We waited anxiously at the check-in desk at London's Heathrow Airport, eight men and women on our way to Freetown, Sierra Leone, early in November. The tension rose a notch when we were informed that our flight was overbooked, but we turned down the offer of an extra day in London along with a tidy sum to spend in the shops. Our tight schedule for the following day had taken months of careful planning, and we desperately wanted to reach our destination.