The 24 hour, day-skipping, triple airport adventure
After our staging in Los Angeles, it was time for us to say our goodbyes to America and journey on to Vanuatu. I was now very happy and excited to depart with this group.
An elite force of group leaders were chosen, or rather, an elite force of people who didn’t sit down when the PC desk officer asked for volunteers to be group leaders, to be delegated with the task of getting all forty trainees through the process of checking luggage, going through security, getting on both flights and arriving in the Port Vila airport safe and sound. Yes, that’s right, there were no supervisors, no chaperones, no trainers, no staff…we were on our own.
Marc, Emma, Matt, Brian, Cameron and myself were the six group leaders. If one person were left behind at the LAS hotel or the Fiji airport food court, it was our fault. Each of us were provided a packet with our phone numbers, our individual duties, and a massive list of “What to do if X goes wrong” and accompanying phone numbers for each of those scenarios. I think my favorite on the list was a non-emergency early termination (“what to do if a trainee decides not to go to post”), ie, if someone at the airport decides to bail right then and there. Obviously it happens, but that scenario made me chuckle a bit, that someone would wait to get to this very point.
It wasn’t too complicated to get a gaggle of forty trainees between the ages of 21 and 54 to our destination, but communicating the complications to everyone and ensuring they didn’t wander off when plans changed was challenging.
One last thing we did before we left was provide a list of email contacts to Rachel so she could email our loved ones to let them know when we arrived in Vanuatu. We were told that when we arrived in Vanuatu, we’d be immersed, which meant we would not have internet access, we’d be eating the island food, and the rug would be ripped out from under us, basically.
Emma was provided with a tote bag filled with Peace Corps-issued passports for all of us, as well as a grand list of all trainees. Every group leader had a pile of yarn to “sell” to their group members, and the yarn was to be tied to their luggage (a Peace Corps tradition) while the money was to be divided up to tip the bus driver and the bellhop for loading all of our luggage. After that, the first task we had was to make sure all 40 of us got on the bus with all of our luggage and ensure everyone properly checked out of their rooms. Tristan, one of the six in my group, began to refer to me as “Gold Team Leader.”
Once everyone watched their bags loaded onto the bus, we did one final tally of trainees. Marc did a sweep of the hotel and we waved goodbye to Rachel, our PC desk officer and final parental figure, our the window. From this point forward, we were on our own.
We arrived at the hotel and unloaded the dozens of bags onto the sidewalk while Cameron and Brian checked to be sure that this was in fact the part of the airport in which we were to enter. It was, but we were far too early for check in. Our flight departed at 11pm, and since PC wanted to accommodate for horrendous LA traffic, we were at the airport a whopping 4+ hours before our flight and check-in was not open for another hour and a half. We counted heads and went inside, clustered in the middle, until Brian suggested we move over to a dining area where there was a good corner for us to unload our things. Remember, we haven’t yet checked our bags so there are 40 people, 40 carry-ons, 40 purses/laptop satchels, and nearly 80 checked pieces of luggage wedged into a corner between a food court and populated footpath by the check in desks.
Since we have plenty of time to kill, I seek out empty check-in desks so everyone can weigh their luggage and re-distribute here, if necessary. I let the other group leaders know and we sent each of our groups to the scales in shifts. This proved to be a great idea as several of us were right on the edge of the 50lb weight limit and definitely needed those two hours to move things around.
Finally, check-in began. Brian sent us each in shifts, sending two groups at a time to the check in desk. Emma distributed our PC passports and coupons to cover our checked luggage. Soon, we’d all successfully checked in and could make our way through security. We zipped through and spent our last remaining hours in America at the gate for our Fiji Airways flight.
