Airport Adventures

Disclaimer: We haven't had wifi for the past couple of days but I wrote this blog post on Monday so everything refers to it as if it were Monday.

We made to Blantyre yesterday! First we drove to LAX from SLO at 1:00pm and we made it to LAX by around 8:00pm. Our flight to DC was pretty good it was only delayed by about half an hour and once we go on the plane we mostly tried to sleep. Our next flight was the super long one, 13.5 hours to Addis Ababa. This flight wasn’t bad either, we slept and watched some movies. Sydney and I concluded that Despicable Me three definitely wasn’t as good as the first one and Brian said that Baby Driver has an ok plot.

By the time we go to Addis Ababa we were feeling pretty good because we had time to make our next flight, unlike last time, and we thought we didn’t have to go through security in Addis Ababa. But after about an hour waiting to board the plane in the airport us and the people around us, including some cool British EWB alumni, figured that something was off. We asked around and eventually found out that there was a security breach, two people got in without going through security. They couldn’t find the two people so the airport decided to send EVERYONE back through security, including us L. 

So thousands of people were waiting to go through security and there were only two security stations open. 

Everyone was pushing past one another and mobs of people were cutting off those who thought they were in the ‘line’. 

After attempting to push through for a few hours, we gave up with our line and moved to another one. This line was a million times better because no one was cutting and we finally got through. Ultimately, our flight ended up being delayed by about three hours; but we made it to Blantyre!

Today we met with the driller, Kamgaire, and our mentor, Steve. After we met with them, Thompson, our super amazing driver from our last trip, and our fashionable translator Philip, picked us up to go to the community. In the community we met with the committee members which was really great. They said that they are doing well and are excited to start the borehole project! We walked to the sites that we wanted to drill at today but, there may be an issue with the new borehole location. We will update you guys on that as we find out more tomorrow!

Torrey