I am a longtime Chestnut Hill resident, former teacher at Chestnut Hill Academy and Wissahickon Charter School, and the international coordinator for a project in Bududa, a remote rural village in Uganda. On Tuesday, Jan. 18, I began my trip from Philadelphia to Bududa. Four days later, I arrived.

I had spent days preparing, gathering items I knew would be appreciated in Bududa, including secondhand clothes, inexpensive reading glasses, shoes, fabric for the girls in the tailoring class, first-aid supplies, used phones and a few precious second hand laptops. Most importantly, I needed a visa and a negative PCR test. I was able to get the test with negative results confirmed on my phone. I felt confident that I could secure the visa upon arrival in Entebbe, Uganda, as I had on dozens of previous trips. The KLM (Royal Dutch Airlines) desk at John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) thought otherwise. 

No check-in without a visa, I was informed. I stepped aside, accessed a Ugandan government website on my phone, and tried for a visa on the spot. There was no way to upload all the needed documents. With my spirit damaged but not broken, I decided to stay overnight in Brooklyn and try again the next day. A call to my Brooklyn friends, Claire and Sam Nitze, brought the good news that dinner was in the oven and their living-room sofa was available.

The next morning, Wednesday, day two, I realized that my Philadelphia PCR test was in danger of timing out. I made my way to an urgent care facility in Brooklyn, which proved to be a lovely, rewarding experience. A receptionist sat with me and made sure the negative result was properly recorded. Then back to JFK to tackle the KLM hurdle.

You must now visualize a woman of a certain age going from one terminal to another and one floor to another and one office to another carrying two 50-pound suitcases. What could go wrong? KLM canceled all of its flights that evening, and my credit card was denied until a call to a bank got that straightened out. At last, late in the day, I was booked onto a flight to Brussels on Brussels Airlines.

On that flight, I had the good fortune to find three seats together, so I could lie down even if I could scarcely sleep. Watching the movie "Just Mercy" on the small screen, I cried, even though I had read the book and knew the story.

During the three hours in Brussels Airport waiting for the flight to Entebbe, there were more forms to be filled out and more frustrations to overcome. The flight was to stop in Rwanda, and even though I was to remain on the plane, the Rwandan authorities wanted a form showing the results of a PCR Covid test in a QR code. As I was trying to cope with the form, a friendly flight attendant sat down next to me and helped me pull it all together on her phone. She gave me a QR code, and I was “good to go.” 

The eight-hour flight from Brussels to Entebbe (with a stop in Kigali, Rwanda) was actually quite pleasant. I could see Western Europe and the Alps laid out below and then the seemingly endless Sahara. 

The red tape at Entebbe was tiresome at the end of three full days of travel. First, a queue to have your visa put in your passport, then a queue to pay $30 to have another PCR test, then another queue to get the PCR test, once they have seen that you have paid. I am thinking I am almost home free, but no.

The tester, garbed in blue plastic, does not like the form of my paper with the results of my Brooklyn PCR test. He insists that it, too, has to be in a QR form. I protest, to no avail. He points me to another queue in another tent. This time, I sit with a very capable young Ugandan man who quickly takes my passport and my results and somehow magically creates a QR code. I take a picture of that and go back to the man in blue plastic. 

He performs my third PCR test in 48 hours, and I leave that tent, having shown proof of payment, and proceed to pick up my luggage. As I am about to leave the airport, the authorities tell me that my luggage needs to be screened again. I feign fatigue. An agent comes to help. She is brusque, but she helps and I am grateful.

Outside, in the warm Entebbe air, full of moisture from Lake Victoria, I find my taxi man from the Boma Hotel, and he whisks me off to the welcoming small boutique hotel that I have come to love so much. It takes 10 minutes. The Boma staff are my friends, and they welcome me and show me to my lovely room.

Of course the trip isn't really over after three days. I still have a long ride in a car to Bududa. I am writing this from my home in Bududa, whose people I love so much. They and the beauty of this area, its flora and fauna and birds, will always enchant me and have me returning, even if the travels are arduous.