Finally there...

Today, I finally feel like we are in Africa. We took a mid-morning flight to Bylantre, Malawi. On the plane, I talked to a Diabetes researcher from Johns Hopkins in Maryland and an oncologist from Scotland. There was a seriously cool group of maybe 10 men wearing bright outfits ... I don't know what the name of the attire was - do men wear saris? They were also wearing turbans, as looked like tibetan monks if tibetan monks had facial hair. (do they?) I really desperately wanted to speak to them, but I never quite got the opportunity. (and Betsy didn't want me to ... sigh ...)

So, we flew out of the largest city in all of Africa and landed here:



We walked down the stairs from the plane (out the back door! A first for me) and into a room where they stamped our passports and booted us out the other side.

We went from the airport to the home of our host, Nedson Zulu. His is a pastor. His wife Sarah is related to Sebber (pronounced Seh-buh), a nurse practitioner and partner in the Holistic Evangelism ministry. Their older children and grandchildren were still at school, but the younger children sang for us.

So here's an interesting side-story: the president of Malawi died last month. The vice-president was installed, and Malawi now has its first woman president. She began her career as a teacher, even founding a school in Blantyre, which Sebber's daughter attends! Last week, the president visited the school and Sebber's daughter was asked to make a presentation to her, and was able to shake her hand. Cool, huh? She said all her friends wanted to smell her hand to know what the president smells like.

They fed us a fabulous lunch (at three-ish) and we piled in two cars for our big driving adventure. We are staying tonight in Mwanza, a village just on the Malawi side of the the Mozambique border; we'll cross in the morning. I'm so glad Nedson and Sebber are with us, because the language barrier is so great. This is simply not a trip you could just set out on by yourself!

The Mwanze Motel has rolling black-outs, but it does offer toilet paper and hot water, which is apparently a step up from last year...

Honestly, though, it's nice. It's somewhere between camp and a dormitory, with open-air windows and tile floors. I have nothing to complain about! Because guess what y'all? I'm in Africa!!