That's how I rolls! GANGSTAH!!

Sunday.

I slept like a champ last night. Which was good, since I didn't sleep the night before. I had my wake-up call set for 7am so that I would have time to eat some breakfast before heading out on our longest day yet.

It was pretty good, actually. The food here has simply been amazing! I can't wait to bring Laura to the most beautiful country that I've ever seen!

Anyway, Steve picked us up to get an armed escort and head back to Kibera. Luckily, our transport didn't skip out... as a matter of fact, we got TWO! George and Martin.

We arrived at Kibera for a worship service at the NCOC. I was very surprised up on our arrival. You see, they didn't explain to me that there aren't that many people in Kibera during the week, since a lot are at jobs in the city. I thought that yesterday was packed... boy was I wrong! There were AT LEAST 3 times the amount of people there! NUTS!

Not only were there a lot of people there... there were a lot of DRUNK people there!

Here, they brew kind of a homemade alcohol, called "Kumi Kumi." I'm not sure who introduced it to them, or how much it costs to make, but I do know that it's as strong as moonshine... maybe stronger!

We were driving up the main road in Kibera when I rather large man refused to move out of the road, since the truck was carrying white people. He then started stomping on and kicking the truck. He was not aware that there were two VERY LARGE, VERY ARMED soldiers in the truck with us....

He quickly found out..

Here's where I felt scared for the first time here.

Within an instant, George and Martin were out of the truck. Martin walked up to the drunk man and punched him in the head. Shortly there after, George grabbed the man and threw him in to the drainage system (for bodily waste) that runs through the street. They begin to kick his legs. I felt really bad for the drunk man.

George then held the mans leg as Martin broke it. My gut DROPPED! Steve then started to drive, saying "You don't need to see of this!" As we drove away, shots were fired.

I'm not sure if they shot in the air, at the man, or actually shot HIM... it was crazy.

Just after that, as we were driving further down the road there was a man on the side of the road with a few people standing around him. I thought that he was just a beggar. Come to find out, he was murdered last night and left in the street.

Just after THAT, we watched as four men carried a woman down the road. I'm not sure if she was dead or if she was sick or what. I would imagine that she was just sick, since they were running down the road with her.

Either way, probably more orphaned children now...

After seeing those three things, right in a row, I really wasn't too interested in getting out of the truck without our guards. But I said a little prayer, and headed out. Luckily, God brought me safely to the church, or 'chach' as they call it here... it's not Swahili, it's just bad English.

They told me that they have one service on Sunday's.. "Sweet." I thought to myself. However, they neglected to tell me that the service starts at 9am and ends around 2pm, usually. "Huh..." I then thought.

The service was UNREAL! I'm not really going to try to describe it in great detail, as no matter what I could say would do it any sort of justice. They just sang, and sang, and sang.... and whistled, and whistled, and whistled... and shrieked, and shrieked, and shrieked, for what seemed like forever. Just total abandonment! It was amazing.

I'm not exactly sure when, but towards the middle of the service Steve and Dougie B left to pick up David Diamond and his friend Sheila, from California. They returned with the pair during an amazing prayer time.

After the service was over, we went outside to speak with the people there. Mostly widows and orphans. I had a lot of really encouraging talks with some of the people there. In light of having nothing, they're all so full of joy for the things that they have. In just a couple days I've learned so much about humility and being thankful for the things that I have.

"God, I'm sorry for the things that I take for granted. Things that you've graciously given to me. Give me a spirit of humility. A spirit of thankfulness. A spirit of mercy and of grace."

We left the NCOC and headed on foot to the football (soccer) field. I thought to myself "Hakuna Matata," (that's right... it's not just a clever Disney song... it's a HUGE part of the African culture) "it shouldn't be that long of a walk.."

Yeah... right...

Try close to a mile... on a nonexistent road. A very small path that went through the "back-streets" of Kibera and was very rocky and uneven. I can't really explain what it was like to walk on that road... very difficult. Half of it was down-hill, which wasn't so bad, however the rest was all up-hill, rather steep at some points.

Here are some of the scenes along the way... evidently I was obsessed with something:

We finally made it to the top of the city. It's hard to tell from the picture just how big Kibera is, but this is what the city looks like from the outside.

