My trip to the Dominica n Republic I was to leave to the Dominican Republic at
10p.m. on a Thursday night. My flight was with Tower Air and it was leaving John
F. Kennedy airport. I had to be there three hours before departure and I was I
was there at 7p.m. It felt like they longest wait of my life. At 9:30p.m,they
announced that we would not be leaving on time because the plane had technical
difficulties. Our flight would now leave at 12p.m. I couldn’t believe this was
happening to me. It was a nightmare. They had already changed my flight like
five times before. I was leaving one day, then I was leaving the next and so on.
Then they wait for the last minute and the food shop had closed, so there is
about a good 200 or so people without food and all upset cursing up a storm. To
top it all off, half of the people there were teenagers going to the Dominican
Republic to play baseball. Can you imagine? A hundred something kids hungry and
sleepy screaming their lungs out. However, the nightmare wasn’t over. They got
us on the plane at about 2a.m because the plane wasn’t ready. I couldn’t get
on the plane because I kept buzzing when I passed the medal detectors, so that
took another 20 minutes. Then we are on the plane and the plane isn’t moving,
and we are waiting and waiting and no explanation. After a while the plane
begins to move. It when around the run way and then they tell us we must get of
the plane. It needed more service repairs. At this point I’m like give me my
money back, and in return they call the cops because we were making to much
noise. They fix the problem around 5:30a.m and we are off again. Keep in mind we
haven’t eaten and no food was given. I didn’t even get water. I thought this
was a sign of god and my time had come for me to die, but I made it there in one
piece. At our arrival the planes door wouldn’t open and they said we might
have to return to New York. I couldn’t believe this. I was ready to jump out a
window. Finally we are let out of the plane and I had to wait like three hours
for my grandfather to come pick me up. I knew this would be the trip from hell
and that it was. Two days there and I was so sick. I couldn’t eat, or sleep.
The bugs had a party with me and I turned out to be allergic to mosquito bites.
I wasn’t able to go anywhere. Then the last day there I decide to go to the
beach and I swam in some infected area and caught some allergy all over my body,
which took three weeks to heal. I can still feel the pain from the little ugly
bumps I had on my body. Though I wish it ended there it doesn’t. I was to
return Sunday afternoon, but my flight had been changed to 1a.m. Of course I was
there three hours early just to find out that I wasn’t leaving to 6a.m. I was
in for another long wait in a dark cold room. It felt like an eternity. We
finally left at 8a.m. But this wouldn’t be the end. The flight attendants were
all white and never once asked any of us black people if we wanted food or
water. I had to get into a fight with one of the ladies, so she could supply my
sick mother and brother some food. We arrived in New York at around 1 o’clock.
The only good thing was going through immigration. My family and I are Americans
and we just went right through. For the first time I was glad to be an American.
To sum everything up I will not be traveling anytime soon. I need a couple of
years to recover from that nightmare. I will never travel Tower Air again.
Nevertheless, I am glad that I went, because it wasn’t the best trip in the
world but I got to say good-bye to my grandfather and so did my mother. Now he
can rest in peace. So when you look at it from another view the trip wasn’t
that bad.