Have you seen my shoes?...

Last week one of my youth group members and I were invited to give a ¨how to start youth groups¨ workshop to the new peace corps trainees in Quito. Although I was dreading making the 14 hour bus ride again, I knew it would be a great experience for my youth group member, so we had to accept the invitation.
Off we go on the always so fun 14 hour bus ride, movie of the night a 3 set series about a man eating half shark half octopus creature in Mexico, their fantastic choice of movies is just one more plus to the long ride. Luckily I have Tylenol PM, so I can usually knock myself out until close to Quito. So at about midnight I decided I wanted to be barefoot, and put my flipflops underneath my backpack under my seat.
9 hours later… I wake up only about half an hour from the bus terminal in Quito, I begin to gather my belongings and reach under my seat to get my shoes. And… nothing. My shoes don’t seem to be anywhere within reach. I ask my youth group member to look under her seat, embossed to tell her I am without shoes. Nope they aren’t under her seat either. The lady on the other side of the aisle realized I´m searching for something, and asks me what I have lost.
(translated to English)
Lady One: What are you looking for?
Me: My shoes. They are gone.
Lady One: (screams to other women close by) Hey you all, look under your seats do you see her shoes?
Everyone starts looking under their seats, and still no sign of my shoes. So I get up and decided I’m going to have to pace the bus barefoot looking for these flipflops. The three women get up as well and the four of us are searching under all the seats for my shoes. Still no sign of the shoes.
Lady Two: shoot, they look to be gone. Do you have any other shoes with you?
Me: No!!!! I only came with that one pair of flipflops.
Lady Three: Just wait til everyone gets off, I’m sure then you’ll find them.
So we get to the bus station. I can tell my youth group member is slightly embarrassed to be with the barefoot gringa at this point, so I tell her to go ahead and get her bags from underneath and I’ll stay on the bus. Everyone gets off and I start searching again under every seat… still no sign of my shoes. So I put on a pair of socks that I had (why I packed socks when I only had a pair of flipflops with me, is beyond me but hey they came in use!), and got off the bus into the rain onto the cold wet ground to find the bus drive and his assistant to see if anyone had seen my shoes.
Me: Assistant, did you see shoes on the ground at all during the ride?
Assistant: Did I see what kid?
Me: Shoes! Look! I have no shoes, they disappeared.
Assistant: (screams) driver, come help me look for this kids shoes.
So I continue barefoot outside the bus in the bus terminal while the bus driver and assistant search for my shoes. A few minutes later they came back each with one shoe, I don’t know how one show ended up in one side of the bus and the other one on the other side, and how none of us managed to find them, but the bus driver and assistant saved the day! When they handed my shoes, there was actually a round of applause from the 10 or so people outside the bus waiting for their luggage. Needless to say it was an embarrassing moment, but hey it could have been worse, I could have had to walk through the bus terminal, onto a metro, and through another bus terminal to a bus to the training center all barefoot! Lesson to be learned: while traveling one should never leave their shoes unattended. From now on shoes will be put inside the backpack.