I met a really cool local named Dickens. He's a musician. Trying to make it as a rapper, which as you may image is next to impossible to do in Kibera. We talked for a long while. He's quite educated, very well spoken, and incredibly talented. I'm not sure why he's stuck there in the slums.

Dickens makes some really cool jewelry that I hope to get my hands on before I leave. I know that Kelsey and Haley would LOVE them... and to be honest, I wouldn't mind some either! I've just gotta get him to make some "mkubwa" size... haha.

Anyway... we're at the top of the hill (in Maasai it's called a "Ngong", however the "N" is silent...) and played soccer with the kids. Boy can they run! Their speed, power, and endurance is unearthly!

The NCOC started up a small league there for the youth of Kibera. There are two captains and two teams. It's not really big yet, as you can see from this group photo,but they are growing very well!

They play really hard... and so far, it's really been the only place that I've seen them really happy.

I just wish that somebody else would've had a camera with them... y'all probably would've laughed if you saw a picture of Mwebamba playing soccer with these kids.

They were so honored and appreciative that we took the time to watch and cheer them on!

Anyway... back to the Security Office - Kibera Division to drop George and Martin off. They told me that I was "all right" and that I was welcome in their country whenever I want. Which was a pretty big honor, as Martin (the leg-breaker) didn't care much for white people... especially Americans!

They also let me get a picture.. finaly Martin relaxed and smiled, but then George put his serious face one!

From there we dropped Dave and Sheila off at their hotel (they're staying at this wicked nice place in the city) and we were off to the Guesthouse at around 5:30pm for a shower and some writing. (I would've rather posted... but, as usual, the net is down... again...)

A nap would've been nice as well, however Steve was right back at 6:30 to drive the 4 of us to Trattoria again. Food was amazing... again. I'm not sure if Dave really knows how much things are there. When we told him that tip was optional, and we've been giving tips every time, he tipped our waiter like 30usd .. which is almost 4500ksh ... a HUGE some of money!

Oh well... our waiter was super happy, and VERY appreciative.

I love the culture here... I love the people here... I love the land here... Even the ground, the trees and the sky seem to welcome you here. I asked Steve if people treated us so well because we're Americans, and he told me "no." "It is like this all of the time." I believe him. This is an amazing place, and this has been an amazing adventure! I miss, very much, my wife (to be), my dog, my family, and my friends, so I'm MORE THAN anxious to come home... however, I'm going to be a little sad to leave.

I pray that I will get the chance to come back here soon, and to take Laura as well. There are already great tales of "Jua" floating around the city.

It's just past midnight (local) and I'm kind of wrecked. Although we were only out from 9am-5:30pm, we got a lot done in that time. I'm still jet-lagged, and it's still hard to sleep... so I will try my hardest to crash right now.

We're back out at 9am tomorrow to spend our last day in Kibera. We're going to film the school in Kibera in the morning and then the feeding program in the afternoon. Another short, but packed day!

I love you ... (especially YOU!)

S

Sneak Peack into Monday's post:
**Stay tuned to find out how this little boy changed my life forever!

I'll make it up one day...

Saturday

I didn't sleep last night. I finally fell asleep about an hour before my wake up call came.

I kept flipping through the pages of this book that Doug has of Kibera.

What was I going to see? What was I going to do? What would be waiting for me there?

Obviously, I would not be prepared for ANYTHING that I would see there. I'm not sure what the actual definition of "slum" is as the internet is down again at the AACC... But whatever the definition is, it certainly can not do it justice. The pictures, the videos, the stories... nothing do it justice. This is just one of the those things that you must see to believe.

Steve and Edward picked us up this morning, right on time (as always) and we set off to go the bank (to change some money in) and to pay our armed escort. Now before I go on... remember when I said that there was a LOT of corruption here?

I'll give you two guesses who didn't show up to escort us through Kibera.....

Anyway... we ran our errands and headed off to Kibera to meet up with Amos and Dalmas who were waiting at the church. Dalmas is an incredibly smart, educated man who has a total heart for the people of Kibera.

