Home Sweet Home

That's right. I'm home.

The trip home was much more uneventful than the trip out. Our (Sarah and I) plane left Conakry at 6:30pm. We got to Dakar, Senegal at about 7:30pm. Once we went through customs and picked up our luggage, we had to idea what to do. We had an eight hour layover and didn't know where to go. The airport was a little scary because we are two young white girls who obviously don't have a clue what they're doing. I tried to keep a confident face on, but I'm sure people could see right through it.

We walked into an open area of the airport and tried to figure out what to do. This man in his forties walked up to us and started speaking to us in English. I did my best to ignore him and make it obvious that we had no interest in talking to him. At first, he said welcome. I said thank you and turned around and talked to Sarah. He told us that there was some safe room to put our luggage in and I said no thank you. Then he told us to come up to his shop. I said no thank you. He really didn't get the hint that we didn't want to talk to him and that we weren't going to follow him any where. After standing next to us for about ten minutes, he gave up and tried to talk to another girl.

We found a small cafe and bought a big bottle of water so they wouldn't kick us out. We talked, read, played Uno, made up other card games with the Uno cards, drank water, and watched other people come and go. This lasted for a seemingly unending six hours. At about 12:30am, we went to check in for our flight.

The bathroom was interesting in the airport. To get there, you walk down a hallway and then down a flight of stairs. At the bottom of the stairs, you can go to the right or to the left, but they are not marked for men or women. On the left, there were low sinks that we think were meant for washing. On the right were the toilets for both men and women. The toilet was African style...no toilet paper. That's what your left hand is for. Gross!! So I brought some tissue paper and chose the first stall that I saw. It wasn't really a stall. It was like a small room. The door didn't have a handle or a lock and it didn't shut to well. So I just forced it closed. I didn't think about that action very well. When I went to open it, I couldn't. Since I had pushed it closed to hard and it didn't have a handle, all I had was a small hole to put two of my fingers in to try to pull it open. When I couldn't open it, I panicked a little because I didn't know how I would get out. After about four or five tries, I eventually pulled it open and quickly walked back up to the cafe. Hand sanitizer comes in very handy here!

We went to check in at about 12:30am. That all went well. The plane left at about 4:30am which was an hour and a half late. The trip from Dakar to New York City was seven hours long. I slept a total of maybe an hour. I watched a couple movies and TV shows. We got into JFK at 7:30am (it's four hours earlier in NY than in Dakar).

When we got off the plane, we met two other girls who were also coming back from mission trips in Africa. One was in Swaziland and the other was in South Africa.

We picked up our bags, went through customs and went on our way to check in for our last flights. Her to Pittsburg and me to Las Vegas. I went into deja vu...we got lost!

We asked people where to go and followed the signs to the best of our abilities, but we still got lost. We went to the check-in area that all of the airlines are in, but of course, Delta has its own special area. So we took the Airtrain to Terminal 3 and eventually found the Delta check-in. We stood in line for about 20 to 30 minutes and realized that we were in the line for International flights not Domestic flights. So we walked across the street and finally found where we were supposed to be. I got up to the ticket counter and, finally, something good happened!

The flight I was booked on did not leave until 7:30pm. That meant about an eleven hour layover. No fun! But the ticket lady offered me a seat on the 12:30pm flight! I got so excited! There was one small catch...it costs $25. I didn't know if I had that much money. All I had was $23. So I borrowed $2 from Sarah and saved myself seven boring hours!

So now, I'm home!

Being home comes with mixed feelings. It feels so good to see family and friends, but I really miss Guinea. I used to think the scenery here was pretty with the mountains and everything. Boy, was I wrong! It's so ugly! But I will stay here until God tells me to go again...which could be sooner than I think! Septermber maybe??? We'll see!

I'm going to try to get pictures up and stuff. I have about 900 pictures so I have lots of sorting to do. I'll let you all know where I put them.

Even though I'm home, I would still really like it if you prayed for me...I really need to decide if I'm going back to school this semester. There's a possibility with Invisible Children that I could pursue instead of going to school this year. Please pray that God would show me which way to go.