My initial travel plans for Rwanda were to fly out from Des Moines around 2 p.m. Friday, May 7th, and arrive in Chicago shortly after. Fly out of Chicago to Brussels that same night at 6:00 p.m. on an overnight flight, and arrive in Brussels around 9ish the next morning and then fly from Brussels to Rwanda at 10:40 A.M. Friday morning, putting me in Rwanda around 6 p.m. Well that was all sounding perfect until we arrived at the Des Moines Airport to find out my flight had been delayed until 4:11 making it very close for me to make my connecting flight. So I left the gate and went back down to sit with my parents for another two hours, went back up- through security and back to my gate around 4…Then, as my parents communicated with the front desk and continually checked the monitors, we found out it was now departing around 4:45, thus making it nearly impossible for me to make my 6:00 connecting flight out to Brussels. So they told me to come down from the gate and we’d re book this whole thing. Well, I was almost relieved at the time…I was tired, sick with a sore throat and headache and achy beyond belief. An extra two days to sleep was sounding more than all right to me at that point. So I came back down from my gate another time and we rebooked my flight. Now I was set to leave out Monday Morning (the problem with scheduling this trip is that flights only leave Brussels to Kigali on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.) So now we were stuck, trying to reschedule another trip out to Rwanda accordingly. So leave Monday (this time around 10:45 A.M.) giving me a much longer time in Chicago because all the later flights were booked. Then flying out of Chicago, again around 6 p.m. on an overnight flight to Brussels and then flying out Tuesday morning to Rwanda putting me there around 6 p.m. Well, I made it as far as Chicago without trouble (as you know, or will know from Monday’s blog post) After a few hours in Chicago my flight was showing a delay of 2 hours and 15 minutes. Therefore, screwing up the time I’d have to make my connecting flight from Brussels to Rwanda. My parents talked all my options out with me, communicated with the travel agent and we decided my best bet was to get as far as I could now. So I took the flight out of Chicago Monday night at around 8:30 p.m. and arrive in Brussels this morning around 12:30/1 p.m. (well missing my connection to Kigali, Rwanda) So my amazingly helpful parents booked me a reservation at a hotel 1 mile from the airport, the Crowne Plaza. However, there was still a mess to be faced at the airport before I could enjoy the comforts of a hotel bed, shower or change of clothes. Our travel agent booked me on the next flight out to Kigali (not until Thursday morning) and so I would need to reclaim my checked bags due to my two-night stay here. That was easier said than done. I was sent from the United Baggage Service desk, to the Brussels Air Service Desk and then to the two other desks. Finally, at the last desk, I laid it out to the man. I was tired, sick and crabby. I told him, I have been sent now to every desk on this floor- someone needs to scan my baggage tag and locate my bags instead of sending me around to the next person, I’ve been to every desk now so someone HAS to find my bags. I have two bags; they’re here in this airport, now it is your job to find them! I don’t know if I’m scary when I’m that crabby or if the poor man just felt bad for me but immediately he was on it. He had me re-check every luggage belt (which I had already done a thousand times) and then he took me to all the back “employee entrance only” rooms to personally look for my bags. Finally, in the third room in the back corner of the basement, I found them! Oh happy day! He split the second I found them and so I had to maneuver two large bags on wheels up to the second floor of the airport on the escalators (that was an adventure itself) and then come to find out I needed to be on the third floor. So I left the airport, flagged down a taxi, and delivered myself to the hotel to shower and crash. Not until I arrived into my room did it register that here I am, in a foreign country I had no intention of being in, for two nights. Kind of a cool accident once you get a shower and catch up on some sleep. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll have a chance to explore this accident of an opportunity and see some sights in Belgium. It’s 3:04 A.M. here now, I’ve been here since 2:30 P.M. and as I said, showered and slept as soon as I arrived to my room so now my sleep schedule is all a skew. Oh well, I have 8 weeks to get that figured out. Not all my luck has been bad thus far, however, I did have the pleasure of meeting some very interested people at the Chicago airport and on my flight here to Brussels. While waiting for what turned out to be my 8-9 hour layover in Chicago I was waiting in a gate nearby my own, seeing as being in my gate was just stressing me out more and more. An older man approached me with a very thick accent. He asked if this was the gate to Frankfort, Germany and I told him my situation, that I wasn’t sure what gate I was in, I was just avoiding my own, and that I was sorry I couldn’t be of help. As I watched him ask around to others who would only blow him off I approached him and told him to sit tight and I would go check the screen for him to check what gate this was. He sat down next to me in the chairs and I got up to check the screen. “Yep!” I Said, “you’re in the right place, this is the gate for Frankfort, Germany” He thanked me and we sat in silence next to each other. Only then his daughter, probably in her early thirties, came running into the gate panting, he put his arms in the air and shouted her name, “Why are you here?” He said, lighting up with excitement to see her. She explained that his inhaler must of fallen out in the car and that she explained to security my dad has a very bad heart and hard time breathing…and that he NEEDED his inhaler so they let her go through with a security pass. She left after some small talk with her dad and then came back again to offer to get him a sandwich or something to eat. “No thank you,” he said “Plus, I have her (pointing to me) to help me out if I need anything!” I smiled at her and she smiled back. They said their goodbyes again and she was off. He then started up conversation with me, he asked me where I was traveling to if it wasn’t Frankfurt and I explained everything to him, I explained I was going to Africa, Rwanda to be exact, to go back to a country that I fell in love with a year ago and teach at a primary school for eight weeks. He gave me a huge smile and said, “I like you, BIG HEART and courageous to go alone!” I thanked him for his