On Monday, I said goodby to my friends as they ended their London trip by heading to Scotland. I thought I would be leaving early Tuesday Monring to head to Amsterdam then Entebbe. the airline told me Ineeded to get an electronic Visa before entering Uganda. I had never needed one before and had always got them at the airport. So I sat down in a chair in the Uganda House (embassy) and started filling out the application, when it asked for my documents I used my phone to snap the pictures unfortunately my pictures were 2.2 Mb and they needed to be less that 250 Kb. So back on the tube, back to my house got help from my brother Tom’s IT guys and John Stephens son, Mike, All was golden until I got to the last page and it would not let me pay. I tried to start a new application, but it would not help me because there was already an application started.
Went to sleep at 10:pm and woke every hour to try to pay it would not let me. Hopped in my Uber at 2:30 am hopefully I could talk my way on the plane. The agent had none of my sob story, and now I thought holy cow, I am stuck and not going to Uganda. I would be crestfallen, but I was also thinking of the things I had set up for both my Ugandan friends and my American students, So I found a chair to sit in and plug in all my devices while I waited for normal people to wake up and help me. There are 4 hotels at Heathrow Terminal 4 and I went with best one to see if they would let me check my bags for a few hours, the guys were great and talked me out of the expensive black cab to get back on the tube.
Despite my frustration, when I showed up at the Ugandan Embassy, they were very nice and very helpful, and got me a paper visa for my passport. In the middle of it they asked for a credit card and I inadvertently gave them my debit card which was 5 minutes of panic before I got to verify through USAA.
Feeling chipper and full of success, I went to KLM and they kept referring me to online sites and What’s App bots. No one at KLM London had the ability to sell me a ticket or modify my existing one!!! 90 minutes later I had a ticket because I bought it myself with my own credit card, of course it timed out one click away from getting the ticket.
I think I am boring you, I arrived safely in Entebbe and after 10 hours bus ride I am now home in Gulu.
