Just Roll With It

The Megtionary (I am so proud of coining this word… Just saying!) defines my most recent travels as the nearly 2-day long period where you live off a limited supply of food, clothing, sleep, and cleanliness. During this period, and especially when traveling internationally, one has a death grip on all of his/her luggage in a meek attempt to cling to a few necessary belongings for airport survival. As I write the first part of this post, I’m the “guard” of the three precious people I’m traveling with and their luggage packed with survival items while they sleep in the Manila airport. We have a 9 hour layover which makes for a long night! The good news is, we’re in the Philippines and we’re acting as if sleeping by a baggage claim is totally normal. The bad news is that we’re sleeping by a baggage claim and acting as if it’s totally normal; however, I don’t think anybody is too terribly upset about this as we are all ridiculously tired and just kind of rolling with it. After all, we didn’t volunteer to do this work to be travelling glamorously (my two-day-old clothes is proof of that)!

Yesterday, our flight from San Francisco to Tokyo was delayed which would have made us miss our connecting flight to Manila; however, having a father who works in the airport business proved beneficial as he caught this before we even landed in San Fran, contacted United, and got us moved up to an earlier flight before we had even landed (thanks, Dad!). Although awesome that we were able to make all of our connecting flights, it made us question whether our bags would show up in Manila. Allow me to script an actual conversation as we landed in the Philippines:

Ben: Do you think our bags are here?

Me: It’s still a toss-up… They’re either all here or none of them are here.

Ben: I’m going to go with everybody’s bags made it except for one bag… Let’s go with Shawney’s. Why not?

As Shawney and I are entering the terminal from the plane, we see a man holding up a sign. In the past, we’ve discussed how we’ve always wanted to have our name on a sign at the airport, and we see the sign and start laughing and reminiscing about this. Then, she looks up and says, “Wait! That IS my name!”

… Long story short: Shawney’s bags didn’t make it, so they had her name on the sign to inform her of this fate. We were told that she’d be receiving them by Wednesday morning, but she got a phone call today saying that her bag never left Dulles. Needless to say, my 7 shirts and 3 pairs of work-able pants are now being split between the 2 of us until her bag arrives (who knows when that will be?!). Thankfully, we’ve all managed to laugh about the ridiculousness of this situation and even bet chocolate milkshakes on whether her bags would be here by Wednesday (which is what they originally said). What else can you do? (It’s important to note here that Shawney actually cheered when they told her that her bags were still in Dulles as I now owe her a chocolate shake. I’m honored to call this woman my friend!)

Other things I’ve already learned to roll with: Sweating ridiculous amounts. Taking bucket showers. Having everybody call us, “Joe” and ask us, “Where are you going?” whether they care or not. People mispronouncing my name (what else is new?!). Surviving migraines on an 11 hour flight. Crazy cab drives – but nothing more needs to be said about that right now.

Most importantly, I will say that I don’t think the link I posted the other day did the city of Tacloban any justice. It is so apparent that a real need is imminent and seeing the vast devastation first-hand is much more striking than any photograph could capture. Today, we saw several projects that the team started – all of which we are very excited about. As we drove from the neighborhood where chicken coops were built to the local women’s shelter, I sat in the bed of a tiny little truck with the other volunteers, watching the Filipino people build their own future. If I’ve learned anything about this culture today, it is this: there is a real need here. Thousands of people have died, an entire city (and more!) has been destructed, and the people here are determined to make things better as soon as possible. Everybody is doing their part as they are driven, determined, and desperate… And, amazingly, they are able to handle any task in flip flops.

Just roll with it. Except for Shawney. She doesn’t have any luggage to roll. #toosoon?