Leaving Ghana

Monday, September 6

Today is the day I leave! There are ups and downs to every trip and today was definitely one of those “downs”! The entire day was spent running around getting the nitrogen shipper ready to take back my samples. This included taking the shipper to get filled, taking our paperwork around to multiple offices to get signed and stamped, and finally taking the shipper to the lab to put the samples in. When we opened the shipper to put in the samples, a couple of the lab techs used wooden sticks, to try to submerge the boxes (filled with samples) below the liquid nitrogen. As they were shoving the boxes down into the shipper, I got really concerned as the whole thing just didn’t look right. I told them to stop so we could read the manual and email a couple of people, since it just didn’t seem right that we would be submerging the samples in liquid nitrogen. While they asked around, I went back to the hotel to eat (I hadn’t eaten since breakfast and it was 5pm by then) and pack up to head to the airport for my 11pm flight. It turns out that the shipper is supposed to sit for three days following it being filled with the nitrogen so it can evaporate into the walls of the shipper. Needless to say, I ended up just heading to the airport sans shipper! By the time I got to the airport I was praying that my flight wouldn’t be delayed since I just couldn’t wait to head home. Thankfully the flight was on time and I even had two seats all to myself! I took some niquil and slept for the entire 11 hour flight! When I got to my next flight, they didn’t have room for my bag (carrying all my very fragile souvenirs that I didn’t bother packing very well since they were going to be with me the whole time) and said they would have to check it through to my destination. I tried everything to persuade them to allow me to have my bag but the curmudgeony lady didn’t listen at all and took it away, without even a fragile sticker! I was so upset and drained at this point that I found my seat and burst into tears. Thankfully my next transfer was uneventful and my carry-on arrived in Davis unbroken! Lacey was waiting for me at the airport and it was so wonderful to see a friendly face!