Dumb Mistake

Now that Mike received his Christmas gift, I can share this funny story. This is not one of my brighter moments. For Christmas, I bought everyone a small gift. As I was walking around shopping, thinking of what to get for each person, I saw the perfect gift for Mike. Amy and I recently had a discussion about Mike's hobbies. One of them was rocketry. Yes, you read that right, rocketry. I didn't even know that was a hobby. Anyway, since Kenya's independence day had occurred the day before, there was a display of fireworks in Nakumatt which is kind of like a Super Wal-Mart. When I saw the Texas Rockets, I immediately put them in my cart. When I got home, I packed them away in my bag and didn't think anything of it.

Randomly, Suzy and I were discussing something and I mentioned I bought fireworks for Mike. She paused and looked at me and said, you can't bring fireworks on a plane! They are explosives. I thought for a moment and realized, yes she is right! Duh. That's like trying to sneak in a shoe bomb. Imagine if I hadn't mentioned it and I packed the fireworks in my bag. Then my bag gets searched and I get arrested for trying to smuggle in fireworks. Despite my pleas, they may not believe that I just was clueless! We had a good laugh about that. Then the laugh continued when we realized that people in Tonj don't know what fireworks are! They might think war had broken out again. That headline would read "American Inadvertantly Resparks War in South Sudan After Five Years of Peace Due to a Slight Misunderstanding."

When Suzy went to load the plane a few days later, she took the fireworks to MAF and explained the situation. They had a good laugh about what I almost did. Then they said they would check with the pilot. Apparently he gave the ok as long as it was put in the danger box which is where anything explosive is kept.

So, I got to bring them to Sudan after all. Mike and Sabet were going to set one off this evening. However, Sabet called one of his security friends who advised him to wait until the next day. He wanted to announce it on the radio so no one would be worried!