Alright as everyone whose anyone knows I arrived in Sierra Leone (or Salone, as some of the native people call it) thursday night, roughly 3 days ago. I haven't posted in this blog since then though due to massive jetlag and because I've been doing a ton of stuff as I get acclimated to a competely different culture and place. Anyway I decided that instead of writing one massive (and it would truly be massive) post about everything thats happened in the last 3 days Im just going to break it down into three or four smaller post. This is the first one, which covers my adventures in simply getting to Africa.
The celebrated Zhou philosopher Lao Tzu is said to have observed that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, a proverb that definetly applies in this case. I hopped out of bed Thursday morning and threw on my clothes. My bags were all packed and everything was ready for me to hit the road. Padre always promised me that my graduation presant would be having my bags packed and at the door the night I graduated, I guess he was just a little off on the dates. I swung by my friend Brian's house to pick up my iPod, then back home for breakfeast but I was too excited to eat (something which would come back to bite me later on). The whole family piled into our big van for the last time, because after this last ride it will be the whole family sans J.D.
It was about a 30 minute ride to ABIA (Austin-Bergstrom Int'l Airport, the smallest airport I've seen outside of Africa). We got there and the majority of the family hopped out to "help" with my two bags. Oddly enough though none of them seemed very eager to assist me with my fifty pound duffel. We went and checked in at the United counter, got my boarding pass and checked the fifty pound duffel bag that yours truly has nicknamed "The Monster." After that it was time for good byes. Hugs were exchanged, tears were shed and everyone had something nice to say to me (which is a rarity in mi familia). Of course I didn't cry, because Im a man like that (and possibly because I had behind my reflective shades during the car ride) but I did get a little choked up. Gotta say I love everybody, but I really love mi famila. Blood definetly runs thicker than water.
After my farewell to the fam it was time to go through security. Now I've heard some pretty bad stories regarding the TSA but they were nice to me and I passed with near flying colors. (Te whole smashing all my poptarts during bag search and making me get rid of my sunscreen because it could be plastic explosive? I'll let it slide. This time. But next time Im calling my lawyer!) Once passed those lovely TSA chaps who are awsome and who I can't wait to see agian once I get back (they might be reading so I gotta hedge my bets) it was time to hurry up. And wait. And wait some more. It was like 9am d my flight didn't leave till 11:33am so I just sat by the gate listening to music and reflecting on the meaning of life, the molecular structure of atomic particles and other stuff like that.
The flight to Washington D.C. was pretty chill, slept an hour and just kinda looked out the widow and enjoyed the view the other two hours while trying to not think about how hungry I was from not eating that morning. Once I arrived in D.C. I made a beeline for Wendys and ordered a baconator and a triple cheeseburger with fries, all washed down by a large Dr. Pepper. I knew this was going to be my last meal in America so I had to go all out baby! Needles to say I feel like I did. After that it was back to hurrying up and waiting and waiting and waiting some more. The highlight of D.C. was a belgian women coming up to me and asking me (in french) if i spoke french. Sadly I said I did not but she also spoke english and we talked for awhile in the line. Apparently I looked rather european, which was interesting.
The flight across the pond was insanely long and dull, utterly devoid of intrest and entertainment. I watched some mundane teen comedy about a sophmore who tries to hook up with the "perfect senior girl" who is, to the suprise and shock of everyone involved, struggling with her own inner issues. Wow, what an origional plot twist! And the most annoying part was that all the movie choices heading east were pretty pathetic the choices heading west were all pretty good. Instead if suffering through Peck and his pathetic pubescent struggles I could have been enjoying any one of a number of decent movies. Sad day. Of course I ended up trying to fall asleep but this proved impossible because the older gentleman (and I use this term in the most sarcastic way possible) leaned his chair as far back as possible a couple hours in, somewhere over Canada. I swear it was nearly a 90 degree angle, like almost touching my knees. And since he was an old guy he fell asleep the entire flight and so I never got a chance to tell him to get up. In summary: flying across the atlantic was not fun. At all.
So I was pretty haggard when I arrived at Brussels International. It is a HUGE airport. Just enourmous. It simply dwarfs ABIA. Once I disembarked the plane I had no idea where to go or what to do, every sign seemed to be in French or Dutch, and I could not figure out where to go. So I did what I always do in crazy situations like these. I stopped, sat down, and took a few minutes to pray, asking God for direction and that I didn't pass out from sleep exhaustion. Then I got up and just began to walk around. After walking for what seemed like forever (seriously, the welcome hall had to be a mile long) I found a couple of guys in uniform and got a little direction. They directed me towards another bag search (which I passed with no issues and where everyone was very polite, though they looked at me funny when I popped a malaria pill when I was declaring my medicines.)
Once I passed through security I just keep trudging on till I actually overheard some people at the Brussels Air counter talking about Sierra Leone. I said a quick prayer and walkd over to them and asked if they were headed there. They said that yes, they were going to Salone (they were natives) and even allowed me to follow them to the correct terminal. I can not underestimate how thankful I was for that, because it was another quarter hour of walking and I would never have found it without them. Except that after all that walking we ended up at a small inter airport bus station, because suprise! we had to take a 10 minute bus ride from that terminal to another totally seperate one to finally get to where we were going to catch are flight. Let me reitete: Brussels Int'l is massive.
I wandered around this huge airport for a while (and got yelled at by a security guard for accidentally wandering through a security checkpoint because I was super out of it, but hey he to though I was european, so score!) After another hour or so of waiting I ran into some fellow Mercyshipers, Robbie and Steve, who have been here many times and to whom I am very grateful. They were super nice to me and have really treated me like their son, which is awsome. I also met Johan, who has been here before as well. I would meet more Mercyshipers on the same flight once it landed in Sierra Leone.
The flight to Freetown was pretty chill. I sat next to another american who had just graduated from UW and was headed down to Freetown to work as a newspaper reporter for a few months, so we just talked for most of the flight. In flight food was kinda nasty though, but thats a post for another time. It was a 5 hour flight and went pretty well. We touched down in Sierra Leone with no problems and thats where the real fun began.
