Journey to Tanzania (Are we to go or not!)

We were given the opportunity to join a group of 6 Haitians and a team of Brazilians to visit the CCMD program (Community and Church Mobilisation for Development) in Tanzania. This program is run by Tearfund.

Sitting at the Port-au-Prince airport, we were waiting for the flight to take off, when the announcement came over the speaker, the flight would be delayed. Concerned about our connection flights, we contacted the CBF travel agent, who promptly wrote back to tell us everything would work out fine. (Easy to say when you are not sat in the airport)

Taking off 3 hours late we missed our connecting flight in Miami to Atlanta. The Lady at the help desk was very kind to find us a later flight to Atlanta. But this meant that our trans-Atlantic flight would be missed as well. She changed the tickets which allowed us to take later flights and handed us the new boarding passes. She told us that our suitcase would be checked through to our final destination, which was a bonus, because we had an 8 hour layover in Amsterdam and we didn't want to walk around with our suitcase. 

Happily we walked off to catch our next flight. 

At the time of boarding an announcement was made that the plane had been updated and the seat configuration had been changed and all the seat numbers had to be reallocated. Everybody received new boarding cards, off we went, wandering if we were sitting together or not, but at least we were on the flight.

As soon as we got off the plane in Amsterdam we visited the sales desk to inquire about our next seat allocation. She was unable to find us in the system and tried to contact Kenya Airways their partner airline, without success, so she told us to come back later. 

Even though we now just had a 6 hour layover we still decided to take the train into the city center to do some tourist activities. Jutta tasted a kebab that she hadn't had for a long time. 

After walking around in +5oC (which was cold), we headed back to the central station. Andy said: I think I've just heard an announcement, that the trains to Schipol airport are all cancelled due to an electrical fault. We joined the queue at the information desk only to be told: don't worry they should be able to sort out the problem soon. We decided to stand on platform 14b where the trains usually leave from. The call came across that the fault had been fixed and a train was waiting to leave on platform 11a, the crowd ran for the escalators suitcases and all, we jumped on the train just before the doors closed.

With 2 1/2 hours before our flight we thought we had plenty of time, we returned to customer services only to be told that Delta in Miami, when trying to rearrange the trans-Atlantic flights had inadvertently cancelled our next flight to Nairobi, but our final flight had still been issued. She promptly told us that the flight had been overbooked by 5 passengers. Our hearts sank again, and then she said after thirty minutes on the phone, she had managed to do something and we were allowed onto the plane. Inside the plane we were seated when someone said "you are in my seat". The flight attendant looked at both tickets and then promptly called the purser, over the next thirty minutes they tried desperately to find an additional seat, I sat still as possession is nine tenths of the law, well it is when we have another flight to catch. One passenger didn't show for the flight, which allowed the guy to have the last seat before they asked him to disembark; we were two which worked in our favour. 

Realizing we had a short connection time, for the last flight, we asked the attendant what could be done. Upon landing and during taxiing the stewardess told us to run down the plane to be first off, all other passengers we shouting at us. We exited the plane only to be baffled by a Kenyan airport official who was unable to find a key to allow us into the transit area.  After trying all the keys on a bunch, another official turned up to open the door, this man was warmly welcomed through cheers from the frustrated passengers. Our last flight was worry free as we touched down at Kilimanjaro airport for thirty minutes before flying on to Mwanza for our field visits to start.