October 18, 2013

The day after Orientation we had to wake up early at 8 o'clock and check out of our hotel to catch the bus at 8:30 which was going to drive us all the way to the New York JFK airport.  As we drove out of Philadelphia and into New Jersey we were hit with bad traffic due to an accident on the highway.  I guess the accident was so bad that they blocked off the highway which put us at a complete stop for over 2 hours.  There were many ambulance, fire trucks, police cars and helicopters flying around that made us get restless and we began to worry if we would make it to our flight on time.  Our flight was to leave at 5:15 so luckily we made it in time to the airport with about one hour to spare.    

Our first flight was about 7 hours long which took us to Brussels where we would catch our connecting 6 hour long flight Banjul, The Gambia.  For the first flight I did not get any sleep at all, I have no reason why, It sucked, I just couldn't fall asleep.  In between flights we had a 4 hour layover and I thought I would possibly get some sleep then but still no luck.  I guess I was just excited for the journey that was ahead of us.  On the flight to Banjul I finally got some sleep, Yayyyy.  It felt good.  

 As I got off the plane in Banjul I could feel a big difference in the air because of the humidity.  My skin began to feel real sticky, it'll get some getting used to.  We all had to go through customs and show our passport, Proof of Yellow Fever Vaccination and explain the reason why we were there.  We then all grabbed our luggage then all 24 of us hopped in the Peace Corp van and drove to the Peace Corps Transit house.