Finally HERE!

We’re here!! Our travels went so incredibly smoothly, and after THREE full days of plane rides and taxi drives and bus rides we are finally at our real destination. The first flight from KC to Detroit was short and kind of bumpy, but I survived…good thing Danielle and Matt were sitting next to me reassuring me while I was curled up in my seat during all the turbulence. Turns out I’m kind of a nervous flier! : ) Our flight from Detroit to Amsterdam was fine, it didn’t seem 8 hours, which was nice, and it was for the majority turbulence free, so I definitely enjoyed that. I didn’t sleep much then, because I felt like I’d definitely want to sleep during the ELEVEN hour flight to Johannesburg. We were in the Amsterdam airport for about 3 hours during our layover, and it was kind of nice to be in a somewhat familiar place! Being that close really made me want to leave the airport and go out into the city again, but it wouldn’t be the same without my Jilly. We played some cards during the layover, and prepared ourselves for the long flight. Our preparation definitely included taking some Tylenol PM so we could sleep and not just sit there for 11 hours. Anyway, we finally boarded, and it was one of those GIANT 747s and I’ve never been on one of those before, so that was fun!! I slept basically that WHOLE flight which was kind of nice, because I don’t remember much and because of that it didn’t seem very long.

We arrived in Johannesburg around 9:10 Tuesday evening, converted some dollars into South African rand, and then were in route to our Backpackers Lodge for the night. Our first adventure of the trip happened when our taxi driver was basically being pulled over for about 10 minutes and finally stopped and let the police approach him. Turns out the lights on the trailer were out, and he didn’t stop to fix them, but it was kind of a weird 20 minutes! We got to the Backpacker’s Lodge, where we stayed in a dorm like setting, ,and all seven of us were able to stay together, so that was nice. It was very basic, but worked for $10 a night! AND there were working showers! (Fun Fact: South Africa and all of Southern Africa are experiencing power outages right now because of problems with the power company, so we had about half hour outage there, and we are being told to expect outages here at the University every so often, and specifically on Friday afternoons.) Anyway, We spent Tuesday night at the Backpacker’s and found some food the next morning at a gas station, waited for a taxi (that didn’t get pulled over!) and then arrived at the bus station. We arrived here in Gaborone, Botswana Wednesday night around 8pm after an 8-hour bus ride from Johannesburg. We were all so glad to be here, and it was so nice to actually settle in and be in our rooms that we’ll be living in for the next EIGHT weeks. (Crazy!)

Below are pictures of our flat, which is just so nice, and we are so lucky to be able to stay here. These are the graduate flats at the University of Botswana, and so far I think we are all just SO excited to be here at UB and the staff and students are so extremely friendly and helpful in getting us all settled in. It’s been so, so great!

Yesterday we had a busy day of meetings with UB staff and security and shopping! We first met with the International Students office, which was so nice, because they were all so friendly, and Charity, a worker in the office, is going to contact some volunteer sites for us so we have a UB reference behind our efforts to serve in this community. We all felt so great about that, and I know I feel a lot less stress having that at least on the way to having our projects. We went to Riverwalk, a giant outdoor shopping mall with so much. Ana and Jessica, two girls who came to Botswana last year with K-State, came back again to do individual service work, and they’ve been great so far in helping us learn some ropes on how to get around and figure things out. We walked to Riverwalk with them, which was about a 20 minute walk, and then ate lunch with them too. After lunch, we went to a home store to buy some bedding and bath stuff, and then to a grocery store to get some food for ourselves. Us girls are all staying in the same flat, so that’s nice because we were able to just buy a group food supply and then split it all up among the five of us. We bought a HUGE amount of food for only like $100 dollars, which was about $20 a person, which was GREAT!! ; ) After all of that we came back to the flat and just relaxed as we’re all exhausted. I don’t think we’ve exactly adjusted to this time thing yet, but I’m sure we will in the next few days. So far things have gone great, and it’s just such a blessing that everything has gone so smoothly.

And NOW we have our internet back, so that is great great news! Tomorrow we are going to a qualifier game for the 2010 World Cup between the Botswana Zebras and Madagascar! I will try to update periodically but as we've learned so far, our connection is real sketchy (good Botswana word so far!) so we'll see. BUT we all are alive and very well, and I miss all of you very very much. I am so so excited for our appointments with local organizations on Monday, and will be sure to let you all know how those visits go. Thank you to everyone so far for all of your support and prayers, and I am so grateful for all of my family and friends backing us from back home. It is just so so surreal to be in this place that we have spent the last six months preparing ourselves mentally and logically and emotionally for this...and so crazy. So far, it's gone wonderfully and just great and I couldn't have asked for anything better. The people here are so incredibly friendly and the culture is so welcoming, and I cannot wait to be further immersed and living in this place. (It is ABSOLUTELY crazy to think that we are LIVING here for 10 weeks...in AFRICA!!) So THANK YOU again for all of the support, it means so much and just has made such a difference so far. Anyway...love you all! Keep in touch!!!