All of the passengers climbed onto the airport bus that took us a whopping 200 feet to the main terminal, and I waited for my 2 oversized bags that weighed in at 90 and 61 lbs., respectively. I was a little bit antsy: hoping my bags had made it through, not knowing what to expect from customs officials at 4AM, wondering how on Earth I was going to get through 12 hours at the airport with 151 lbs. of luggage, but then I saw my first Nike bag on the carousel. When I grabbed it, though, my trusty "Tulane Volleyball" bag tag had been replaced by a "Cal Berkeley Basketball" bag tag, then I realized that this particular suitcase belonged to the 7" tall Senegalese girl standing across the room from me. Mine came around a few minutes later, and I craned my neck to talk to the basketball player for a few minutes before going through the easy customs process, a.k.a. walking through the sliding doors.
At the departure terminal, I set myself up next to a pile of African cloth with my feet propped up on my stack of bags. A few minutes later, the cloth started moving and a perturbed old woman peeked out of the patterns and left the steel bench for me. The mosquitos were out and it was cold on the metal bench, so I put on a long sleeve hoody and wrapped my new insecticide-treated bandana around my neck (thanks, Dad!). Then I got sleepy, so I shimmied my bag cart so it was parallel to the bench, put the hoody over my head, the bandana over my face, and laid down with my legs hugging my luggage. The sloshes of a few young boys mopping woke me up a few hours later, and after I arose from my own pile of cloth they laughed at me and said: "Tu dors bien!"/"You sleep well!"
Good morning Africa!
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