So, we start to drive through the slum. Everywhere you look there are these small shops/houses made of clay. I actually watched a man working on one. They use sticks and branches from trees as re-bar, then pat mud and clay onto the sticks and let it dry. Cover the roof with a sheet of aluminum and leave the floor uncovered and you've got yourself a nice little structure on the land.

You're so busy looking at all the people.. a lot of them crippled, begging for money, that you don't notice the smell. Not until you look on the side of the road (which is one American lane wide) to see the piles and PILES of trash that you realize it smells eerily like a port-a-potty on a busy construction site. Just fowl.

Here is the road that they walk on (a lot of them barefoot everyday.) It's COVERED with trash, burning trash, and poopie. Simply disgusting:

I happened to have my window down, and most everyone that we passed would speak. The woman would say: "Jambo", Swahili for "Hallo" (as they say it) or "How are you" (they're used the same here), the men would say: "Karibu" which means "Welcome", and the children would run around saying (in unison) "How are you" over and over again. It went something like this: How are you? How are you? How are you? How are you? How are you?

Get the picture?

We finally pulled over, and got out of the truck. Now, let me remind you that our AK-47 wielding escort did not show up. I put my leg out of the truck and set it on the ground... into a pile of dookie. Human? Animal? I'll never know.

As soon as both feet touched the ground, the truck was rushed by people who started grabbing all of our bags, including my gear! I thought "For real? Is Wayne Brady gonna hafta..." well, you know the rest...

The guys laughed at the panic on my face. See, these people were so excited about me being there that they wanted to have the honor of carrying my gear. Crazy! They would run around me calling me "Mwembamba" and "Mbwa Mkubwa", the first literally means "Slim" (they use a different words for 'Skinny', 'Thin' and 'Slim'), the second means "Big Dog" although some later started calling me "Mbwa Kali" which means FIERCE Dog.. haha....

We walked a short ways to the church, the NCOC - Nairobi Christian Outreach Centre. This church was in much better shape than George's... strange, considering George's church is in a MUCH better part of town.

They had a "brief" committee meeting (2.5 hours isn't very 'brief' to me!) and then opened the doors. A flood of widows and orphans filled the room. I didn't know that they were coming in, nor was I ready for them even if I HAD known. They pushed their way through to see the white Americans there and to hear what they had to say.

Doug and Amos spoke briefly about Micro-Financing, to see what they thought about it. Overall, it was a pretty good response, although some people still feel as if they should just get hand-outs. I got some good shots of the people... did my best to capture the moment.

After they spoke to all of the widows about micro-lending, they left and the orphans moved to the front.

There is an estimated 100,000 orphans in Kibera (remember, the size of Central Park, NY), though only 50 or so were at the church.

They didn't know what to think of Mwembamba at first. They were really confused and didn't like me sticking cameras in their faces... by the end it looked more like this:

The kids lightened up when I flipped my viewfinder so that they could see themselves as I filmed. I would take still pictures with the camera and show those to them as well. Most had never really seen that before.

See, most of the adults living in Kibera moved there when they were older. So they know of the world outside of Kibera. However, nearly ALL of the children were born there and don't know that anything else exists!

I fell in love with these kids. I fear for ever bringing Laura (or "Jua" as they call her here... Yes, she's already famous over here as the wife-to-be of the Mbwa Mkubwa!) as she will surely think of the most creative ways to sneak all of these lil' fiffers back to the states!

Shortly, they returned the love. They would come running to me to speak to me in Swahili, although I couldn't understand a word that they were saying, I would just laugh when they laughed and I seemed to get by alright!

Here are some of my new best friends:

Trying to leave was crazy! We left after meeting with an AIDs/HIV group there, to try to get them some help and work (nobody hires HIV positive people here.) As soon as I stepped out of the church and back onto the streets of Kibera, I was rushed by these kids:

They grabbed my shirt and my pants and tried to keep me from leaving, of course screaming "How are you? How are you? How are you? How are you?" over and over again. Edward ended up chasing them all off of me (REEEALLY funny, if you know Edward... he's not really the 'scary' type!)

We headed back to the truck and hit the road again, we were still smothered with: "Karibu's", "Jambo's" and "How are you's".

Back to the hotel, then out to lunch/dinner (at like 4pm, local) where I had this Cajun Chicken Burger... AMAZING! I said that I wouldn't eat the local food, but it's so hard not to! It's some of the best food I've ever eaten!

