Home to Honiara

We left the resort in Fiji about ten o'clock to load everybody and everything onto the shuttle that would take us on the thirty minute ride back to the airport.  We passed many, many fields of sugar cane and rows of cassava that really needed to be harvested.  The trees, fruits, and vegetables that we saw in the fields and in the little road side market looked wonderfully familiar.

When we arrived at the airport, we were at the end of a very long line.  What do you do when you are waiting for an hour?  You read a book propped on top of your luggage!  We discovered that Air Fiji felt like we needed to pay for our luggage, so we did end up paying extra, per kilo over our baggage allowance.  We also discovered that Air Fiji doesn't hold the same idea of "personal bag", and had a scary time trying to explain why we each had two small bags to bring on the plane when they thought we should only have one.  But in the end, we were allowed to go through without paying any more.  Thank you for your prayers!

The plane was delayed, and when the line for boarding began to form, the power went out in the airport.  We felt right at home because the power goes out in the Honiara airport often.  Once on the plane, the kids were delighted to find Beethoven's 7th symphony on channel five.  Over and over, we had to tell them to quit singing along!  We stopped for a quick change of passengers in Vanuatu, and by the time we arrived in Honiara we had listened to the symphony almost four times.  Delightful!



Our plane finally landed in the pouring rain around six o'clock Wednesday night.  Between the dark and the rain, we didn't think anyone but our director would come pick us up.  Imagine our surprise when we discovered a roof full of greeters shouting and carrying balloons and signs in the rain.

 



 

 Once inside, it felt so good to get in the line for residents.  After finding all but one of our checked bags, and declaring that we had a little bit of food and clearing customs, we rounded the corner to find a beautiful sight for weary eyes:

Our wet, bedraggled SITAG family.  Wearing hats and bearing a "Welcam" sign, they gave us lots of hugs, helped us fill out a lost luggage report, piled us into various and sundry vehicles, and drove us back to our Honiara home where a yummy meal of Solomon Island food awaited us.