The Airplane Travel - March 1st - March 2nd

OK so if you don’t have time to read all of this I get it.. but you have to scroll down to the “BEST PART OF MY STORY” at the very least J

Oh wow, where to begin.. okay how about how I’m writing these on Microsoft word and WHEN/IF internet is available.  We “have” internet from 9 to 7 Monday to Saturday, weather permitting, electricity permitting.. who knows what else affects it. So I’ll try! Also my computer most likely will not connect to the internet so we’ll have to log into their computers and do email and blogging.. so probably no skype..  who knows??  

Okay. So the real beginning.

Seattle to Detroit plane ride.. nothing too interesting but the flight attendants really liked me when I couldn’t decide on a snack between peanuts pretzels and cookies. The cookies were cinnamon biscoff cookies, and I have had them before so I got those after they already laughed at my decision making skills. So she gave my dad all three choices. Then the next attendant handed me three lime slices and told me to squeeze it on the top of the cookie and let it soak in because it tastes like Key Lime Pie. And it did!

One hour and 19 dollars for a sandwich and a salad to split later…  we get on the next flight.

Detroit to Paris –Charles Degual . 8 hour plane ride. We slept some.. they fed us dinner so our 19 dollar food was pointless, also fed us breakfast.. so you know I ate more than enough.. and it wasn’t bad other than plain yogurt which was nasty. Also I had wine with dinner.

In Paris obviously I posted.. and we brushed our teeth and washed up. It was about a 2 hour layover and we ate the sandwich we bought.

Paris to Douala. Getting on the plane was already a new culture, scrambling and getting in line rather than letting people ahead go. Then we got on a bus to go out to the plane but we sat in the bus for 30 minutes.. hot and sweaty. Then we got on the plane and our bus was the only one to get on. We waited for an hour and nobody else got on the plane! Probably only 50 of us were on the plane. So we were already delayed by an hour before the rest got on.

We talked to the man next to us for quite a while. He is a few years older than me I believe but he was a statistician and does financing for some bank in Paris. He has lived in Paris for 4 years and this is his first time back home in Douala since! He was very up-to-date on all sorts of US politics and news and asked us so many questions. My dad couldn’t stay awake so I had many conversations with him about various things from Africa to US to Paris to news and why statistics. It was kind of ironic cause he has a masters in statistics and does financial math and I told him I was going for a masters in statistics next year. He asked what focus and so I said biology. Then was talking about the usage of statistics for the distribution of the HIV medication and with the new malaria vaccination that is in the 4^th stage of pharmaceutical drug process stuff.

Anyways… the culture of the airplane was very different than any other plane ride. People were up talking and walking around and standing in the area where we could help ourselves to drinks. Two times I ended up with some man making fun of me and my inability to speak any language (French as they all spoke) and my white-ness. One man stopped me in the isle and said I cannot pass, another joked with me when trying to get our Malaron (spelling? Malaria pill) out of my bag. It was a comical ride and so much different culture. When we landed everybody clapped, then it was standing up and unbuckling and getting bags out.. barely after we had slowed enough to even be able to stand. We were told to sit back down and then people finally did sit but as soon as we had stopped it was everyone up and a rush toward the door. I mean no turns were taken what-so-ever to get off that plane!

HERE IS THE BEST PART OF MY STORY!!

Upon arrival in Cameroon (Douala airport) we were told of the crazy-ness of the airport. I mean they spot on defined it.

However!!!!!!!!!!!!! My aunt Marcia and uncle Dave over in Seattle had come to Douala a year ago for their exchange student’s wedding and was able to meet the family and see the city as well as make connections with Alexia (the exchange student)’s mother, Marcelline. SSOOOO Marcia asked Marcelline if she would be a contact for us just in case we need someone else who can take care of getting us help. She said she would meet us at the airport… so we were expecting maybe where we were meeting Sister Rose and the driver and that this would be perfect.

