Stephanie and Carl Albrecht, Deputy Chief of Mission at US Embassy
Couldn’t believe that I was getting up at 3:30 AM to travel yet again to Liberia, but I was, and things went very well from home to the airport and onto JFK until we had to circle for a while due to winds, but actually I think some of the so-called Sequester caused my delay because most every one of the 22 other travelers in our FOL group had some kind of delay or another and were told that it was due to TSA and Air Traffic controllers.
The group of 23 is made up of several former Peace Corps Volunteers and 7 from the Pepperbird group (these are family members who lived and/or were born at Firestone in Liberia many years ago). It is quite fun to bring back folks who have not been here for many years and see their reactions, hear their stories and watch them reconnect with old friends.
We hired a great company, Barefoot Safari, to meet us at the airport and take us to the various hotels but before we left the airport (ROB), one of the members of the group did not find his bag and so like what happens all over, we had to go to Baggage claim and wait to fill out some papers. I have way too much experience with this issue as some of my friends remembered that I was without my suitcase in Italy for 25 days!! There are no daily flights so he borrowed some clothes from a couple of the guys on the trip and is being adaptable. So we can only hope that the airline pulls through for him.
