The Musoma airport only has a little dirt and grass runway, but it's got quite the departure lounge! There are giant "thrones" like these bordering the walls of a large room. Since there are only four flights a week (when the plane actually comes... sometimes it skips landing in Musoma and passengers have to travel by bus to Mwanza, a city three and a half hours away, to catch their flight!), there is no need for multiples gates and waiting lounges. When you walk into the airport, they put your luggage up on a table and search it by hand, since there are no luggage scanning machines. Then men and women split into two lines and in different parts of the room, male and female airport workers give passengers a pat-down and wave a metal-detector wand around and hand-search their carry-on luggage. Then you are free to go and wait for your plane in the lounge, where you can feel like a tiny little person in a big chair. I can't remember the last time I felt so little! When we flew to Dar es Salaam in May, some of the other Mara Cluster ladies and I felt like we were traveling in pretty high style - it sure beats those little metal row chairs at many international airports around the world!
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