Toward the end of our trip, we took a little puddle jumper airplane way out into the African savannah.
And never fear, soon I shall regale with you stories about what it was like for a girl with flight anxiety to accomplish this feat.
But first, I thought I'd tell you about the airport adventure that led up to it. Even though it was a small plane, we still had to go through full security at Entebbe airport. We loaded our bags onto the scanning machine (and I tried to graciously look away when I noticed that the windows behind the scanning machine were taped up with cardboard.).
I walked through the metal detector, and a female security guard patted me down. That was just delightful.
Suddenly the conveyor belt stopped; a surly looking guard took my carry-on bag into his hands. He spoke over his shoulder, in a language I didn't understand, to another security guard and she nodded. They unzipped my bag.
He suspiciously pulled out my hair dryer. And I suppose, in fairness, if you tilt your head and squint, my hair dryer could sort of look like a gun (albeit a rounded, red gun, with a volumizing setting).
The guarded pointed to the dryer and pointed to his head. "For hair?" he asked.
I nodded.
Then he reached into my bag and pulled out my hairspray bottle. "For hair?" he asked.
I nodded again.
"Sir," I wanted to say but most definitely did not, "if we have to investigate every piece of paraphernalia it takes for my hair to look good, then we're going to be here a while."
Instead, I just smiled and tried to look un-threatening.
The investigation ended, and he waved me through. And it was a good thing, because you can imagine that hairspray and a hair dryer are important pieces of survival equipment when you're heading out into the African savannah.
The rest of the story to come soon...
