Posting live from the Ethiopian airport:

“Kyrillos say good morning chicken” -Amber

“Only if one crows” -Kyrillos

*Right on cue, a rooster crows!*

“Good morning chicken!” -Kyrillos (and Amber)

For our last morning here, we finished up with a meeting with Hannington about project continuation. This involves collecting the incident report forms from hospitals and clinics to keep track of who is responding to calls and what calls they get. We also will be coordinating refresher trainings for the boda boda drivers in 6 months, as we’ve found from prior research that skills and knowledge start decaying around then. At the Access Clinic, we also got to see a patient they’d brought in this morning. He had gotten into a fight when someone tried to steal his boda boda, and he had lacerations to his hand and elbow.

We wanted African coffee from Cafe Delish one last time, so we trekked across Mukono. There were storm clouds above us the entire time, yet Kyrillos was insistent it wasn’t going to rain. As you know, there’s also a lot of dust here, so the pre-storm winds made it rough on our eyes (something we won’t miss when we’re gone!) Kyrillos was right for most of the walk, but it did start drizzling at one point. Also on this adventure was yet another attempt for Kyrillos to look for these biscuits they have in Egypt that he loves. Spoiler alert, he never found them.

At Cafe Delish, we treated ourselves to coffee, a Rolex and a cake slice, before heading to play soccer. We rented the field we showed a picture of yesterday and split into two teams (one of four and one of five, until we recruited a spectator to play as well). Haleigh and Kyrillos each scored a couple of goals and Amber was a star goal keeper, until she fell on her leg at the beginning on the second half (but still made the save). She had to sit on the sidelines for the rest of the game and was limping around the rest of the day (and may or may not be limping around the Ethiopian Airport as Haleigh writes this) but we think she’ll be okay. It was a great chance for Haleigh and Kyrillos to refresh their EMT skills: RICE (rest, ice, compression, and elevation) all the way!

After soccer, we went to Kiko market (the main market in Mukono) for the last time before stopping by the Access Clinic to say bye again. A final dinner at Mukono resort hotel (came full circle with the same dinner of chicken and chips we had there our very first night, except with doughnuts this time), and we were back at our place to finish up packing. We also tried jackfruit today and of course had to get some more sugarcane before we left.

Amber and Haleigh’s flight departed at 2:45am and Kyrillos’ around 2 hours later, but we told everyone it left at 1 am to give ourselves a buffer period in case they were late. We got picked up only a little bit after our agreed 8 pm time, which was fantastic, until we spent another 45 minutes tying our luggage onto the roof because so many people were coming to the airport in the van with us. The van was made to fit 8 people … we had 13. This involved four people squeezed into the middle and back three seaters, along with one person sitting on the floor in the back and two on the floor in the middle. Albeit a little squished, it was very sweet so many VTCA people wanted to come to see us off.

It took about three hours to reach the airport, which included a stop at the end of the expressway road for all 13 of us to get out and go through a metal detector on the side of the road. We were very confused on this purpose because we still had bags in the car, but chalked it up to some sort of airport protocol. All was dandy until we got to the airport and were informed we couldn’t check in until three hours before our flight. At this point it was around 3.5 hours before Amber and Haleigh’s flight and 5 hours before Kyrillos’ flight. We could just hang in the waiting area that would have been fine, but according to the schedule we had told everyone our flight was leaving in 1.5 hours. After some finessing and misdirection of the conversation, we said our sad goodbyes to everyone, which involved lots of hugs and promises to stay in touch.

After this quite prolonged goodbye session, we had to go through security to get into the waiting area, while we still had our two large pieces of luggage each. Haleigh and Amber convinced the security guard to let them stay with Kyrillos for a little bit instead of checking in, as their flight was ready but Kyrillos’ wasn’t. Luckily, less than half an hour later, Kyrillos was able to check in. We made our way to the third security checkpoint of the day, which involved a dog sniffing all our belongings. We then presented our passports and covid vaccine cards, before proceeding to security checkpoint #4, still with our checked bags. We waited in the line to check in for probably 45 minutes. Haleigh’s bags were slightly over 50 lbs but nobody said anything (shhh). We then had to go through a mini customs where they checked our visas, before security checkpoint #5 (this time without our checked bags!)

Once officially entering the airport terminal, we had planned on finding our gate, but there were only four gates all within visible distance of each other- that made our life much easier than we had expected! Kyrillos has this fancy lounge pass at airports through his credit card, so we got to hang out in comfy chairs with free food. Haleigh and Amber devoured the savory puff pastries and mini pizzas in the 15 minutes we had before boarding, said our goodbyes to Kyrillos and got on our flight to Ethiopia! Despite some sort of inedible chicken served as our 4 am breakfast, the flight was smooth and we both got to sleep a little (Haleigh is hoping they have passion fruit juice on the next flight though). After another security checkpoint in Ethiopia (and another right before our gate) we walked around for half an hour looking for outlets, we did find some eventually! For breakfast at 6:30 am we ordered buffalo wings and a brownie sundae. We would blame jet lag but we’re not even in a different time zone yet, oops.

Don’t worry this isn’t our last blog though! Stay tuned for our final reflections blog within the next day or two :)

“I’m going to take these ducks home with me” -Kyrillos

“What would happen if I just picked up one of the ducks, would the mother attack me?” -also Kyrillos (the answer was yes)

Brewing storm clouds in Mukono!

Some landscape scenery in Mukono

Action shots from our highly competitive game (jokes, we played in pants and hiking boots)

Post game vibes

Devir’s soccer skills also extend to yoga!

Kiko market was especially busy today, because Tuesdays are when the shipment of all the goods come in. It almost felt like Kampala with all the crowds!

Our full circle meal of chicken and chips (I don’t think any of us will be able to eat this meal for a while after having it probably 5 times a week)

Dr. Hannington showing us how to perform a knee exam on Amber, the patient

We were given this yellow fruit that we thought was a lemon at first but ended up being a very tart clementine

Jackfruit! You tear off the yellow cylinders and just eat the outside, not the seed. Amber referred to the taste as a combination between lychee and banana. We don’t think any of us would get it again, but we’re glad we were able to try it on our last day here!

Amber is going to kill Haleigh for this (they may even need the next month apart to recover from it) but Haleigh thought this picture was hilarious. It was even on someone’s WhatsApp status!