How did we spend those last hours? Everyone seemed to have a tearful phone call to family, friends or significant others, as this was our last time using our phones in-country. There was debate on what our final American meals would be, and what snacks we needed to stock up on (honey roasted peanuts? Sour Patch kids? Twix bars?). We re-created that email list for Rachel because it accidentally was deleted completely and we wanted our family and friends to know we did not in fact fall off of the face of the earth once departing LA. We played cards and exchanged stories. It was odd…we made the realization that even after spending 48 hours with each other, we really knew nothing about one another’s background. We were all health or education trainees, but what did the recent college graduates study? What were our stories? This point began the slow trickle of learning these little things about ourselves that we’d continue to learn throughout training.
We boarded the plane when it neared eleven PM. I went through my group list to ensure we were all on board. I panicked when I didn’t see Tristan. “I see him getting on right now…I see his guitar,” someone pointed out. I stood up in the aisle with my folder and attendance sheet in hand, asking the group leaders if they had everyone. Marc asked if I was an education trainee, because I “definitely look like the teacher type right now.” The group leaders at one point were gathered and we joked about how even if we were not the leader type, that being forced into this scenario has pulled out those qualities. Even so, I definitely am the type to hover in the aisle taking attendance for forty near-strangers.
We got cozy on our eleven hour flight in the middle section of row 28, and I watched Tristan make hand puppets out of the barf bags to make Joe chuckle.
Soon we took off and I zonked out for a while before getting up to seek out an empty seat to spread out. I went to the back rows and the flight attendants claimed them for rest, and I found a window seat with no one in it. I slept for a good 20 minutes before a man started poking me, claiming I took his seat. Where have you been for the last 20 minutes? The bathrooms were unoccupied! I begrudgingly returned to my seat, not only a middle, but a middle IN the middle of the plane. I fell asleep.
I woke up with a nice, sore neck and gleefully realized there was only an hour remaining on the flight. I slept almost a solid ten hours. It was glorious. Everyone was now awake as food service had ended, and Tristan talked about how he got the high score in some video game the flight provided in the backs of the seats' screens.
We arrived in Fiji. It was five AM on Monday, and we crossed over the international date line, skipping Sunday completely. We were to have an eight hour stopover, but we were instructed to not leave the airport by the PC staff. The Fiji airport rules dictate that you must go through customs and get your luggage, re-check your luggage an go through security again for any stopovers over six hours, but we had a special PC letter that would bypass that. The group leaders were told that we had the letter, but the airport rarely asks for it and we probably wouldn’t have to even show it. But we did have to explain ourselves, and we did have to show that letter, and the Fiji airport customs security and border control staff didn’t care for it. It may as well have been a post it with a smiley face on it because it unfortunately did meant nothing to them.
We had that master list of possible hiccups and how to solve them, so we rang up the Fiji PC director for some assistance. We used a friendly customs officer’s phone, as most of us didn’t have service. The Fiji PC staff told us to stay put, and do NOT go through customs to collect luggage under any circumstances. He was going to contact the airport to ensure we would be allowed to stay in the airport and not collect our bags. So we stood by…until the customs officers told us another flight was arriving soon and we couldn’t stand in the purgatory between arrivals and customs. The welcome band, who was playing traditional Fiji music a few minutes ago, was silent. The customs officer no longer would let us use his phone. We were no longer welcome here. The customs officers threatened us that our bags were already off of the conveyor belt on the floor just past the customs doors, unattended. Despite our efforts to contact the Fiji PC director, we were ushered through customs to retrieve them.
However, once we got our passports and grabbed our bags, Emma got in touch with the Fiji PC director and we weren’t going to be stranded pre-check-in at the airport any longer…he had arranged for two vans to pick us up and bring us to a local resort, where four rooms were booked for us to change in and shower if we wish. The situation went from frustrating to fantastic and we spent the next four hours not only able to leave the airport, but able to go to a resort, swim in a pool, bathe, and drink bottled Fiji water/eat quiche and dutch pancakes.
When it neared noon and it was time to go through check-in once again, we grabbed our bags, re-checked them, and went through security. We were informed we would be boarding a tiny plane and we would have to fly one of our checked bags as standby, to arrive mid-week at our hotel. Also, our flight was delayed for an undisclosed amount of time, which meant we were all hanging out at the gate together for several hours, but it also meant we were provided with some free money from the airlines to eat our way through the very westernized food options offered.
