so sorry for the late update, I made it safely back to seattle and have been so jet lagged I could barely function. so do I have stories for you!!!!
Saying goodbye was so hard. They prayed over us and sang us some farewell songs. we were all crying when one of the young boys sang a song with the main lyric was "I love you." we gave hugs and kisses and took many many pictures and parted ways, but I think we all will be back.
We LOVED the safari!!! we saw SO many animals but I think the our favorite was seeing a pack of 12 lions cross directly infront of our van. And the scariest moment was when we got charged by an angry elephant. Tara has a video of it, its pretty neat. We saw elephants, hippos, monkeys, zebras, warthogs, wildabeast etc.... so so so so many animal. Our huts were so cool, we could hear aniamls all night. We didnt get to see mount kilaminjaro because it was cloud covered but we had an AMAZING sunset the first night.
our last night in Nairobi was relaxing. We had a sweet bed and breakfast and the resturant overlooked the whole city. we got some good sleep and got ready to leave. Little did I know this was going to be the longest 30 hours of my life. We get to the airport and try to check in for our flight and they asked for our nigerian "transit visa." Well I had no idea what they were talking about, but apparently Delta was suppose to let us know that we needed a visa for our 2 hour plane change in Nigeria. (there were 10 other people not in our group that was in the same boat as us) So we had to get our tickets rerouted. They said it would take 30 minutes, but 3 hours later and still no word if we were leaving kenya that day. I was already getting prepared to tell the parents that we were stuck. at least, they got us our ticket, only problem was they were split into two groups, one was a group of 6 and the other was a group of 2. Well I ofcourse planned that I would go with the group of 6 and then morgan would go with the other one since she has the most travel experience. THEN they informed us that they already placed the names on the tickets and there was no way to change them unless we wanted to stay the night in kenya, so ME and MORGAN were the group of two and were leaving the other girls to get home on there own. They had like a 6 hour wait while morgan and I had to run to the plane. The other girls had only 4 flights, from Kenya to amesterdam to detroit to denver. I felt better because it was the exact flight route to kenya so they knew all the airports. Morgan and I got to our flight and started the longest process of my life. We landed in Sudan to drop some people off, then we had a plane changed in Cairo. They flight there was the worst scariest flight of my life which was so bad it made grown men of the Algeria Soccer team scream like children. There was even lightning! we landed in cairo and pretty much got detained because we didnt have boarding passes for our next flight, it got pretty scary and because of the language barrier we didnt think we were getting a flight home. an hour later we were walking to out flight. close call!! then we realised that we got BUMPED TO FIRST CLASS!!! AHHHH it was amazing!!!! we basically had beds and had salmon and french toast. it was the best 11 hour flight I have ever had. then we landed in newyork, got our first star bucks, then hopped on an hour flight to detroit. When we landed we realised that we were probably going to be there when the other girls had there plane changed so we waited by there gate. After a little wait THEY MADE IT!! it made me feel good that they made it home all by themselves. my little girls are all grown up! haha. morgan and I tried to get onto the girls flight but because delta hates us we had to wait 5 hours for our flight. When we tried to land in denver there was a storm and we were rerouted to colorado springs for 2 hours. it was horrible, morgan and I were exhausted and I was hallusinating that i was seeing the ocean. I had no idea were I was. We adventually got to denver and my flight to seattle was delayed so I made the plane but had to leave all my luggage in colorado. Then after a long wait on the plane we finially took off for my 7th flight in 40 hours. I got in at 1am. HOME SWEET HOME!!! I miss the girls so much and it was seriously a life changing trip. THank you for all of your support, prayers and encouragement. Keep in touch and please think of ways how we all can help tumaini!
Emily