Back again to the AACC where I let Dougie B use the computer, since he hasn't been able to connect since we got here. I did a new magic routine that I call 'My Bleeding Heart', where I fuse 4 or 5 tricks together using the same cards, to utterly BLOW THE MINDS of the staff. A couple of them screamed and ran! It was awesome.

Later I showed them how a to do a "French Drop" (coin vanish) using a Kenya Shilling (Ksh, thier currancy) and a trick using a palming technique. That was like 3 hours ago, and they're STILL in the lobby (where I am) practicing and laughing.

I tried to get nap since I didn't sleep last night... couldn't... so I turned on the ol' boob tube and much to my surprise freakin' "Edward Scissorhands" was on! "Booyah!" I quietly said to myself.

Finished the Johnny Depp classic, then headed back to the lobby to try to get Internet again. No luck.

Oh well... it's 2 o'clock in the PM where you are... which means I should probably try to sleep again.

I miss youse guyses. Especially my sweet babe and precious Dude. I should've hugged her longer at the airport... and now that I think about it, I kind of wish my last words to her before boarding the plane weren't "Take care of my dog! Okaybye!"

I'll make it up one day....

S

At last... day one...

Friday

I woke up earlier than 7:15, this morning... not by much... but earlier. I grabbed a shower, some clothes, and sat down to read some through the book of Acts. The bible can be confusing sometimes (read MOST of the time...)

I then stepped out of my room to find it a nice, crisp 65F.... very nice. Off to meet with a fella named Alvin, about MFI's (Micro-Financing Institutions), MED's (Micro-Enterprise Developments), and breakfast... (which for me consisted of COMPLETLY recognizable fruits.... you know... to be safe)

After a sickiningly long meeting, we headed to the airport to pick up the prodigal luggage.

After heading back to the airport to pick up Dougie B's missing luggage from Customs, we stopped by two areas very close to each other, "Pipeline" and "Quarry", to meet Pastor George, who pastors "Glory of Christ Centre" in the Quarry area.

Both of these areas used to be slums, but have evidently moved up in the world. This was my first expiernce with REAL povirty. I couldn't get the pictures that I wanted to get, as our escort wasn't with us. It's safest when in the slums, or really anywhere else around, if I don't keep my equipment in front of everyones eyes.

I also had my first run-in with Maasai Warrior, from the Maasai tribe, a nomadic tribe (one of 7 nomadic tribes of the 42 tribes in the area.) the Maasai are one of the only tribes left that maintain their heritage and culture. Everywhere you go, you will see them in their traditional coverings. The Maasai feel that they should be compensated for any pictures or videos that are taken of them, their belongings, or their land. They don't take kindly to tourists with clicking cameras and no money to give them. I'd like to get a good picture of one of the Maasai, but I need to wait until our escort is with us... If a Maasai Warrior gets pissed at me, I think I'll be a little bit more comfortable with an AK-47 on my side!!

Anyway... it was just terrible there. If this ISN'T a slum, I'm not looking forward to shooting tomorrow!

Later, we picked up Edward.

Edward is on the "Help the Least of These" commitee, the 'bean counter' as my trip mate has called him about 30 times.

Edward is a smart guy. Accountant by trade, youth pastor by passion. He's married, with one small baby.

We drove around looking for a bank that was open (banks here close at 3pm) whilst Steve and I tried to find a place to park. You'd think that'd be easy...

Check this out... since we've been here, I have YET to see A stop sign, or A stop light. Because there are none. There is also no such thing as "Right of Way" it is EVERY MAN FOR THEMSLEVES on the road out here. I've got a few VERY shaky videos that I'll try to up load. Laura, you'd HATE riding in the car here! Come to think of it, your mom might hate it worse!!

So, anyway... after we found the bank and a parking spot, we headed off to Trattoria, Dougie B's favorite African Italian joint.

Trattoria Restaurante - Pizza, Sea Food, Piano Bar
Definitely some of the best food I ever ate!! The service was rather strange... this was the first meal that I've eaten since the plane. I had some pineapple and bananas... So, this was a MUCH needed meal! After the weird service, where I found out that you can't order Diet Coke... why? Becuase it doesn't exist here. They have: Coca-Cola Light. It's actually about a thousand times better than diet coke, and comes in a 300ml glass bottle, with a non-twist-off top. Good times.

