Our plane last night did indeed break down in Fortaleza, a small beachside city on Brazil's north-east coast. After waiting on board for much longer than our little hop had us scheduled, they finally offloaded us into the terminal. An hour went by, then two. It was getting later and later, and we weren't sure what was going on. Announcements were in Portuguese, and few airline employees spoke English. Not only that, but not all the TAM airline employees knew what was going on, so we got different answers from different people. Finally it became clear that our flight would not be leaving again that night, and we managed to get our tickets rebooked for this morning on another airline, get hotel rooms for all of us, get our bags (identified by hand by a lone TAM employee at about 1:30 AM), and get taxis to our hotel. We were in bed by 2:30 AM, and up again bright and early for a 5:30 AM taxi ride back to the airport for our new flight. We got into Salvador by 10:00 AM this morning, tired, dirty, and in some cases hungry, but boy were we ever glad to be here!
May I just say, our students are great. Everyone found a way to just roll with the uncertainty, stress, and tiredness, and everyone got right back out there this afternoon for the next phase of our class. These students are seriously amazing people, and we are so proud of how they managed last night!
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