I woke up and it was dark, all the shades were down but I couldn’t help but peaking. Just a glimpse that’s all. Ow! Light flooded in and my eyes regretted opening. After a few moments, they adjusted and I could see we were pretty much surrounded in clouds. Just about everyone was asleep: Karlie, our Greek friend, the Brazilian (just a guess) guy across the aisle, and especially the oh so content, snoring person (assumed to be male) behind me. I checked our flight status on the screen on the back of the seat in front of me and saw we had about two hours until we reached London. I went back to sleep. Breakfast came and I saved what I could because I figured we wouldn’t want to spend money in the airport.
When we began to land in London, the cloud cover was still present. Even as we descended, it was completely grey and dreary around us. We were informed that they were receiving rain. Heathrow in the rain: not such a beautiful sight. But just the same, we were happy to be halfway there.
It sounded as if Lew was the DJ for the airport, because all they seemed to play was American music and the same songs Lew had been playing and replaying in the car since we got back from Tech. I couldn’t help but laugh and sing along. We debated about finding a pay phone to call him, but decided it was too early there. We found the flight listings board and guess what… our flight was delayed. Not bad, an hour or so, but we really didn’t have anything to do. We walked for a while. We say for a while. We admired how simply different we are from the English. Everything was just so here. It was quite a fashionable airport. You could definitely pick out the Americans; we were the ones in jeans and t-shirts. Everyone else was so far ahead of us.
Finally they posted our gate number and we followed the signs to the bus/rail/thing. Boy was it fast. We got there and instantly knew we were in the right spot because nearly everyone waiting was very obviously African. What beautiful clothes the women wore! We were really excited.
We finally boarded and after 7ish more hours, a few movies, and some quiet time with God, I saw the city lights. Accra! We were almost there. It was surreal. Was this really happening? I could barely contain my excitement. Karlie just laughed at me. We landed and everyone clapped. They were all so happy to be home.
The doors opened to the sticky air. It had just rained here as well. The ground nearly steamed. It was a welcome change of environment. It took us a while to all to find our luggage, and get through customs and immigration, but we managed. Soon we found ourselves readjusting our load for the final trek out to the (hopefully) waiting ISEP representative. As I reached the corner, there before me was a familiar face. Ozzie! (Dr. Abaye) We ran and hugged her in amazement. She had managed to change her departure date at the last minute. She had a sign to welcome us and we quickly said our goodbyes as our ISEP friends escorted us to the van. We planned to meet her tomorrow.
I couldn’t believe it; she stayed for us!
We met Libby (of Montana), Shadreck (one of the orientation leaders), and the driver (whose name I still do not know) as we threw our luggage into the van. They gave us our orientation folders, toilet paper, bottled water, and food from the campus famous Tasty Treats (see pictures on facebook). We arrived and signed in to the hostel and in all the chaos attempted to call home. They didn’t answer. I couldn’t believe it. I have to admit I was a little sad. I couldn’t wait to tell them that we were there safe and sound. I left a message and gave Karlie the phone to call Mummum. Apparently Aunt Jane answered the phone and then passed it off to Mummum, which only confused us more as we passed the phone back and forth on our end too. I wish we could have talked longer but we were borrowing a phone and it was very late. We then began the voyage up to the fourth floor (which is the third in UK because you start with zero) to our room. I couldn’t believe how awesome the room was. It opens to an outdoor hallway (motel style) on one side and to a private balcony on the other. Two beds, two wardrobes, two desks, two bookshelves, two chairs, two end tables. Nice. We dropped our bags and turned on the fan. We only unpacked a little and then decided to get showers and call it a night. We would meet everyone for breakfast in the morning.
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