After the dinner, which cost just over 3800 Ksh (roughly $55, which fed 4 VERY hungry men and still had enough to feed to or three more left over,) we got the check which was printed on a full 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of triplicate carbon paper. We (Doug and I) were trying to figure out the tip for this diner, when our dinner mates, Steve and Edward explained that you don't tip in Africa.

Say what!?!

They said that the only people that tip are Americans pretty much, and in some industries it's actually disrespectful... which explains the dirty look from the "bell-hop" at the Guesthouse when I handed him a $1 for taking my bags to my room. Go figure.

Had a piece of their (what they call) pizza. It was pretty good actually. Nothing like REAL pizza... but pretty good. However, I didn't see ANYTHING on the whole menue (which was all leather, by the way) that had anything to do with seafood, nor was there a piano there.

Can someone say "false advertising?"

It's about 2:30pm, your time. 9:30pm "my" time. I'm sure that you're all at work, working hard... or not. As for me, I'm getting ampped for the first day of shooting tomorrow at 9:00am.

Wish me luck!

I love you and miss you all...

S

The AACC Guesthouse

We were picked up at the airport by Pastor Amos and Randal (one of Steve's drivers... you'll learn more about Steve later.) They took us on the 20 minute drive to the AACC (All-African Conferance of Churches) Guesthouse, where we're staying.

I had seen a few pictures of Pastor Amos, who always has this goofy look on his face. I would always think to myself "Man, that dudes got a goofy look on his face." Well, I found out why... homeboy's goofier than old school white Jim Murphy, but able to become quite serious, when needed. Every bit just like I imagined him.

Pastor Amos

I then took a short tour of the place. Here's the building from the outside... don't let the pictures fool it... it's better than it looks..

Milk, anyone?

I then dropped off my bags and went back to the 'lobby' to meet back up with the guys.

Steve, our transport, who is the owner of Belkin Safari Adventures and on the commitee here for "Help the Least of These" later arrived. Steve's a good man. He runs a good business and makes a decent living doing it. He's an INCREDIBLE driver... which I found out was DESPERATLEY needed!

Steve... scary lookin' dude, huh!?!

We discussed what the plans would be for the next morning... then off to bed we went.

I, as usual, had a hard time trying to get to sleep. So I flipped on the tube, caught an episode of "Friends" (coincedntly, the SAME episode I watched just before I left the sates... "Smelly cat, smelly cat... what are they feeding you!?!), sorted my clothes, packed up my bag full of camera equipment and magic tricks, and ate a healthy beef jerky dinner.

I finally got sleepy at about 2am (8pm Ft. Myers time)... and got a few hours rest before having to wake up at 7:15 (local)... ready for my first full day in A-Freak-Ah!

Average, everyday, normal-looking people

Not to speak badly of this fantastic nation (which has truly been FANTASTIC) but there are quite a few things that are rather corrupt. My first expeiernce of course was at the airport, as I entered the country.

See, if you're used to traveling the world (as I am.... not.) you know that to step onto another country's soil, you've gotta have a Visa (not the credit card... which was good... my credit sucks...), enter Kenya Customs. We arrived at Jomo Kenyatta Airport right on time, around 7ishpm (local time) and had to go straight the 'Visa Office' which was not an office, actually. It was a room about 2.5 times the size of my living room (including the dining area) filled with tons of people from all around the world.

Behind the desks were VERY well-dressed young men. Evidently suits are the typical daily attire for EVERYTHING. I mean these brothers look sharp just taking out the trash. Normally everyone that you see is in a suit and tie. (even the folks in the slums, as I later found out...)

There's a HUGE sign above the desk that says: "You MUST ask for a reciept stating your FULL NAME and AMOUNT PAID!" Evidently, if you don't ask for a receipt, Kenya will never see the $100 it costs to get your Visa. That's right... if there's no receipt, there's no record. The VERY well-dressed young man just pockets your cash.

We got our Visas, and headed downstairs to baggage claim and customs. What I saw when I got down there, I did not expect.

