Before leaving, I called my various banks and credit card companies to give them my itinerary. When I called American Express, they told me not to worry, their computers were set up to handle the trip, no problem. At the end of the call, they also gave me the number for their 24/7 global assist hotline, should I need anything.

Stupidly, I misplaced the phone number, but at least I remembered the conversation. I pulled out my small business card, and called the international number on the back. The customer service rep connected me to global assist.

“I’m stuck in Sierra Leone,” I said. “I missed my flight out.”

I was in that weird place, somewhere between giddy and crestfallen.

The operator on the other end took all of my information, my itinerary number, and started looking up where exactly I was, and how I could get back to the States. I’ve never be envious of anyone with a cubicle job before, but I just imagined sitting at a desk somewhere in the middle of Iowa. I really wanted to be in Iowa.

Samuel asked me what I wanted to do, and reminded me that there was a man who worked at the hospital and he airport who lived close, if we wanted to stay the night there.

We drove to his house, which was less than a mile away. Somewhere in that mile, I lost most of my cell reception. Samuel’s phone worked fine, but he was almost out of minutes, and we wouldn’t be able to buy more until morning. We settled in, and I tried to sleep.

Eventually morning came. Around 8 or 9, we went to find one of the ubiquitous cell phone vendors on the main road in front of the airport. I bought 1000 units (something like $20 US), and finally got back on with American Express. They didn’t have much new information for me, but they did confirm there was a flight out in about 14 hours, with a few seats open. The bad news was that British Airways wouldn’t speak to anyone except me about the flight.

Eventually, we got on a conference call with the airline, and booked everything through to Chicago. I had to overnight in Chicago, because all the Syracuse flights were booked.

At that point, I would’ve been happy just to get to London.

I felt so much better with a plan, even if I wasn’t going to be home for another two days.

Now it was simply a matter of waiting. We headed back to the house for a little while, listened to the radio, and had some breakfast.

In the time it took us to get back to the house it also started raining. Monsooning, really.

Samuel stayed with me the whole day, until it was time to start boarding. Words really can’t describe my gratitude.