As we walked/hurried down the jet way I was only starting to think I needed to watch my bag.. literally one step off the jet way there was a sign” DR RICHARD HOURIGAN AND REILLY” I pointed excitedly wondering who they were because they were not Sister Rose (not wearing a habit and not the picture we saw). We were taken out of the line of people going to baggage claim. These two women were wearing green dresses (airport looking staff). They spoke not a word to us, took us down some back stairs onto the tar mat (sketchy dark 9:30 at night HOTTER THAN HELL), and pointed to a lone Lexus car to get in. So here we are hearts pounding that this really was okay.. and we are driven over to a VIP room where we met Marcelline! It was very iffy and nerve wracking. She spoke little English but good enough for me! She couldn’t understand as much as she could speak. She got a translator so we were able to talk for a bit. She works for the Mayor of Douala, and thus is a VIP obviously. We chatted and we gave her a gift from Marcia. She was very thankful and we took a picture with her, hopefully I can post it later.

Wow so we told her we needed to meet Sister Rose and get our baggage. So she took us up to the main area of the airport along with body guards and a line of them (like 5) across the main airport (granted this is like tile floor, small and very much not your typical airport) for us to walk through and out the other side. She kept speaking to each person we were stopped by to get to the baggage claim “VIP, (something in French), VIP” and we were able to walk right through with her holding my hand and telling us to stay in front of her and close the whole way. Inside of baggage claim she kept me and my MASSIVE bag in front of her and then she and I went over to another place where baggage was coming out (dumping, there were only 2 carousels and like a dumper.. it came up and dumped bags out basically). 

So we waited.. and waited… and waited.. sweating and trying to fan myself she gave me a fan and a tissue to use. My dad and I signaled across the room how many bags we had received. Two came to me and one to him. On the way out they chalked our bags.. who knows if they were actually supposed to check them or what.. but then many many people approached us trying to take our bags for us. Rose walked up and greeted us and both Rose and Marcelline were saying “no no no no no” and shaking their fingers at the men. We were taken behind a  like line thing and our driver  (Aman?? Spelling) helped us with our bags while Rose and Marcelline exchanged phone numbers. Definitely was comforting having someone who knew the culture and knew French to help us, and then to know that we had Rose who spoke English when we met her. WOW! So we climbed in the car with Rose and Aman and rode to the hospital/convent that we were staying in in Douala for the night.

END OF THE BEST PART (if you were only reading that part however the rest is fascinating too I promise.. well I hope at least)

Phew! So I have SO many things to tell and so few words/few amounts of internet!

Arriving at the hospital we parked, left our bags in the car and took just our back packs (which had the important stuff). We were fed rice with who knows what kind of meat, but it was delicious even though I was not even close to being hungry. Also delicious papaya! My dad and I shared a little room with two beds and a bathroom. I have some pictures I’ll try to post.. if not I’ll try to facebook post.. if not.. well. We’ll see.

So we tried to sleep.. I mean we didn’t get to bed til midnight.. and it was just SOO MUCH culture and tired/not tired feelings and anxious and nervous. We were up most of the night. I looked at the clock at 1:40 and then woke up at 4 am and that’s it if there was sleep.  At some point in the middle of the night I realized we had left my little purse like bag with all of our cookies and snacks from Marcia and our salad we hadn’t eaten on the last plane!! Too much commotion and rush. Oh well at least it didn’t have much in it that was important.. it would have been handy to carry around like a snack and water bottle though. Shoot. My dad even wrote his blog post from 4:15 to 5 cause he was not tired. I didn’t fall asleep and continued to stay awake until 6 when I got up and showered. We actually had a hot shower , so that was nice. We ate breakfast at 6:30 with the bus driver and met a priest who was there. We had pineapple, coffee (with powdered milk/cream not sure what it was and sugar cubes), and bread lots of fresh baked French bread with margarine that we did not actually eat because it expired a few months back.. so we weren’t sure on our first day in Africa. (wow still feels weird.. I’m in Africa)

 So about 7:30 we left the hospital and oh was the ride to Njinikom an interesting one.