First, all of the passengers bags were THROWN all over the floor. As they came around on the conveyor, people just grabbed the bags and tossed them, to get them out of their way to get their bags.

As people flooded to get their bags, many people were struck with a small degree of grief as they came to realize that their bags were missing. When the line of 30 people, or so, formed behind the counter, one-by-one they reported their bag missing. They were evidently "left behind in Amsterdam." How does that happen? 30 bags left? Coincedently, these were all bags full of laptops, jewelery, cell phones, cameras, etc... hmmmmm... later I was informed that when the good folks at the Kenyan airport scan the bags, they grab valuables out of them before returning them to the owner the next couple days.

How all of my gear made it is beyond me. Thank God, though!

Next there was customs. Again, more VERY well-dressed older men of GREAT size and stature. These men were very scarred on their hands, faces, and heads. They looked like the African Mofia... a little bit scary, actually.

I watched as they randomly grabbed people to search them. You would think that they would have to search EVERYONE coming into the country. Nope. Actually, average, everyday, normal-looking people litterally WALKED through with ALL of them looking at them... never questioned... never touched.

HOWEVER, rich-looking people and REALLY poor, rundown-looking people were stopped and hassled. I watched them take things out of bags (confiscate, they called it) push people around, and even striking this one man with a baton. As I walked towards customs, I figured I was in for a some hassle. I mean, come on... a white dude of my size, stature, and good looks... it was over!

Well as I walked up, I stopped to put my bags on the counter to be searched, so that the hassling could commence, and they just waved me into their country... never questioned... never touched.

Evidently I'm one of those average, everyday, normal-looking people.

"Any minute now..."

So, yeah... on a 9 hour flight from D-Town to Amsterdam... yay.

I got a row of two seats to myself which was pretty pimp! The seats were decked out with little TVs that had videos, music, and movies on demand....

I ended up watching "Distrubia" and "Blades of Glory" on that trip. The later was HYSTERICAL!

I ate some really crappy chicken, which you will find out in the new post that it gave me some VICIOUS bubble-gut, that I think The Dude would've turned away.

"Any minute now..." became my little motto, although I didn't think I would ever end up using it as much as I did!

See, as I boarded the plane headed for Europe, I chewed me up a fistful of Unisom (actually, it was Wal-Som, because I'm cheap like that) so that I could just sleep through the 9 hour flight...

I felt myself getting light-headed... awesome... "I'm gonna get some sleep!" I thought. I sat there as the words: "Any minute now" started running around in my head. "Any minute now I'm gonna doze off." I says to myself.

I finally started to sleep when today's NEW character, Hansen (Spelled like the boy band, but pronounced "Hanz Zen,") decided that he wanted to kick the back of my chair... yeah... my thoughts exactly.

I kept nodding off and Hansen would kick my chair some more and wake me. Evidently, he didn't like how much I was moving around in my chair. I found out after the 3rd time he kicked my chair as he said "Sit still tub!!"

"Hmmm..." I thought "Any minute now, Imma lay a hurtin' on this dutch punk!", luckily, God gave a me peace about it.

The rest of the plane later realized how much of an impatient man Hansen was as he proceeded to yell, yes YELL, at the crew and the passengers ahead of him as we tried to exit the plane. He stood there yelling "Let's move it then, horses! One fat foot in front of the fat other..." it was pretty crazy....

I was able to get a couple cool pictures. Laura's camera does GREAT on planes, evidently.

Brad, you might enjoy these two. On the way to Amsterdam, we had to fly over God's greatest creation: Ireland. Or as the Dutch spell it, Irlande (someone should tell them that they put the 'e' in the wrong place...)

You can't see any land, but you can definitely see the view of Ireland from Heaven.

(it's sideways... but you get the idea)

I took some other pictures over Amsterdam, and thought about posting those, but then I realized that any shot that I took from the plane looked just like the other ones... so... go back and look at the picture of Detroit, and pretend that I said it was Amsterdam...

Close to the time we landed... the condintion of my bubble-gut worsend... a code red! I knew I shouldn't have eataen that Amsterdamish chicken!!

