That's My Bag!!!

On the way back to the hotel following our first, very full day in Ghana, I overheard Daniel (our Ghanian tour leader) talking to Katy (my travel buddy, new friend and our team's co-leader) about our luggage situation. My first thought was, Surely he is not expecting me to go back to that airport. There is just no way I can handle that place tonight. Right as I was finishing that thought I noticed Katy reaching over the seat to get my attention. It was then she dropped the bomb - we would be going back to the airport. I have no idea what my face looked like, or what I actually said, but inside I was screaming.

That night, around 9pm when everyone else was heading to bed, Daniel came to the hotel to pick up Katy and me. All day Daniel had been so sweet and quiet. I already knew it would take a certain level of aggressive persuasion to get these bags, and frankly, I just didn't think sweet Daniel had it in him. My way of offering to help was to tell Daniel that if he wanted to teach me a few choice words in Twi I would have no issues using them if I needed to. For real, that was the first thing I ever said to him.

I don't know why I was even worried because the minute we got out of the car, that boy turned on a level of swagger I had never seen in real life. So of course my second question to Daniel was, Do you know what swagger is? He did not. But now he does. Africa, you're welcome.

All I knew, is he had that look in his eyes like we were not leaving that place without all four bags in hand and that was enough to put me completely at ease. What happened next was a confusing blur, mostly because all of it was very loud and not in English. All I know for sure is that after being sent round and round the building, we were motioned through some backdoors and ended up back at the same airport carousal from the night before.

As the three of us stood there watching the first few bags come onto the belt, Daniel quietly asked me the color of my bag. I said, It's orange. Like the same color orange as that one. OH MY GOSH! THAT'S MY BAG! THAT'S MY BAG! At that point I was literally yelling in the airport, THAT'S MY BAG! over and over. Because baggage claim was filled with people from the flight my bag had arrived on, I had tons of people starring at me, women shielding their children, all probably thinking I was a crazy white girl who didn't understand how how baggage claim works. Little did they know, I was witnessing a miracle. A few minutes later I spotted my second bag. There was more screaming.

Sadly, as the last bags circled us over and over, we gave up hope that Katy's bags had also arrived on the same flight and as she walked back toward me she noticed that sitting right next to me was a bag very similar to hers - in fact it was hers! It was right there next to me the whole stinking time! We immediately went through the whole baggage claim area searching for her second bag and found it just a few yards away. You see, in the U.S. we have this understanding - if you take a bag off the carousal and notice it is not yours, you put it back on the carousal. In Ghana, they do not have that same understanding. They just take bags off and leave them scattered around. This is one cultural difference Africa might want to consider adopting.

As we left the airport, there were not two happier girls found in all of Ghana. When we arrived back at the hotel, we made a b-line for JoAnn's (our tour leader) room so that we could share our joyous news. Like icing on the cake, she told me just how many people had been praying about our luggage - people on our team, Compassion staff in Colorado Springs, Compassion staff in Ghana, and that is on top of my friends and family. Compassion Ghana's country leader's assistant even called baggage claim every hour for the entire day to help locate our bags (no one ever picked up the phone - welcome to Africa). A Compassion staff member in Colorado called the airline on our behalf in an effort to help.

I was so overwhelmed by the level at which people cared for me - people that didn't even know me. And after JoAnn noticed my perplexed expression, she told me a few crazy stories about sponsors who had flipped out on trips when an airline lost their bags or something didn't go their way. Apparently she has seen extreme situations bring out some pretty crazy sides to people and she said a few times that she was very impressed with the way I handled myself. So I guess all is well that ends well.

Oh, and one of my bags was lost on the way back to the U.S. as well. The airline called me multiple times to update me on the status of my bag and within 24 hours they had it delivered to my front door. Life is just a tad different here in the U.S.