We took the time to play “Peace Corps superlatives” suggested by veteran Matt, who’d previously served in Malawi. There was “most likely to get creeped on first” (Colleen) and “most likely to be a site rat” which Matt clarified is someone who never ever leaves their site until end of service, which is a superlative we couldn’t assign. There was a Burger King and a food court that served BBQ chicken pizza. The magazine stand sold chocolate ice cream bars. We enjoyed our vices while swapping hard drives of movies, music and TV shows. It was quite the fun layover, despite its 12-hour length. After numerous delays that didn’t provide the new departure time until 6pm, we were allowed to board the plane and we were off to our final destination.
Our plane from Fiji to Vanuatu was tiny, containing mostly trainees and a small handful of other passengers. The group leaders did a head count, hoping that we had our perfect number because at this point, we were so close. Luckily all of us were there, excited and ready. I zonked out for the short 2.5 hour flight and awoke upon landing in Port Vila. We walked on the tarmac to the airport, entered the customs line for residents (RESIDENTS! I KNOW!) and got our passports stamped. We collected our luggage (some lucky trainees received their standby bags but the rest of us had to wait a couple days) and after going through border control, we were greeted by a slew of staff and trainers from the PC Vanuatu office. They gave us flower leis, Vanuatu lava-lavas, and a fresh coconut with a straw poking out of the top. We sipped our coconuts and realized that we were here. We made it, and had an enormously warm welcome.
It was an eventful trip with plenty of chaos and delays, but every hiccup was met with a delightful surprise better than the original plan. To top it all off, upon arriving in Port Vila, the PC staff said our accommodations in Vila would no longer be the original hotel (which was experiencing damage from cyclone Cook) but instead a Holiday Inn which had free bottles of shampoo, two pools, fantastic WIFI, Wednesday night fire shows, endless buffets for breakfast/lunch/dinner, and a small swimming lagoon in the back.
It’s good to be here.
An elite force of group leaders were chosen, or rather, an elite force of people who didn’t sit down when the PC desk officer asked for volunteers to be group leaders, to be delegated with the task of getting all forty trainees through the process of checking luggage, going through security, getting on both flights and arriving in the Port Vila airport safe and sound. Yes, that’s right, there were no supervisors, no chaperones, no trainers, no staff…we were on our own.
Marc, Emma, Matt, Brian, Cameron and myself were the six group leaders. If one person were left behind at the LAS hotel or the Fiji airport food court, it was our fault. Each of us were provided a packet with our phone numbers, our individual duties, and a massive list of “What to do if X goes wrong” and accompanying phone numbers for each of those scenarios. I think my favorite on the list was a non-emergency early termination (“what to do if a trainee decides not to go to post”), ie, if someone at the airport decides to bail right then and there. Obviously it happens, but that scenario made me chuckle a bit, that someone would wait to get to this very point.
It wasn’t too complicated to get a gaggle of forty trainees between the ages of 21 and 54 to our destination, but communicating the complications to everyone and ensuring they didn’t wander off when plans changed was challenging.
One last thing we did before we left was provide a list of email contacts to Rachel so she could email our loved ones to let them know when we arrived in Vanuatu. We were told that when we arrived in Vanuatu, we’d be immersed, which meant we would not have internet access, we’d be eating the island food, and the rug would be ripped out from under us, basically.
Emma was provided with a tote bag filled with Peace Corps-issued passports for all of us, as well as a grand list of all trainees. Every group leader had a pile of yarn to “sell” to their group members, and the yarn was to be tied to their luggage (a Peace Corps tradition) while the money was to be divided up to tip the bus driver and the bellhop for loading all of our luggage. After that, the first task we had was to make sure all 40 of us got on the bus with all of our luggage and ensure everyone properly checked out of their rooms. Tristan, one of the six in my group, began to refer to me as “Gold Team Leader.”
