My first Thanksgiving in Bangladesh!

On Monday I left home around 5am to get to the airport and then head for Bangladesh. Things started out well and on one of my longer flights I even was given a free upgrade into the Business class section of the plane because economy was full. On my long flight from San Francisco to Tokyo, I had two empty seats next to me on the plane so that was great too. There was plenty of room to stretch out and sleep. Because things started out so good though, I was just wondering when they would turn for the worse. I got my answer yesterday.

After arriving safely in Dhaka I waited and waited for my luggage and it didn't arrive. So I began the long process of filing a missing luggage report. Memories of one of my travel companions from a trip earlier this year to Africa were floating around in my mind! On that trip, Gary never did get his luggage. After spending about 1 1/2 hours at the missing luggage office I was ready to leave the airport and try to find Phillip and his guys who no doubt had been waiting to pick me up for a long time already. Just as I was leaving the lost bag area, the woman in charge yelled at me and said that my bag had just been found! The only problem was that it had gone to Vietnam. Ooops. Anyway, She gave me the equivalent of $50 for my troubles and told me that my bag would be delivered the next day on the same flight.

Today I went back to the airport and after working my way through the security system to get back inside the baggage claim area, I arrived just as the luggage was being unloaded off the plane and my bag was there! Thank you Jesus! I can't wait to get out of these clothes which I've been wearing for almost 4 days now.

All of this is interesting to me since this is Thanksgiving day back home. Today I'm thankful that I have my clothes, amongst many other things. But I also would have been thankful if they had not come. When you spend any amount of time in a foreign country you quickly realize that we have so much to be thankful for. When I left home I was kind of sad that I would be missing Thanksgiving. To be honest, however, I think I'm going to appreciate Thanksgiving more this year than ever before.