Day 1

Saturday January 6, 2018-

I departed for Senegal on January 6, 2018. Myself, 15 classmates, and my advisor, Dr. Buba Misawa all met at the Pittsburgh International Airport in order to catch our first flight- Pittsburgh to JFK in New York. It took us a while to gather and organize the luggage. Each student was allowed to fill two suitcases. However, Buba requested that if you do not use your other suitcase, that it could be used to carry school supplies and clothing down to Africa to give to the local children. This process was complicated and put us behind schedule. We were supposed to be boarding our flight at 9:41 and we just got into the TSA lines at 9:42. Apparently, Buba called Delta and had them delay the flight for us. I am not sure if this is true. A few girls set off the alarms with granola bars at TSA checks, but besides that, everything ran smoothly.

              The Pittsburgh to JFK flight was only a little over an hour and was pretty painless. The plane was extremely small, as my head dragged along the ceiling as I walked down the aisle. In no time, we landed in New York, which would begin our 7-hour layover. Yayyy… I have never seen such a huge and crowded airport in my life. Apparently, we were only in the Delta terminal. We could not even find a space to sit so when a random flight was boarding, we took their open seats. I ate lunch at Buffalo Wild Things and got my last chicken tender meal in before I would leave America for three weeks. Surprisingly, the wifi was awful and I had to use my phone data to entertain myself for the next five hours.

              It was now time to board our flight from New York to Dakar. Boarding went well and it was time to take off but we just sat, and sat, and sat. Two hours go by and the plane still had not moved. They explained that they were waiting for missing passengers, the bags were not loaded on the plane yet, and the bathrooms still needed to be cleaned. I hate sitting in those tight seats more than anything in the world. I was going crazy. We finally took off. This flight was the bumpiest flight I had ever been on. I slept on and off thanks to melatonin that a friend gave me. Otherwise, I would not have slept at all. I skipped the main course of plane food dinner and just ate crackers and a roll. I could not wait to get off the plane.