Once everyone watched their bags loaded onto the bus, we did one final tally of trainees. Marc did a sweep of the hotel and we waved goodbye to Rachel, our PC desk officer and final parental figure, our the window. From this point forward, we were on our own.
We arrived at the hotel and unloaded the dozens of bags onto the sidewalk while Cameron and Brian checked to be sure that this was in fact the part of the airport in which we were to enter. It was, but we were far too early for check in. Our flight departed at 11pm, and since PC wanted to accommodate for horrendous LA traffic, we were at the airport a whopping 4+ hours before our flight and check-in was not open for another hour and a half. We counted heads and went inside, clustered in the middle, until Brian suggested we move over to a dining area where there was a good corner for us to unload our things. Remember, we haven’t yet checked our bags so there are 40 people, 40 carry-ons, 40 purses/laptop satchels, and nearly 80 checked pieces of luggage wedged into a corner between a food court and populated footpath by the check in desks.
Since we have plenty of time to kill, I seek out empty check-in desks so everyone can weigh their luggage and re-distribute here, if necessary. I let the other group leaders know and we sent each of our groups to the scales in shifts. This proved to be a great idea as several of us were right on the edge of the 50lb weight limit and definitely needed those two hours to move things around.
Finally, check-in began. Brian sent us each in shifts, sending two groups at a time to the check in desk. Emma distributed our PC passports and coupons to cover our checked luggage. Soon, we’d all successfully checked in and could make our way through security. We zipped through and spent our last remaining hours in America at the gate for our Fiji Airways flight.
How did we spend those last hours? Everyone seemed to have a tearful phone call to family, friends or significant others, as this was our last time using our phones in-country. There was debate on what our final American meals would be, and what snacks we needed to stock up on (honey roasted peanuts? Sour Patch kids? Twix bars?). We re-created that email list for Rachel because it accidentally was deleted completely and we wanted our family and friends to know we did not in fact fall off of the face of the earth once departing LA. We played cards and exchanged stories. It was odd…we made the realization that even after spending 48 hours with each other, we really knew nothing about one another’s background. We were all health or education trainees, but what did the recent college graduates study? What were our stories? This point began the slow trickle of learning these little things about ourselves that we’d continue to learn throughout training.
We boarded the plane when it neared eleven PM. I went through my group list to ensure we were all on board. I panicked when I didn’t see Tristan. “I see him getting on right now…I see his guitar,” someone pointed out. I stood up in the aisle with my folder and attendance sheet in hand, asking the group leaders if they had everyone. Marc asked if I was an education trainee, because I “definitely look like the teacher type right now.” The group leaders at one point were gathered and we joked about how even if we were not the leader type, that being forced into this scenario has pulled out those qualities. Even so, I definitely am the type to hover in the aisle taking attendance for forty near-strangers.
We got cozy on our eleven hour flight in the middle section of row 28, and I watched Tristan make hand puppets out of the barf bags to make Joe chuckle.
Soon we took off and I zonked out for a while before getting up to seek out an empty seat to spread out. I went to the back rows and the flight attendants claimed them for rest, and I found a window seat with no one in it. I slept for a good 20 minutes before a man started poking me, claiming I took his seat. Where have you been for the last 20 minutes? The bathrooms were unoccupied! I begrudgingly returned to my seat, not only a middle, but a middle IN the middle of the plane. I fell asleep.
I woke up with a nice, sore neck and gleefully realized there was only an hour remaining on the flight. I slept almost a solid ten hours. It was glorious. Everyone was now awake as food service had ended, and Tristan talked about how he got the high score in some video game the flight provided in the backs of the seats' screens.
