By: Anastasia Gruper
With innocence we arrived at O’Hare airport at four am, a large bag and teaching supply bin to check and a carry-on bag in tow. At six am we embarked on our journey to Zambia, Africa as our first leg of plane rides began. Our trip to Washington DC was pleasant and we arrived in good spirits. We had one hour to roam the Dulles airport before boarding for our second leg to Ethiopia, a 12 hour trek. We each said a little prayer in DC for our bags to transfer with us and we were delighted to see our teacher bins, wrapped in differing colors of duct tape, rolling towards our plane as we boarded in Ethiopia for what we thought was our last leg of the trip, a three hour flight to Zambia. After traveling for thirty hours exhaustion was eating our insides, we were disappointed when the pilot announced we were landing in Zimbabwe; this was not on our itinerary. As we waited for an hour for some passengers to exit the plane and others to join the ride, we walked the aisles to gain sanity. When the plane took off again, we were anxious to reach Zambia. Waiting in line for customs to check our passports was grueling. However, as we crossed the turnstile we were relieved and sighed in relief when we saw our teaching bins had made it on every flight we did. We had arrived with supplies and excitement to begin our Zambian adventure.