kind words and he continued to be encouraging about my trip and my upcoming experience. I then asked him his travel plans. He told me he was from Greece, his daughter lived in Chicago and he spends half of the year with her and the summer out in Greece. With his thick accent I knew he was from somewhere other than the US. I told him he was courageous tor travel alone too, and we laughed together. Then came along a woman as the gate was filling up, she was born in Korea she later explain but had immigrated to San Francisco and then married a man from Utah (where she now lives) She asked where I was traveling to and I told her my story, yet again, leaving out specifics (as I learned from my Iowa State Study abroad orientation, never tell strangers where you’ll be staying, or working etc…) She looked at me like I was crazy, alerted me that she used to work in a mental institute and that people were crazy! She said, “Trust no one, you meet someone one second and five seconds later they do you wrong!” Then chimed in my New Greek friend, “Do you know how old I am?” He said to her. “72, I’ve seen more things than you and I’ve lived on this Earth for far longer, you MUST trust people,” he told her. “When you treat others as if they can’t be trusted they begin to feel that way, and begin to then think the same about others, we MUST trust people to create a unity, so we can all get along and live as one. Trust someone until they give you reason not to.” He sat back with confidence in his argument, and then leaned forward once more, “And quite freaking the girl out, we need more people like her and you’re ruining those chances for us with your talk.” She fell silent and I smiled huge. I know God sent him…either that or it was Jesus sitting next to me. He was special himself and I regret not thanking him or letting him know his encouragement was comforting and I was happy to know people like him are rooting for me. I stayed with him until I had to leave for my gate, he sent me off with some wise words and I walked away almost feeling sad to leave the man. As I boarded my plan I was seated next to a man, similar to my age I’d guess, from Rome. He was asking me about Chicago and I told him the wonderful things it had, we talked about his experience in the US and he said he’d only ever been to Texas, but wanted to travel to NYC and Louisiana. He went on about Texas food, Tex mex, etc. We talked for a large portion of the trip, probably the only two who didn’t sleep much of the night. He was in awe of my traveling to Rwanda, he asked me if it was safe there and if I felt scared there. Questions like those always frustrate me, but I have to understand the common misconception of Africa and Rwanda and understand that it is my job and others who have traveled to places with misconceptions to correct those ideas. I comforted him in stories and accounts from last years trip and finally he was ok with me going there. It’s always nice to feel as if I’ve at least caused someone to re-think their views on the country I love so much. He was Italian, so of course I brought up soccer and the world cup in South Africa this summer. At the end of the flight he shook my hand and said best of luck with your travels and your work. It’s neat the people you meet when you take the chance. God left me challenged and satisfied today. I know he is with me, of course he is, without him this would be impossible.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Presently I am sitting at the airport in Chicago in route to Rwanda; I have a six-hour layover and no Internet connection so I’m “blogging” on a word document and will post it at my earliest connection to the Internet.
I’ve officially finished my last semester at Iowa State University, it’s a bittersweet feeling and for something that I’ve been working towards for the past 17 years- it’s unlikely kind of sad to be done. Much of my last few weeks at school have been filled with mass mayhem, finishing up travel plans, organizing the last bit of my internship, speaking to classes about my experiences abroad, oh, and finding some time late at night and in the wee hours of the morning to study for finals. This left me little to no time to appreciate my fours years at Iowa State University coming to an end, but it all caught up with me as I became a tearful mess on my way to my last final. It was Thursday of last week around 9:50 A.M, I was heading to LeBaron to meet with my class one last time and as I passed by everything on campus for the last time, it hit me. I began to tear up as I walked past the campanile, the Memorial Union and even the Library (I don’t know if it was the lack of sleep I’d been getting or my four years coming to an end, but everything was making me emotional). Nothing, however, hit me harder than my walk past MacKay Hall. I didn’t have very many classes in MacKay, maybe one or two all four years I’d been at ISU. I walked by it almost everyday and occasionally I’d use it as a short cut to get from Palmer Hall to LeBaron Hall, but there was no great class I had there, instead it was so much more. Mackay was where we met every Wednesday the spring semester before our Rwanda Service Learning Group Trip last May. Mackay was my earliest memory of the start of my LOVE for Rwanda, MacKay was also the building in which Leah Keino, the teacher in charge of our Rwanda trip last summer, had her office. MacKay was where I met with her upon arriving home from Rwanda and starting up another school year to discuss plans to return, MacKay was where we met almost twice a month to make plans or discuss options to get back, MacKay was what symbolized Rwanda for me, at ISU. When I thought back to MacKay and all the memories that were there I immediately thought about all the days I would walk out with my head hung low thinking nobody wanted me to return back, nobody seemed to believe in the idea other than my parents and Leah, every time I felt I was getting somewhere, 500 more things needed to be done, another person needed to approve it and something else was required of me. I had to plan my entire Internship, I had to write proposals to people I’d never met, I had to fight for this opportunity harder than anything I’ve ever fought for, and look where it got me. Hard work really pays off. So after I finished up my last final in Lebaron Hall, I walked through Lebaron and into MacKay, my last memory of Iowa State will now be MacKay, walking out that door and down those stairs knowing my next move in my life after ISU was Rwanda. I’d finally did it, I graduated from college AND after all the doubt, disappointment and disbelief I’d finally found a way to get back to Rwanda… What could be better?
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