My Journey to Malawi!

And my journey begins! Mom and I arrived at the Raleigh/Durham airport at 4am! There, I meet my fellow travelers - Dr. Carol Shores and her boyfriend, John. At 6am, off we went! We flew ~1.5 hours to Washington, D.C. on a very small plane. I was fortunate to sit next to a neonatal intensive care nurse from Duke, because the turbulence made me queasy! I felt like I was riding on a spinning carnival ride...

Once we landed in Washington, we had a short layover then boarded the plane for Addis Ababa, Ethiopia - a 14 hour flight! The airplane was huge! I am so thankful that God protected us as we made the tremendous journey across the Atlantic ocean! Here is a picture of the path of our flight from Washington...

Unfortunately, Dr. Shores, John, and I had to sit in the very last row! I sat next to a student named Austin, who was traveling to Zimbabwe from Alabama along with 13 others students as a part of a mission trip. Their group was going to build drinking wells to supply clean water to those less fortunate - how cool! We had lots to talk about, he was very kind and we got along great. He was excited to learn that I would be his traveling buddy, because on his last flight he had to sit next to a cougar hitting on him! haha. Meet Austin...

The views from the sky was breathtaking - it was so surreal. I got to see both the sunset and sunrise during the flight!

After landing in Ethiopia, we made our last flight to Malawi - 4 hours! I slept the entire way... When we landed in Malawi, 2 UNC-project members were there to greet us and give us a ride back to our house: John (a surgeon) and Melanie (resident from Duke). It was less than 5 mins and I already looked like a foreigner  trying to get in the car on the wrong side!  In Malawi, the steering wheels are on the right side of the car and you drive on the left side of the street. It is absolute chaos! It was about a 30 minute drive to our house in Area 6.












Coming up next... my first day in Malawi!