We arrived in Fiji. It was five AM on Monday, and we crossed over the international date line, skipping Sunday completely. We were to have an eight hour stopover, but we were instructed to not leave the airport by the PC staff. The Fiji airport rules dictate that you must go through customs and get your luggage, re-check your luggage an go through security again for any stopovers over six hours, but we had a special PC letter that would bypass that. The group leaders were told that we had the letter, but the airport rarely asks for it and we probably wouldn’t have to even show it. But we did have to explain ourselves, and we did have to show that letter, and the Fiji airport customs security and border control staff didn’t care for it. It may as well have been a post it with a smiley face on it because it unfortunately did meant nothing to them.
We had that master list of possible hiccups and how to solve them, so we rang up the Fiji PC director for some assistance. We used a friendly customs officer’s phone, as most of us didn’t have service. The Fiji PC staff told us to stay put, and do NOT go through customs to collect luggage under any circumstances. He was going to contact the airport to ensure we would be allowed to stay in the airport and not collect our bags. So we stood by…until the customs officers told us another flight was arriving soon and we couldn’t stand in the purgatory between arrivals and customs. The welcome band, who was playing traditional Fiji music a few minutes ago, was silent. The customs officer no longer would let us use his phone. We were no longer welcome here. The customs officers threatened us that our bags were already off of the conveyor belt on the floor just past the customs doors, unattended. Despite our efforts to contact the Fiji PC director, we were ushered through customs to retrieve them.
However, once we got our passports and grabbed our bags, Emma got in touch with the Fiji PC director and we weren’t going to be stranded pre-check-in at the airport any longer…he had arranged for two vans to pick us up and bring us to a local resort, where four rooms were booked for us to change in and shower if we wish. The situation went from frustrating to fantastic and we spent the next four hours not only able to leave the airport, but able to go to a resort, swim in a pool, bathe, and drink bottled Fiji water/eat quiche and dutch pancakes.
When it neared noon and it was time to go through check-in once again, we grabbed our bags, re-checked them, and went through security. We were informed we would be boarding a tiny plane and we would have to fly one of our checked bags as standby, to arrive mid-week at our hotel. Also, our flight was delayed for an undisclosed amount of time, which meant we were all hanging out at the gate together for several hours, but it also meant we were provided with some free money from the airlines to eat our way through the very westernized food options offered.
We took the time to play “Peace Corps superlatives” suggested by veteran Matt, who’d previously served in Malawi. There was “most likely to get creeped on first” (Colleen) and “most likely to be a site rat” which Matt clarified is someone who never ever leaves their site until end of service, which is a superlative we couldn’t assign. There was a Burger King and a food court that served BBQ chicken pizza. The magazine stand sold chocolate ice cream bars. We enjoyed our vices while swapping hard drives of movies, music and TV shows. It was quite the fun layover, despite its 12-hour length. After numerous delays that didn’t provide the new departure time until 6pm, we were allowed to board the plane and we were off to our final destination.
Our plane from Fiji to Vanuatu was tiny, containing mostly trainees and a small handful of other passengers. The group leaders did a head count, hoping that we had our perfect number because at this point, we were so close. Luckily all of us were there, excited and ready. I zonked out for the short 2.5 hour flight and awoke upon landing in Port Vila. We walked on the tarmac to the airport, entered the customs line for residents (RESIDENTS! I KNOW!) and got our passports stamped. We collected our luggage (some lucky trainees received their standby bags but the rest of us had to wait a couple days) and after going through border control, we were greeted by a slew of staff and trainers from the PC Vanuatu office. They gave us flower leis, Vanuatu lava-lavas, and a fresh coconut with a straw poking out of the top. We sipped our coconuts and realized that we were here. We made it, and had an enormously warm welcome.
It was an eventful trip with plenty of chaos and delays, but every hiccup was met with a delightful surprise better than the original plan. To top it all off, upon arriving in Port Vila, the PC staff said our accommodations in Vila would no longer be the original hotel (which was experiencing damage from cyclone Cook) but instead a Holiday Inn which had free bottles of shampoo, two pools, fantastic WIFI, Wednesday night fire shows, endless buffets for breakfast/lunch/dinner, and a small swimming lagoon in the back.
It’s good to be here.
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