Get Out of New York if You Can

At 2:15am I sat straight up in bed. Oh no, I missed my alarm. I jumped up only to realize that I still have a few minutes to sleep until it goes off. I got up and took a quick shower to try to shake off the middle-of-the-night feeling in my head. I gave all the boys and Brian a kiss goodbye and I headed out to meet the kids at the front circle. I was armed with a complete list of dorm locations, sure that I would have to get someone out of bed to leave at 3:00. But to my surprise and relief, everyone was ready and in the van waiting for me to arrive. We drove out of Pomfret without a hitch. So far so good... We arrived at JFK at 5:45 am, plenty of time to check in for our 10:40am flight to Johannesburg. We arrived long before anyone from South Africa Airlines was in the building. We were first in line to check in for our flight. Slowly we all worked our way through the check-in. We gathered together by the luggage x-ray machine; two, then three, then, five, and then it happened. Our first travel snag of the trip. Two of our students are from Vietnam. They need a different travel visa than the rest of the group. Somehow this detail slipped past the trip coordinator. These two were pulled aside with Johara as she tried to talk them into letting us through. The other eight students and I were huddled together watching the facial expressions and body language from a distance. Lots of head shaking from the officials, Johara gesturing and obviously pleading, the students sitting on their luggage slumped over. This was not going well. Our options were pretty limited. One of us had to take these two to the South African Consulate to get travel Visas. Johara's pleading didn't get them on the plane, but it did get us all confirmed seats on the flight for the next day without a change fee. My objective materialized in front of my eyes, just like mission impossible: get the visas into my hands by 5:00 today. Johara and the other eight kids went to security to get on the plane. The first thing I did was call Uncle Michael and Aunt Marilyn, who live close to JFK. We talked over my dilemma and they helped me formulate a plan of action. First we took a cab to their apartment to drop off the kids luggage. (Yes, my luggage is on the way to Cape Town right now.) We asked the cab driver to wait, he took the opportunity to use the restroom which ended up with us waiting for him. Then he drove us to the South African Consulate. (By the way, the cab driver made a point to tell us that he didn't charge us for the wait time because we're from out of town!) Meanwhile, the kids and I were making frantic calls to the front office. Mrs. Antos, Mrs. Lamothe, and Mr. Gillin swept into action at headquarters. They started tracking down documents, looking on websites, and keeping us updated with breaking developments. At one point we were all on the phone with one of them, and then we swapped phones with each other. The kids and I had the feeling that we had just stepped onto the set of a reality tv show called "Get our of New York if You Can!" We arrived at the Consulate by 10:00am. The clock was ticking. Our nerves were frayed, but we had to keep cool. We couldn't go in there demanding action or forcing our problem onto the government workers. I instructed the kids to smile broadly, and say please and thank you as much as we could. We learned that two passport photos were needed and a money order. The helpful woman at the Consulate sent us to the CVS to get the passport photos. Then we went to the bank across the street for the money orders. I must have seemed pretty desperate or green (or both) because the bank worker kindly suggested that I go get the money order at CVS where it would be a $1 fee rather than at the bank with a $10 fee. So we headed back to the CVS. We ended up walking past the CVS no less than 8 times today, and we went in for purchases three times. We were back at the Consulate by 11:30 with all the documents prepared. They sent us away with instructions to come back at 4:00. Now we wait to hear if we are going on the 10:40 flight tomorrow. Oh, by the way, at the airport, a South African Airlines attendant was handing out fliers about a country-wide strike that is happening on the 7th. Who knows what tomorrow will bring for the three of us.