Nigerian Sleepover

Friday, June 19th 2009 & Saturday, June 20th 2009

Around 10:30 am we boarded our plane from Germany bound for Lagos, Nigeria our final stop before Accra. I slept for the first part of the flight and then woke up just as they were bringing around our lunch, which consisted of chicken and noodles (I ate the noodles and left the chicken), salad, and something that resembled cheesecake. Awhile later they brought around something that resembled a vegetarian pizza pocket before we landed in Lagos, Nigeria around 3:30 pm Ghana time (Lagos is an hour ahead). When we landed about half of the people on the plane got off as it was only suppose to be a short stop before we took off for Accra. We ended up waiting awhile before the pilot eventually came on the intercom telling us that there were mechanical problems and that we would have to get off the plane. It was starting to get late at this point and unable to put us on different planes to Accra they told us they would be putting us up in a hotel for the night. There was a slight catch to this plan as we soon found out. Because we didn’t have Nigerian Visas the only way that they would let us leave the airport was if we handed over our passports. Meanwhile we were reading the tour guide someone in the group had for Nigeria that basically told us how dangerous of a city Lagos was at night, which made us rather uncomfortable with the thought of handing over our passports. Since they wouldn’t even tell us where the hotel was they were sending us we ended up demanding that we keep our passports even if it meant staying and sleeping at the airport. At first the airport security people objected to this however after a bunch of negotiating by our group leaders they decided to let us stay at the airport and led us to a much nicer area than where we had came in to spend the night, sleeping in airport chairs. For the next 24-hours I slept off and on however never got more than 2-hours of consecutive sleep at a time. The airline (Lufthansa) fed us two meals at the airport cafeteria. I had spaghetti for breakfast/lunch and then some rather spicy rice mid-afternoon before we boarded the plane for Accra. Around 3:30 pm we headed toward our gate only to find everyone who had spent the night at the hotel already there. They checked us and our baggage before we boarded the plane at around 5:00 pm. During the day in the airport I was able to send my sister an email from Alex’s iPhone after she discovered she had wi-fi at the airport. The Flight to Accra took about an hour and we arrived in Accra at about 5:20 pm (Ghana time). After going through customs and collecting our baggage we met a former Crossroader, Albie, who was our counterpart in Accra and had a bus waiting to take us to our host for the night – the dorms (Volta Hall) at the University of Ghana. After washing up and dropping our bags in our dorm rooms we headed to a brief orientation session where they gave us beads and Ghana names that are based on the day of the week which you were born. My Ghana name is Akou as I was born on a Wednesday. (They had a book to tell us which day of the week we were born on if we didn’t already know). Albie and his wife Rose who is also a former Crossroader then served us a wonderful dinner of Yams, Palaver Sauce, Fish, Chicken and rice. After dinner Rose let us use her cell phone to call our parents and tell them we were safe before we headed back to our dorm rooms to get ready for bed. I took what may be my last real shower of the summer in the dorm and then talked with Yvonna (my roommate in the dorm) for a while before heading to bed at around 2:00 am. The jetlag has my body a bit off after our extended stay over in the Nigerian airport.