My stomach growled and churned... my motto came in handy... any minute now, we're gonna have a problem! But to my surprise... I just had gas. Good times. I knew it was good to eat that Amsterdamish chicken!!

All our flights were on time, and we made it to Kenya close to 7pm, local time.

I wasn't quite prepared for what I'd see next........

Trail mix? Red Box? Pringles?

It's a quarter 'til noon, local time (4:45am for you guys) and I'm FINALLY able to get to the Internet.

Dougie B got his luggage "lost" on account of him having multiple cell phones and laptops in his suitcase. I'll talk more on the corruption at the airport in a later post. But as I kept the laptop in my carry-on, nothing of mine was tampered with. I'm still not sure how all of my bags made it here safely... evidently, they didn't noticed the $8,000 worth of video equipment in my bags... they must have overlooked the beef jerky that Momma Mack packed me in my "Africa Survival Kit" either... lucky for me... as that was my dinner last night while watching "Friends".... sadly I get more American TV stations here than I do back home... ::shakes fist:: "DANG YOU BASIC CABLE!!!!"

Anyway... since I had the laptop with me, I was still able to write for my blog.

Here's the one from the first day of the trip:

Trail mix? Red Box? Pringles?
Whatever happened to peanuts on the plane?

It's 8 o'clock on Wednesday night, Ft. Myers times, of course. What better to do while on a A330 Airbus headed to Amsterdam, than to type up your next blog, while listening to the soundtrack to "Batman Begins" ? (courtesy of Mr. Joy Saquing... whether he knows it or not...)

I had an interesting flight from home to Detroit, or as my peeps there call it: "DDDDD-Town!"

Why was it interesting? Well... remember how I was REEEALLY fat when I left home earlier today? Yeah.. we'll, I'm still pretty much fat. Doug, bless his heart, took it upon himself to arrange the seats around me to be empty... for multiple reasons:

1.) He knew that I was going to be doing a lot of typing, and storyboarding for the upcoming videos on the plane, and of course wanted me to have enough room.

2.) He know that the odds of me being REEEALLY skinny by the time we left for our journey, were pretty slim (please... excuse the pun). Needless-to-say, he wanted my flight experience to be as FGA as possible.

3.) I got nothing...

Not to metioin the pat-down and search that I recieved trying to leave Ft. Myers... I'd go into details... but it's a part of my life that I'm trying to forget... besides... what happens in US Customs, STAYS in US Customs....

Here's the run down. While on the 3 hour flight from the Myers to DDDD-Town(!), we were pleasantly surprised to find that another flight had been canceled and the attendees needed to get on our plane. And of course, our flight was now PACKED to the gills.

Well, long story short... I guy walked up and proudly proclaimed: "Sittin' wit da BIG DAWG!!"
This is probably more amusing when you find out that I tend to call myself the "Big Dawg" on a regular basis.

For some reason, his name has COMPLETELY completely vanished from me. (Who's the magician now, tubby!?!)

Anyway, Doug and I talked to "Mr. X" for a good long while. Got to hear some of his story. X is from Kentucky. He is 36 years old and got divorced, just a little wile back, from his wife of 11 years. He has a 13 year boy who wants his ears pierced in the worst way. And a 10 year old girl, who already hates men. Sadly, X is no longer married, and flew down to spend some time with this girl who turned out to be not what he needed... good call...

At roughly 3:47pm (20 minutes after our flight took off, I learned another fun fact about X: dude can SLEEP hardcore on a tiny plane where he's scrunched up by the fat guy.

After a couple attempts to capture his picture without waking him up, I was able to do so:

Here, also, are some pictures from the inside of the outside.

For some reason, the guys weren't too hip to my "Those people look like ants" comment while were still on the ground. They were all "Um.. we haven't left yet!"

Really?

Who knew?

Here's the wing of the plane, in case you wondering what it looked like.

Here's X asleep... again:

Ever wanted to see Detroit? Yep.. in all it's glory. If you look closely, you can see Eminnem walking down 8 mile. "Everybody in the 313.....)

After three hours we finally made it to D-Town.

Soon thereafter Doug and I were on the sprint of our lives (imagine that... the Big Dawg sprinting!!!) Luckily, we made our connection flight on time.

Amsterdam, here we come!!