Lost luggage and missed connections

This trip set a new personal record for longest travel time-36 hours. I'd rather not repeat this unnecessarily long path home ever again. I flew from Ukenzagapia to another African country, had a 9 hour layover, and then flew to London via the Middle East, and London to Big City.

I read two books before I got to London. After a 9 hour layover, as I checked in in another African country, they informed me they had only one of my two checked bags. They spent the next 30 minutes before the plane left looking for my bag, but as far as I know they didn't find it. This is disconcerting, because how do they lose only one of my bags?

George Bush is responsible for an additional four hours on my trip. Because of his visit to London, traffic at Heathrow was completely stuffed up and my plane from another African country had to land an hour late at Heathrow, which left me only 35 minutes (theoretically) to change terminals and check in. I ran once I got off the plane, only to wait on a shuttle bus for 5 minutes. Then I had to go thru security, ran some more, and made it to an airline rep 5 minutes before my scheduled departure. Unfortunately, it was too late, but they were able to squeeze me on the next flight to Big City, leaving 3 hours later.

Once my flight got changed, I was pretty sure my one bag that made it on my flight to London wouldn't make it to Big City. I was right. I waited around at baggage claim forever before I could go through customs and see Jon. I filed a claim and fingers are crossed that the bags make it here sometime this week- the sooner the better. I'm more worried than I usually am about delayed baggage because I flew 3 different airlines based in 3 different countries from 3 different airline alliances (OneWorld, Star, whatever). I'm also very concerned about the bag that wasn't in another African country. What if it never left Ukenzagapia? What if it lost its tag or was mistagged? The airline rep thought I would get my bags eventually with complete certainty, so that makes me hopeful but she's probably never been to Ukenzagapia, either.