I'm on my way home

Just in case you were looking for the bearded man I shaved and got a hair cut. I don't wear glasses, I only tried them on for the look. I kinda like it.

My last day in Ghana was pretty hectic. So much so I did a lot with out thinking about it. I had errand after errand to run. I made a few purchases, saw the students one last time, and commenced the all night packing party. I woke up two hours later at 4am, and by 5am Hayford and I were out the door. I had said most of my goodbyes the night before so there was little to say on the ride to the airport. Plus it was 5am! My flight was scheduled to leave at 9am and after being searched and padded down at least four times I made it to the terminal. The excessive frisking was just part of their process for international flights but I would love to blame it on the fact that I had a bow and arrow in my luggage lol! My younger brother asked me to bring him one back and I finally found one the day before I left. The security people were quite baffled. They asked if my brother was a hunter. No, he is not; he doesn’t even know how to use it. You guys can thank me later when the new stereotype is don’t come to America they spill redrum with bow n arrows. (redrum is murder backwards for those not ebonically inclined)

Back to the story, I was sitting in the terminal and a local movie about the “Lost boys of Sudan” was on. Way more graphic than anything we would show, but the portion I saw was incredibly moving. They talked about the non-response of the world to the genocide and how France even sided with the government! I literally learned something amazing everyday while in Ghana. The overwhelming theme of that day in the airport and so many other days was this: You can not change the world if you have never lived in it. We are not blinded but we as Americans are shielded and strategically baby fed what is going on in the world around us. I won’t go further than that because I am still working on that premises as part of my final thesis :). What I will say is what we don’t know IS hurting us. I wish I could emphasis that more.

Moving on, along with the other passengers, I boarded the plane okay and was buckled in awaiting take off. 30 minutes go by. They turn the power off to fuel. Another 45 minutes falls off the clock. A total of 2 hrs and 45 minutes go by with us sitting in this hot vessel. It was so hot I felt like I was in Africa some where…oops, lol. Tell me why it took Delta almost 3hrs to get their flight plans together? Flight plans that should have already been prepared! As crazy as this next sentence sounds its true. The pilots knew we were flying to New York, but they did not know how to get there! WTH?! Of course it’s a bit more technical than that, but basically they were not sure which countries they were allowed to fly over…Come on guys, you fly here twice a week.

When we finally took off and got to the cruise altitude I felt that sigh of relief come over me...similar to that feeling after your last final exam of the semester. I had been up most of the night so I tilted my coach seat back and closed my eyes for a long nap. Pretty soon tears were streaming down my face. I am not telling you this to show my emotional side, its just what happened. I really don’t even know why my eyes were taking a leak. All I could think about was my Dad though. He is my measuring stick for success and adding him into this brew of feelings I guess was an overload. Everything that had happened, everything that I had laid witness to, everyone I had interacted with, every thing I had learned was right there whenever I closed my eyes. SO I GOT NO SLEEP!

What I did get was a belly full of food. I must have eaten four meals while on that plane. Turkey sandwich how I missed thee. I had the chicken dinner and then I had the beef dinner and then I had another turkey sandwich. I even ate the pretzels and crappy peanuts. Oh those peanuts were so pea-nutty lol. The flight landed in New York safely and they put me in a Hotel since they were at fault for my connecting flight. I thought I would go out that night, but I was exhausted. I went to sleep after watching a little TV and using the other modern conveniences that meant so much more now . (Check the video two posts down)

The next day I got up at 5am and prepared for another day of travel. I would get to Saint Louis by 3pm and I would finally walk in my Condo door by 4 that afternoon. And to my surprise…it was nice! I don’t mean cleaned up nice, I mean "can I really afford to live this well?" nice. It did not feel like my place. I thought I had the keys to some money tycoon’s player pad. In fact, a lot of things felt like that once I got to Saint Louis. Airport people look the same everywhere you go, it was not until I finally left the airport on the Metrolink train did things start to appear different. LOL, you know when Neo first woke up outside the matrix, saw everything for what it really was, and then went back into the Matrix??? That was my experience, with Africa being real and America the matrix. I took the red pill! I would see cars and then I would see CARS. I would see people and then I would see PEOPLE. The grass was even greener. The real world I had just left and now I was riding through this fictitious, matrix-like world. Go see the movie; I can’t explain it any better than that lol!

That seems like at really whack place to cut this story short but “cut!” Just a few of my thoughts coming home, don’t worry I have more. Since my return, I have been really busy on the job search. I am so hungry right now I can taste it! A friend made the comment that my blog title implied that I would talk about the world as I see it after my trip… maybe I will. After all, my life is in somewhat of an underdog stage and everyone loves an underdog.