"3 pounds for a camera"

so i am with my cousins now just outside of ely, england. and while i am here safe and sound, i cannot say the same for my luggage.

long story short, my carry-on with all of my gifts for everyone and my bday gift from shannon (a beautiful oil on canvas of a market scene by my favorite african artist) did not make it here. in fact, it was stolen in nairobi airport. my own fault. i stepped out of immigration, headed to the bureau de change to change some money over, only to find out i couldn't change rwandanese money there, had set my bag down, started to walk down to the ATM (just 20 ft away), stopped and turned around and it was already gone. checked with airport security twice, but it was never turned in so---- no gifties for anyone.

however, this story gets better. the rest of my luggage made it to london (which surprised me after the near miss experience of trying to catch my flight yesterday in nairobi) and by the time we got back to the house lastnight i was too tired to check anything. this morning, i woke up at 5am, took the lock off my smaller bag to get something out and i noticed that my camera was gone. i had wrapped it up in my rain-jacket for water protection and since i was out of film, i had decided to just throw it in my check-luggage. the camera is one thing, i can handle that but what sucks is that my last roll of film was still in there; my BEST ROLL of the gorillas!!! go figure. what i IRONICALLY found at the bottom of my bag were 6x50 pence pieces (so 3 pounds). they were not there before, because i had completely emptied the bag out before i had packed it that last time. the LOCK is not broken, but i imagine anyone is smart enough to rig a lock. it's not like it's a padlock, just one of those little luggage locks.

so i am a bit distressed about the gifts, but was defintely distressed about the film. but then again... i have all of the images in my head, i just wanted to be able to share them with everyone else. with the way international currency flows around here, i have no idea where the camera was taken out of my bag. maybe london, maybe amsterdam, maybe nairobi (although i can't imagine a ton of pence pieces flying around in nairobi). doesn't really matter 'cause it's gone.

the good news is i have my research notes, i have my audio interviews, and my other film. so... things could be much worse--- it's just a matter of perspective, i guess.