Missed Flights and Cockroaches!

Well, I am back in Banta after leaving the last team of people at the airport, which turned out to be quite an experience in itself. Their flight was canceled due to a mechanical error with the plane. They were supposed to leave at 10:03 Wednesday night, so we them at the airport and then came back across the ferry to Freetown. Late Wednesday night I received a phone call, saying that their flight was canceled. The phone calls continued until around 2:00.

The next morning, Uncle Magnus, who is our Sierra Leonean team coordinator, and I went across the ferry again back to the airport. Even though we were not flying out, we were allowed into the area were they all were waiting and spent the rest of the day with them until 5:00 a.m. the next morning.

The airline was being ridiculous and wasn’t communicating information. Everyone who worked for BMI just magically disappeared after the announcement was made that the flight was canceled. They only wanted to give each person one bottle of water. They did feed them, and Uncle Magnus and I made sure to take advantage of the free food! Finally, after a long 38 hours of the team being at the airport, they flew away in the airplane. It was strange watching another team leaving and not going with them.

But I am still here and happy to be here. Saturday morning, we returned home to Banta. I am busy trying to finally move into the house where I will be staying, unpacking my suitcases, and of course, decorating the house. I have hung up all my pictures to make it feel more like home!

Currently, my task of the week will be to de-cockroach the house. I am not exaggerating when I say that there are several hundred—thousand—cockroaches living in this house. Teams always leave behind so many things to donate, so I am working on sorting and organizing all of those things. I then will move everything out of the house and give it a good spray down with this amazing bug killer spray. Hopefully that will help. Usually cockroaches are in things, and it doesn’t usually bother me. But because there are so many of them, in just a matter of seconds they get inside things. (Currently as I am writing about how much I dislike them, I have one crawling up my leg!) So before I move everything and unpack, I am going to get rid of as many as I can. I’ll let you know how it turns out!