Finally home

I'm finally home so I thought Id write a last entry since I'm not sure I'll be able to go back to Duekoue. I left Duekoue last Tuesday and got home an entire week later after having gone to Benin, then Spain, then Paris, then Chicago. When I got to Abidjan things seemed pretty calm, but then the sisters started saying I should try to leave earlier so I got a little nervous.

Then there was the standoff in front of the Golf Hotel where Outtara's government is staying, then the US embassy got hit by an RPG, and on Saturday the US government sent an email saying to leave while there are commercial flights available.

So Saturday was a pretty panicked day. The sisters took me to the airport to try to figure something out because my Air France flight had been changed to Sunday morning, but the travel agent in the US said that it was cancelled. We found a flight to Cotonou, Benin with Air Ivoire and then went back to the house to wait until the flight that evening. Back at the house however we learned that someone with Gbagbo's government would be holding a youth rally so they took me back to the airport so that they wouldnt have to be driving during the rally. I got to the airport for the second time at around 1pm to wait until my flight at 7ish. Luckily I met up with this lady who works with the sisters and an American with his Congolese wife. We all hung out all afternoon at a restaurant and it turned out to be a really good time.

My flight was delayed a few hours and we didnt end up leaving until around 1030, but by that time I had found an American girl who had been living in Abidjan and working for CDC. So we hung out and I was happy to be with someone since I would be arriving in Benin without a visa. We finally got to Benin at around 1230 and as we were filling out immigration cards this police man came up to us and said 'are you american? are you anne?' So the sisters in Cotonou had been alerted and the police man was there to help me figure out the visa situation. Unfortunately by 'figure out the visa situation' I mean 'charge us both 80 dollars for a 15 dollar visa'. Then he said that he would be keeping the passports overnight at the airport. That really freaked me out but the sister who picked me up seemed to be ok with it.

So I made plans with the other American to meet up the following day and the sister took me to their house. The next day we had almost the whole day since the flight wasnt until night. Lucky for me they were having a party for the teachers at their school so we spent the day eating and dancing. It was a great day to be in Cotonou.

That night we went back to the airport and tried to get the passports back. The policemen who were there that night found out that the guy from the night before had charged us 80 dollars and were not happy. The girl I was with wasnt supposed to be charged at all since shes employed by the government and he had way overcharged me. They were nice enough to give us the money back after giving us a long and sass-filled talk about how 'normally when people come here without a visa we send them back to where they came from'. I didn't ask if 'imminent civil war' was worthy of an exception.

So then I spent a solid amount of time at the airport in Benin since the flight left 5 hours late. At 330am we finally took off for Paris. Then we had to land in Barcelona because of the snow in Paris and stayed on the runway there for a few hours. Later we took off again and this time were able to land in Paris...at this point we were arriving about 8 hours late. Charles de Gaulle was a mad house, I couldn't find a United representative and whats worse is that I couldn't stop crying. I was seriously pathetic trying to describe my problem to a US air guy who said there was nothing he could do to help me. I had slept through the meal on the plane so I was hungry, tired, thirsty and just wanted to be home.

I was fumbling around with a pay phone when I saw a group of people who looked American so I asked them if they were American and after that everything got worked out. One of them had a phone that I was able to use, they offered me a beer and I then spent the next 12 hours hanging out with them in Charles de Gaulle and having a great time. In the meantime my brother and law worked his status magic and got me booked out the following day on a flight to Chicago...with all my new friends! The people at the airport gave us mats and blankets to sleep on and the next day we finally left Paris.

At this point it was Tuesday and I had left Abidjan on Saturday. I of course missed my connecting flight to North Carolina so had to spend some quality time in lines in Ohare figuring out a new flight. Finally on Tuesday night I was able to leave Chicago for Charlotte. So now I'm home. My luggage is still on its way, but I really couldn't care less. Im just happy to be home, away from Liberian mercenaries, and not stuck in an airport.

Hope you all have a merry Christmas! If there is some sort of miracle and things calm down, Ill keep blogging from Cote d'Ivoire. Or maybe I'll end up somewhere else. Or maybe I'll just stay home...at least until I'm in the mood again for some airport excitement.