Amy McRee's Blog: Made It to Uganda After Run in With London Police

Amy McRee, NEWS 9

Wednesday, 6:30am

Good Morning from Kampala, Uganda. We arrived around 10:15 p.m. last night. Made it to the hotel around 11:30 p.m. By the time we got settled and cleaned up it was a little after 2 a.m. It's been a long journey to say the least, but we are here!

I got up at 5 a.m. this morning (running on 2 hours of sleep) to get ready for our 10 p.m. live shot. I was told it broke up quite a bit, sorry to hear that. We are going to give it another go tomorrow, so stay tuned for that.

Getting to Africa has been rather eventful. We departed Will Rogers around 4p on Monday, got into Dallas an hour later. Then left there bound for London. We arrived in London around 10 a.m. on Tuesday and, for me, this is where things got rather interesting.... I had already been on two different flights, through two different airports, with no problem. I went through the security at Heathrow airport and the TSA agent asked for me to "step aside" while they searched my carry on bag. With latex gloves and glaring eyes, the agent dangled what appeared to be my car keys overhead... car keys that had my gym card, my small Starbucks card, 3 keys and a small 2-ounce mace can all attached. What I equate to safety in the states is actually a felony offense in London. The agent asked why I had it, I explained I had forgotten it was on there. I tossed it in my carry on bag after arriving at the OKC airport and that I use it strictly for safety reason due to my gender and my occupation, etc. I offered up a casual "tossing of the item" to which the agent replied "if it were only that easy.. "

The short of it, two officers came and talked to me, explained I was going to miss my flight because I was going to have to be taken down to the police station, an incident report would be filed, they would drive me back to the airport and that I would be allowed to fly out on the next flight to Entebbe, Uganda. (The next flight wasn't until 2 days later!) Fortunately they made a call to the "Governor" who said since the flight was several days later they could file a report and let me go on with the Pros for Africa group. Both the officers looked at one another, stunned and said "you got lucky." (I chalked it up to the power of prayer & God's divine intervention!) I thanked them and was on my way to the gate. Boarding had already begun. (All of this went down, mind you, in an hour's time, which was all the time we had in between flights!) Fortunately, I was able to make my flight and make it to Uganda with the group. I'm happy to report we ALL did make it here safe and sound.

I've got a full day head. I'm about to head out to the "store" with our group. I hear it's more like a convenient store with limited items, but will no doubt serve our purposes (we need water, food, etc.). We are going to head to a local academy after that and visit with some children and then head on to Gulu. It's a nearly 5 hour bus ride, so another long day of travel.

Have a wonderful Wednesday friends! I'll blog some more once I get to my next stop.

Amy