precarious arrival

flying over thirty six hours has a way of working your body over.
everything was a normal (except for the time changes) from los angeles to houston and houston to london. but the flight from london to liberia was eventful. the plane was four hours late when we finally boarded. then we sat without moving for about fourty-five minutes. the plane was old. maybe a ninties version of some british or american plane. a hand me down.
i sat next to a man from sierra leone. it was interesting talking with him about his life and his experiences with the war there. he (desmond) is studying computers in london. his wife lives in minnesota.
in front of me was a young british nurse who was volunteering with mercy ships. there were actually quite a few anglos on the plane who were doing work with mercy ships. there was a new ship that is docked in monrovia which is just starting to do work here. and another ship that is being decommissioned and shipped to india.
all became agitated on the plane when the captain announced that we were going to go to monrovia, liberia before freetown, sierra leone. as most people on the plane were on route to sierra leone, the news did not go over well. they had paid for a direct flight and the plane was already really late. on top of this the airport in freetown is not in freetown. it is across a body of water. there is no bridge. a helicopter last week crashed so there was no helicopter. the hovercraft was not working. so the only available way across was by ferry. most felt as though the ferry would not wait for them and they would have to get a hotel by the airport.
many of the men got up from their seats and gathered by the lavetory and angerly discussed the situation. as people were getting more and more agitated, fortunately, by plan (if this is possible) or by grace, we began to hit turbulance and the seatbelt sign came on. everyone was asked to take their seats. the flight attendents (who were particularly young) went around and checked to be sure everyone had their seatbelts on.
this calmed the situation some. and to pacify the people they passed out free sandwiches and candy bars. later they passed out free drinks.
upon approach, i noticed that monrovia had few lights. like los angeles or other cities are a sea of lights, monrovia was just a few dozen here and there. that is for a city of about a million.
we were in for a surprise as our first attempt at landing did not work. at the last minute the pilot pulled up and we had to take another run at it. the second try was successful but i think everyone recieved a minor dose of whiplash.
welcome to liberia.