It was Friday, we arrived at the airport excited, all four of us. My husband drove us, Rod, and Timothy, the two others who were part of our group, leaving for Togo West Africa. Peter, our guide and leader extraordinaire was to meet us at the airport in San Francisco. It had already been decided we should arrive around noon, to ensure we made it through the new and improved TSA screening process, and catch our plane. We were the first to arrive, eventually followed by Peter, our Compassion leader for the trip. Then the others started to arrive. We were all assembled, and now in line to check in, however, no Air France employee was there to meet the already long line of passengers waiting for service.. Our 15 bags to check in were piled in a spot taking up quite a bit of square footage of the terminal floor. And so we waited. Hurry up and wait best describes the first 3 days of our trip! Then the light on the flight board started to flash, Delayed….Delayed is all it said, and we knew we most likely would not arrive in Lome, Togo for quite a bit longer.
Four countries, three days and two nights later is when we actually arrived at the Lome airport. Was I tired? Yes, did I have a clue as to the day of the week when we arrived? No, not really. In the midst of those three very long days, I was already quickly becoming the group’s French / English translator. It did not matter I think my French level was that of a 4th grader, and I gave myself a lot of extra pats on the back to even say that. But let’s go backward a day or two, and learn together about adversity, flexibility and the making of a team. Why? We became a team during those first three days of travel together.
I need to tell you about Peter first. He was our guide/leader provided by Compassion International to lead our team. I wonder what he thought of us upon seeing our group. Once getting through security and ending up at the gate to wait, everyone pulled out i-phone, macs, laptops etc…to get connected one last time while here in the USA. We did not talk much one to another, but dealt with our own insular worlds, reading magazines and even a book or two. An hour into waiting at the gate, Peter stands up and says, “ok, I am ready to talk with you and let you know a bit about the trip.” We gather about him, sitting on the two rows of chairs at the gate, and we wait. “I was a compassion boy,” he states, and then begins to share a little of his own background with poverty and coming out of it because of Compassion International. Peter was from Uganda, Africa, so he was familiar with the people we were about to visit, their customs, and perceptions of the spoken word.
“Flexibility, our middle name was to become flexibility,” Peter stated. “Yes there is an itinerary, but, if we are engaged with a group or a family we will stay and listen and give them the time. The trip is not about the itinerary, it is about the children, the families we will meet. Listen,” he says, “Listen,” Peter said again. “Ask questions; discover the issues or complexities of their needs at hand. Do NOT, I repeat DONOT offer solutions. Not even the brainstorming we American’s like to do! In fact do not discuss the possibility of a solution in earshot of those we are visiting.” Why, you might ask? Because we all had that same question on our lips. Peter’s answer came as a little story about coffee. “When I came to America, and my friends would say, let’s get together for coffee sometime, I really thought they meant it. I was so hurt when we did not go for coffee; I took them at their word.” All of this to say, if we mentioned the possibility of solving the problem, or ideas how to expand the work, it was now an instant promise of help…It was the ‘done deal’. Here in Africa, what you say is what you do, or what you mean.
There is a hierarchy in Africa, the man is tops, followed by the woman and then last of all, the children. For Peter, this meant “I was never able to speak to my father eye to eye, until I was 24 years old.” Later during the trip, we would learn more of Peter and his life growing up, how he was sponsored by the director of Compassion in Uganda, How he learned the value of his life, and other children, his education which is vast, and the door of opportunity opened to him, because one person, one family cared for him through Compassion.
Peter continues in his discussion, “The men and women will watch how we interact with the children. The fun we have with them, the love we have for them, the care we exercise towards them. Something happens in their observation and suddenly they too want to participate with their own children in the same fashion.” It is Peter’s final comment from that first discussion in the airport which ruminates with me throughout the initial days of travel, “Prepare to be loved,” he says, “prepare to be loved.” “You will have 6 or 10 kids hanging off of your arms and hands as you walk through the centers. You will be the mother or father to your own sponsored child, not because their mother or father are not there or do not care, but because the concept of family is so broad and engaging in Africa.”
