Homecoming

Last night, the girls and drove through NO TRAFFIC to Dulles Airport. So unpredictable, that beltway! We made it there in record time. Despite my two emails, suggesting that parents arrive sometime between 8-8:30, everyone beat us there, and we arrived at 7:40. Of course, I was shooting for 8:30, but without traffic it was a very quick ride down.

We all waited until 8:45 for the team to finally immerge from customs. Em, just as I'd predicted, refused to let go of her daddy, who was exhausted and is still pretty ill from his little adventure. After making sure our one last team member made it through customs (with a bag of food that was sent along from Cameroon - apparently with some unknown food item that looks a bit like "weed"), we said our goodbyes and headed home.

Once home, daddy emptied his suitcases full of all kinds of strange and bizarre artifacts from Africa. OK - I am totally kidding!! But to the girls, you would have thought the wooden elephants, bongo drums and bracelets were strange and bizarre, the way they gawked at them! He also brought home an anniversary gift from Paris - a beautiful sterling silver/amethyst necklace, for me. How sweet! We don't really do a lot of perfume in this house with all the asthma!

After the girls went to bed, sort of!, two team leaders stopped by to pick up their cars. They hung out for a few minutes, talking of their first trip to Chik-fil-A. You could tell they were already having reverse culture shock and I wasn't sure they were going to leave... just had to talk to T about, well, nothing much! LOL, but that's the way it goes. It will be interesting to see how the rest of the team adjusts to being home after living in such a different country.

Once we went to bed, T and I ended up staying up talking and looking at some of his pictures. They paint a picture of a not so beautiful country filled with amazingly beautiful people. From my brief photo tour, that really stood out to me that the people in Cameroon are what create the beauty there. They are phenomenally bright, cheery, jubilant - in a picture! I imagine them to be emotional, attached, community oriented just from what I saw and a bit from what I heard last night. The beach was gorgeous, but other than that the pictures of the city are really kind of depressing. Abandoned buildings, dirt roads, makeshift homes. I think I was expecting a bit more for city dwellers in one of the more stable African countries.

I finally let T fall asleep last night, and boy did he sleep!! He kept mentioning to me that he is too old for these trips anymore. Really, though, the problem isn't his age, because he's very young! The problem is 10 days is not long enough for his body to adjust AND enjoy his stay. They flew into Cameroon after 28 hours of travel, then after another 36 hours went straight to the beach. That's a lot on a body. He will need some time to recover, and hopefully will begin to feel better soon.

The debrief in Paris was probably one of smarter pieces of the planning. At first, I think T wished they were not spending the night there. In truth, though, it was a great idea. For some team members, it was the first hot shower they'd had. It was also a place everyone wants to go, so there was plenty to see and do. They also still had just their team there. No distractions from friends and family, so the leaders still held a captive audience in the team. They had a great debrief session at the Eiffel Tower, then spent the rest of their time touring. Later they continued with a few more debrief and re-entry sessions.

I reminded T that last year, when returning from Brazil, all plans for debrief went awry because it was difficult to pull the team back togther. Some left for college, others went back to jobs and the rest were trying to readjust to life back home. This idea of debriefing away from home is a good one, especially for a trip like this, so far from home with so much to process.

We are super glad T is home. Now we have to make a decision about getting a new puppy (long story!) and plan our little welcome home celebration for tonight. Let's see, I have the Saltines, bottled water and we'll have to go get some bananas and rice. Sounds like a feast! LOL