Belonging and water bottles

This last week I traveled back to Clove Island. It involved only 4 planes this time, but partway through the trip I was delayed, waiting for a storm to pass.

Delayed two days.

Now, I didn't know at first that it would be a two-day delay. At first, I only knew that my next flight was cancelled and I'd been rebooked on a flight the following day. The airline gave me a complimentary hotel and meals, so I headed off to sleep off some of the travel exhaustion. There were islanders at my hotel, but I greeted them in English, not the island language, because I wanted to rest. I was still on my own, and enjoying it.

The next morning, while waiting for the shuttle back to the airport, I was looking at my phone when I heard a lady greet me: "Bweni Abby!" Uh oh. No more peace and privacy for me. I'm now officially back in Africa. It was an old neighbor/friend/student, who was traveling back from China. She proceeded to talk with me in the island language, while all the islanders around me looked on in surprise-- the white girl knows our language!

Well, we all went to the airport together, this time I was part of the group, an islander among islanders. After gate checking bags and boarding the plane, we were informed that the flight still wasn't going that day. So we had to get off the plane. But what about the rolling bags that were all gate checked?

I then spent the next 4 hours at the airport, translating for various islanders who were looking for bags, or had their bag damaged, or weren't given a hotel voucher, or didn't know where to go or how to ask what they needed. Exhausted, on the way back to the hotel in the late afternoon, I reached for my water bottle to find it missing.

Well, this sucks.

There was no way I could go back, and even if I did, would they have put a Nalgene water bottle in lost and found? Did the airport even have a lost and found? I sighed and mentally bid my water bottle adieu.

The next day, we all went back to the airport, waited for our flight, boarded, and were waiting for either news that the flight wasn't going, or for takeoff, when this island lady whom I didn't know approached me: "Bweni Abby! I found this for you! I looked for you all over to return it!"

Yes, it was my water bottle.

Traveling with islanders can be tiring, because I have to help them. But it also comes with blessings, because they look out for me too. Maybe there's a lesson to be learned from this?