delta sucks

Right now, I should be somewhere over the midwest on my way back to Portland, Oregon. Instead I'm sitting in a really nice hotel in Accra (definitely the swankiest place I've been to this entire trip) and have a stand by ticket for a flight tomorrow morning. Basically, Delta overbooks every flight from Accra to NY JFK airport (which only leaves once a day) and so 30-40 passengers get bumped from every flight. Then those try to get on the next flight, the next day, and a continuous cycle of plane bumping continues indefinitely. It sucked this morning when we found out that we actually weren't going home today, but they ended up putting us in this nice hotel, with blazing fast wireless internet - what luxury!

Also, I met some really cool people who are in the same boat as me as far as getting bumped from the flight. I met a cool college student from Montreal who has been doing some volunteer work in the Northern region of Ghana and her Ghanaian friends who were also college students. Over a nice American dinner of a club sandwich and french fries - paid for by the hospitable Delta Airlines - we talked about all sorts of things such as global health, volunteerism, and American and Ghanaian politics (Ghana is going through an election year as well, they vote in December). It was a great discussion, and it was really fun to get to hear what a Ghanaian student, exactly my age, thought about American politics, the influence of volunteers in rural communities, and especially why he loves Barack Obama so much! We all exchanged emails, and I hope that we can exchange emails about thoughts on a range of issues.

It was a bummer not to fly home today, but it turned out well. You never know how things like this will end up!