Thursday, 7-30-09 Day 44

Between the day I had, the malaria meds that I had to take, and the Tylenol, I had the perfect concoction for crazy dreams last night! I really don’t want to be awake right now. It is 5:45 in the morning. I am tired. I am emotionally exhausted. I kept reminding myself that my family is home waiting for me, and I’m less than 48 hours away from seeing them. We were picked up late by our driver because there was an accident on the road and traffic was even worse than what it already is. He didn’t get to us until 6:30. We rushed to the airport, hoping and praying beyond all reason that we weren’t late. God got us through the traffic (magnificently, I must say!) and we got to watch the sunrise on the way. We checked out bags and got everything together for our flight. We ate breakfast at the Java House (which for me included a double-shot mocha) and were through check-in quickly. The airline ended up running out of space for overhead storage, and needed to check my bag. Jim kept telling me that whatever was in my bag would probably get lost. Nothing was life-or-death important in there, but I still would rather it not get lost…
The airline people made us walk on the tarmac outside to board the small jet of a plane. They didn’t park the plane anywhere close to our gate, either, which was irritating. They had us board the back of the plane only, because the plane makes a pit-stop where the passengers in the front of the plane de-board and new ones get on… then we all go as a happily family of strangers to Dakar. Still, the flight served us food and drinks. I sucked down coffee, coke, and some of Jim’s white wine. We’ve been on this freakin plane for a few hours now. I’m in seat 20E, on the right side of the plane, between Jim and Jan. You would think that I would be asleep right now, but this is not the case. After the pit stop and passenger changes, the airline served us food again. Jan could only drink half of her white wine, so Jim and I split the rest of hers. Jan crashed, so Jim and I watched this crazy African Soap Opera Drama thing. It was terrible, but it passed the time.
Guess what? Since they checked my carry-on, I had to go pick it up with at the luggage place. Guess who’s luggage was also there? The luggage for the rest of the team. The airline was supposed to send the luggage all the way through to Atlanta, so that it would be there when we got there. No such thing happened! It was a good thing that I checked my bag, otherwise we would have just gone through to the waiting area and not stopped to wait for the luggage at all! Jim was NOT happy with the airline!
Our next flight doesn’t leave for hours, so we opened up our snacks and made small talk. Certain team members laughed at me for re-packing my luggage. My logic was that I didn’t have a scale to weight the weight of my luggage when I first packed it, so I would re-pack it now so that my bags would be under the weight limit for our American flights. The funny part of this was that after I had my bags in order, the other teammates took use of the available scales and rearranged their luggage, too! Haha!
We spend a lot of time people watching. Some of the people here are immaculately dressed, and some dressed as per their culture’s guidelines. It’s cool to watch. There were lots of women wearing brightly colored suits and dresses, and others with vivid and beautiful veils that flowed behind them when they walked. Most of the men showed up in casual attire, but there were a couple that stood out with their cleanly pressed suits.
There is almost nothing here. This has to be the lamest international airport I’ve ever stepped foot in. There is one small drink stand that’s only open short bits of time. There are hardly any chairs to sit on (we grabbed the only 2 rows in sight). After an hour or so, half the team was bored of sitting so we decided to wander around and explore the airport while the other half of the team watched the chairs and luggage. We found a (very hidden) café. It was very “upper class” and the staff was less than polite. We grabbed coffee there and left to wander around some more. On the way back, we passed a small little gift stand that had a man standing outside holding a large stack of brand new hundred dollar bills. He kept asking us if we had change for a hundred- do we really look like idiots???
We got back to our seats just in time to watch a group of men unroll their mats and pray in the middle of the airport. It was an awesome cultural thing to watch- you don’t really imagine that someone would actually drop everything to pray until you see it happen right in front of you.
……. There is 8 hours left of waiting time, and I am running very low on entertaining things to do. Thanks to the drastic humidity change that is Dakar, my nose is stuffy. Humidity is not a strong point of mine. I’ve come to the realization that in the next 24 hours, I will probably get no sleep. I also realized that I need to make it a point to my dad that I used more Maxi Deet (that he made me bring) in Dakar than I did the entire trip put together.
The airport finally is starting to look busier, which means there are more people to watch. We finally were able to get in the baggage check line so that we could get ready to board the plane. They don’t have x-ray machines here- they have people that physically check out your bag. They had me open my bag, and they were pretty gentle going through it. I’m very happy to say that all of my knives are still there 
I am now on the plane, with benedryl in my system (to MAKE me get some sleep), and am people watching until I get bored. I’ve been flipping through the free chanels on the little tv in front of me. I’m bored out of my mind, but happier to know that I’m on my way to Georgia, which is just one step closer to being home! (I didn’t think I would be so happy to return to my own country!)