a week and that was pretty amazing to get visa that quickly. We arrived in Dubai at 2:00 in the morning on Saturday morning and by the time we finally found the guest house, which is run by some people with our company, it was after 3:00 a.m. and we were beat. Dubai is quite a city…and culture shock. We went from the extreme of poverty to the extreme of affluence. It is a beautiful place but our hearts bled for what the Ugandans suffer with but yet their love for God is so precious. The people of Dubai have everything money can buy but their understanding of God’s love for them and their Muslim culture left a real void in our hearts for them. Tim and Janet arrived at 2:00 a.m. Sunday morning…all flights come in during the night…we suppose it is because it is so hot there that the runways would be too hot for the tires to land on and not be destroyed. The airport would dwarf Atlanta, New York or Chicago. And people were a live work at 2:00 a.m. Many, many flights going out in middle of the night. We enjoyed the guest house…had been at MLC with the couple who runs it and they are doing a good job and it was so good to see them.
Danny and I had taken taxis to a couple of malls….after he ate Kentucky Fried Chicken which was near the guest house. We found a Chili’s at both malls and enjoyed that…especially the chips and salsa and Danny had “diet Pepsi,” which he had missed. T\J arrived and we had lazy morning and then went to a mall for lunch which has a ski slope for skiing and snow boarding. That was quite a sight and I did enjoy seeing the cold snow and folks dressed in heavy parkas for skiing. As we left Timothy spotted a Thrifty care rental company and decided it would be cheaper to rent a car, which he did and we just let him take over with that and we were chauffered around. (We began to feel like grandmother and Howard as Danny rode shotgun and left all the driving to Timothy and even all the sense of direction. He did a great job navigating throughout Dubai. We left the mall and went on beyond a bit to beautiful beach, which has the building that is on all advertisements for Dubai and looks like a tall sail boat. We understand that there are 17 of the 30+ tallest buildings in the world there. They are in midst of building 150 high rises all at the same time in one area. It is all quite expansive and shocking. Of course this is because of oil money. True people from the Emmirates (7 small countries) are given a portion of oil money so many do not have work…just travel.) On Monday we went to a mall which was designed by Ibn Butta who had been a traveler and brought equisite things back in art and etc. and the mall was a sight to see in itself as it was designed around 7 countries of Middle East. Then we went to another of the Emmirates, Oman, but did not have passports so turned around at a town (Hatta)…about 1 1\2 hours from Dubai…nice ride…desert ride….and camels roaming everywhere. Enjoyed a visit to a lovely resort and walked several flights of stairs at a local park to get to top and look out over the vastness. Then back to Dubai and lots of traffic back to Sharjah, one of the Emmirates, where guest house was.
On Sunday night (early Monday morning) 3 of our girls from Kampala came to same guest house so was fun to see them…they were out for Spring Break. They did 4 wheel ride in desert, rode camel and ate and LOVED it. We chose to save that $100 a piece…since everyone in our group had ridden a camel but me. It was fun to see the camels…they are quite fun…we even had several cross a very busy 4 lane highway in front of us.
On Tuesday, we ate at another mall, then drove to Abu Dhabi…another of the Emmirates. It was beautiful…LOTS OF WEALTH there. In fact, the wealth is overwhelming. Had good time though and a very nice 2 hour drive. Also had a 2 hour drive\delay in traffic when we got back in to Dubai….T/J were going to take us to airport but the later it got we decided to just take a taxi. Our flight out was 2:45 in the morning and they were leaving to go back to Jordan for flight at 7:00 a.m. and so would need to get up at 4:00 a.m. and would not have gotten home until about 12:00 a.m. if had taken us to airport so all just seemed too much. We hated for our departure from them but we had had such a great time and so grateful for this time. We all missed Jason so much and wished many times for him to be with us. (Jason get your plans made for Uganda.) It is beautiful too.
Checked luggage and started our 4 hour wait. Got on plane and was not crowded so I stretched out on row of seats and actually slept a bit…told them not to disturb me for food. Danny did not eat either…we were beat. Arrived in Calcutta at 7:30 a.m.…much smaller airport than we expected….got through passport control…over to baggage claim and only one of our 2 bags was there and all luggage had come through. There was a green suitcase, large, which looked a lot like ours and our thought was that perhaps someone grabbed the wrong one. I began to desperately search among the passengers still in luggage area to see if they had it….THEY DID NOT. We began to try to make ourselves understood about lost luggage and perhaps other person had it….they began to fill out forms and the process was all just a bit unnerving because even though they spoke some English, they were still not really understanding all we meant. They wanted cell number, which we did not have. They asked several times for cell number or contact number. We did not have cell number for our contact here, and they would not release the bag if they found it to be sent on to us from Calcutta without us being with it to clear customs……….and the list of problems grows. Anyway, Danny was getting so anxious not to miss our flight on and we had to go to the next terminal, which we did not know how large it would be or how long to get through checkin and etc., so after nearly an hour, we had to leave. I had pulled off the name of the other person’s bag and the guy had tried to call them several times but to no avail. As we left, I asked him would he please let us know if they reached that person….at least we would know if they had it or had it never been put on the plane in Dubai. He said he would….and we left to walk to other terminal. A couple of minutes later we turned around because of some commotion and saw him running to us. He had reached a lady, she did have our bags, and he had told her to hurry back with them because we were leaving on flight soon. She said she could be there in 30 minutes. We gladly went back to stand outside and wait. AND SHE DID COME. She had a 1 year old in her arms, which I had seen her struggling with in passport control, so she just was struggling and saw a green bag that she thought was hers and left with it. Danny had yellow, red and green electrical tape on our handles but she never saw that. However, WE HAD PUT NO INFORMATION INSIDE OUR BAGGAGE. We had always done that but just got in such a hurry packing Friday morning after we got visas that we just were not thinking and put nothing in our bag inside or outside that gave info about us. (I just said out loud with gratefulness, “Jesus you love us even in India…..!!!!!!!!!” and you have taken care of us once again….THANK YOU, THANK YOU.” ) We ended up having a 2 hour wait and the int’l terminal was very small so we really did not have to be so concerned about getting over to the other terminal and etc. but we did not know until we got outside to walk over there and check in. We arrived about 2:00 here and have been enjoying ourselves and getting over the jet lag of 3 hours.
..so much like Uganda…much burden of poverty on the people…just different ways of transporting their burdens.
Now continue to pray that we can learn a lot of our training that will help us cover our bases in Uganda.
Will hope to write personal notes but just took advantage of this way since time is short and never sure about computer opportunites. On very small keyboard so lots of mistakes and not enough time to proof much…so do the best you can to figure out. We love you and will be in touch , Claudia
posted by Danny and Claudia at 6:14 AM
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