Back in the States!

I made it! I am back in the United States. My time in Bangladesh was good, but hard. I learned so much but I am feeling pretty tired and burned out. Our base moved to another town while we were away and Ashley (the leader of the Nepal team) and I are having a pretty hard time adjusting. This change along with the stress of being responsible for others for so long and jet lag has made us pretty weepy today. I have yet to cry but I have come close and the tears probably will fall soon.

The new base is pretty cool but far away from everything. I am contemplating getting a scooter. We'll see. I am a bit wary after my Ford fiasco.

I want to leave you with a funny/scary story-
My Ywam best friend, Amy was with my team for the last two weeks of outreach. It was nice to have her around and she and her team flew to Thailand with us. Amy and I got to hang out the night before we left in Thailand and it was good times with a binging session at Pizza Hut. She gave me a bag of stuff to take back to Maui for her. It was mainly clothes and gifts for her family. I didn't even see what she packed.

So, I was going through the security checkpoint at the Japan airport and I got stopped. This was nothing new especially since I was more than frisked by a female security guard in Dhaka. The security guard in Japan, opened my bag and took out some spoons that he thought were setting off the detector. He sent it back through and it still went off. He dug further into the bag and pulled out something wrapped in newspaper. It looked like a knife and when he pulled off the paper, I saw that it was some dagger-type device from Nepal. My face turned bright red and I started freaking out internally. Then five security guards appeared and all spoke in Japanese. They measured the knife as I feared the worst. I had no idea if you can be punished for such things as this in Japan. In Tapei, there is a big sign that says Drug Traffickers will be punished by death. So, these Japanese security guards continue to gather info on me. They got my passport, boarding pass and pertinent info. The whole process was an excruciating 30 minutes of uncertainty. It ended with them checking the knife so I could pick it up in Honolulu. So crazy. I was willing to leave the knife. It is funny now but it would not have been if I had missed my plane.