Sleep Deprived and Feelin' Fine

ETHIOPIA: It’s 1:56 am in New York City on Tuesday morning. The last time I was asleep was 6:29 Sunday morning. My record for staying awake was previously forty hours…incidentally, the last time I flew to Africa. I’m currently at 44 and don’t foresee the golden slumbers catching up with me for another five, and possibly ten hours when I reach Uganda. I left sleep in Brooklyn and it apparently didn’t get my JFK-Heathrow-Bole-Entebbe itinerary. The good news is that my inability to sleep now will almost definitely result in me kicking jetlag’s puny little bootie before it ever even has a chance to set in. Take that, jetlag! Mwwwwwahahahahaha!

The trip has been alright so far. Of course, on the trip from JFK to London I was in a near constant state of euphoria, due to the sheer volume and variety of British accents washing over me with all their imperial goodness. God bless the British! Virgin Atlantic airlines is the single most wonderful airline I’ve ever been on. I had all the movies and tv shows I could ever hope to watch (with the glaring exception of Doctor Who, which I may have to write Richard Branson personally to complain about). Ethiopia Airlines was quite a tumble, however, after the joy that is Virgin Atlantic. The attendants were, well, inattentive, the bathrooms were in need of both a bath and some room, and the cabin was apparently not sealed well, because on both take-off and landing my hands and feet swelled up big enough to be painful. And, of course, there was the not-sleeping issue.

Not sleeping does funny things to the body. Mainly to the balance—which, as of this morning (is it morning here?), I am convinced is indelibly linked to the wit. Both are pretty wobbly right now.

So I’ll wobble on along to Uganda, and maybe by the time I get there I’ll be a little less unbalanced, a little more witty, and slightly less sleep deprived.

UGANDA (the next morning): The sleep deprivation project made it to 57 hours before the subject (me) nestled sweetly into her tent mattress and fell into an almost silent slumber for approximately 15.25 hours, effectively wiping out the exhaustion of the previous three days. And by “almost silent slumber,” I mean that in the middle of the night I sat up straight in my bed, sound asleep, looked at Lori and said, “I’m sorry I missed all that” before falling back into my dream. Ah, Africa. Let the fun begin!

Today, Wednesday, the plan is to go to the mall for some serious internet action, since the internet at the tent, while existent, likes to torture me with its slowness and unreliability.

I have the prospect of meeting a man in Kampala at some point called Livingstone who runs an organization for street children. We may head off to Jinja right away and come back later when we know for sure that Livingstone is in town. Please pray that this meeting and the many others I’m hoping for work out. I also have several phone calls to make today to people who are affiliated with World Orphans, one of the organizations who has been so kind to make connections for me. Those contacts are also in Jinja, so hopefully we will be able to go there tomorrow or the next day.

My biggest prayer request right now is that I will be able to be a good interviewer/conversationalist. I’m a much better writer than I am a talker, and I fear that my fair-to-middling conversational skills are going to make the information gathering process more difficult than it needs to be. Also, can you please pray that I would be outwardly and upwardly focused—focused on the Lord and on the task at hand—rather than inwardly focused on my self and my physical or emotional needs? I have a month to do this, and the less time I spend on selfishness, the better.

And, by the way, the Motherland welcomed me with open arms. Africa got into my blood when I lived here, and part of me has always been African-American. That part of me is currently taking a deep breath of its native air, and it feels good. And on that note, I think I’ll go back outside and let it breathe some more.

Love, Amanda