Flexibility training, I now believe with all my heart, missing a plane, traveling all night, not once but twice, encountering food allergies, and colds, among a group of 10, was the perfect preparation for our trip. And so, the story of our fist three days continues…
Peter, Rod and Timothy, wait for the bus in the sleet, while we wait inside the airport at Paris.
We arrived in Paris on Saturday morning, and we literally ran to the next gate, all 10 of us, thinking, or wildly hoping they held the plane for us. But that was not the case. We soon learned traveling to Lome, Togo was literally not an every day occurrence, and the earliest we could leave would be Sunday afternoon. During this run to the new gate, Rod dropped his passport. And yes, for about 30 minutes, we wondered if he would be leaving much later, assuming a visit to the US embassy was needed. So imagine for the moment, Rod is being walked around everywhere we had passed, since the most recent security station, with the police officer at his side. Another group, containing John and a few others, went off on their own to look for Rod’s passport. They could go anywhere because they had their passports and tickets. And yes we had already gone through all 10 plus carry-on’s, just in case his passport got slipped into one of our bags. In the midst of this, Peter was discussing with Air France, about what to do with the Americans.
In the end we were sent to the IBIS hotel, about 10 minutes from the airport, with a ticket ensuring we all would eat dinner and breakfast over the next 12 hours. In the midst of this we also had an opportunity to sleep. I am guessing I slept a total of 4 hours before arising at 4 AM Sunday morning. My roommate was also awake, so we just chatted. There was the hope of trying to get to Paris and see the Eifel tower, but it was freezing, and I only had a light summer jacket. Useless for this weather, in fact, I lasted about 5 minutes when trying to walk outside the hotel to get a look around France. We ate a wonderful buffet, and the sounds of French being spoken everywhere was wonderful to me. I felt at home, not that I grew up in France or Quebec, but because my parents did, and they spoke French to us when we were young. So yes, hearing the language, weather I understood it all or not, always touched my heart.
The plane took off and landed in Morocco. I loved the airport in Morocco, it has a sign welcoming us to Casablanca, and of course I am only thinking about the movie and the line, “play it again Sam.” By now I am almost done with a book Victoria gave to me to read, oh my goodness, I was crying like a baby starting with chapter one. Why? Because it was a book describing the life of a man in the US who had it all, realizes it is nothing, and he reaches out to a man who has nothing, and then realizes he has everything. I think the title was “A lot like Me,” and now my heart was being prepared for the trip. Three hours in the airport at Casablanca was enough time to find some Moroccan sandwiches’ and a final discussion with Peter to hear his story. The next flight was to Agra, Ghana, here we did not need to leave the plane, and then our arrival in Lome, Togo.
We made it easily through customs, but Peter was being harassed for a bribe of some sort, which he totally refused to partake in. We started gathering and counting the bags, 1, 2, 3 all they way up to 14, were assembled. Oh, oh, one was missing, the big black one, with precious presents for our children. Hmm, I digress, but I need to let you know, this trip was organized through our church; collectively we sponsor 49 children in Togo, whom we were going to visit, bearing gifts of course. Well, some of the gifts were in that big black bag. So I went off with Timothy to the baggage service area, to explain the situation. It took a while, in fact most of the team had passed through the customs, which was not much to discuss. We had the paperwork in hand; a telephone number to call, and now joined the group on to the bus. You must realize it was now six or seven in the morning of Monday!
Flexible, didn’t I tell you our middle name was to become flexible. It was decided, once at the hotel, we could sleep or rest or do whatever for the next two hours, and then it was time to eat lunch, and the start of our very busy first day. Let’s see, we have been traveling for about 72 hours or so, with a small break in between at the IBIS hotel. Now we have two hours, before the program starts…I am not sure what day of the week it is either, I just plan to go with the flow. In the midst of it all, we became a team, so yes, that was worth the extra time, I think.
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