The beginning

October 7, 2009

Lawrence and I were sitting in the Jo-berg airport waiting for our final fight to Malawi, when something unbelievable happened. The Mozambique women’s national soccer team started to rush by us onto a flight they were very late for. The airline was obviously holding the flight for the team/ coaches. When all of a sudden the last 3 or 4 of the team and the coaches got off the escalator and the head Attendant just yells out Really, they refuse to run to us? Well congrats your laziness just made you miss you flight! She continued to shut the doors and would not let the remaining players/ coaches get on the bus that takes you to the plane. It was unreal, I have never seen anything like it. The Mozambique coaches were furious and this lady that worked for South African airlines continued to just stand them and call them lazy until she was finally old to leave by a supervisor, who didn’t stay and help the situation and just left himself without saying a word to the left passengers. We were there about an hour after this incident had happened and to the very minute we got on our bus to go to the plane, they still had not been helped, put on a new flight, or ever talked to for that matter. They missed their flight and were treated like they didn’t exist.

Lawrence and I’s flight from Jo-berg to Malawi was without a doubt the worst flight I have ever been on. We got to the plane and there was no limit for carry-on bags. We each had our back packs and a small rolling suitcase for carry-on and some people had 4-5 shopping bags full of things, so needless to say by the time we got on there was no overhead room left in the entire plane. Both of us being extremely tired were having trouble understanding why someone could not take their purse out of the overhead to fit our bags, but the worst part was there was about 25 people get on the plane after us and the flight attendants were so confused that we had to fight our way back off the plane to put our bags under the plane ourselves. After we got back on the plane there was an African in my seat who refused to move and the flight attendant agreed by saying it’s not a full flight. So I was forced to take a middle seat instead of the aisle. Normally I wouldn’t care, but after traveling for a little over 30 hours at that point I was pretty tired and cranky(no me never).

We finally got to Malawi after what seemed like forever. I was so ready to get out of the clothes I had been in for two days, but our luggage did not make the same trip we did. ¾’s of our plane’s luggage went to Lilongwe, the main airport and capital in Malawi. What did make the trip instead was 2 women’s personal medical supplies, about 10-15 boxes of it. On a bright note when I got to the airport there was someone waiting for me. After talking to the guy for about 5 minutes Lawrence said that he was going to take me to the project. I asked the man how long we were going to wait for the car to get here and he said no more than 5 minutes. I told Lawrence to go home with his family and that I would speak with him the next day. Needless to say, I should have gone with Lawrence. We waited for a little over an hour for the car to pick me up. The car took me to chilengoma the Main TTC in Malawi. I spent about 10 minutes there before I was shipped off to the plantation office to deal with my immigration issues (don’t worry mom I just have to get my passport checked at the end of every month). From there I was taken in a van to Amalika. Amalika is the school I will be living and working at for the next three months. Upon my arrival I briefly talked with Moses who is in charge of me and the other Development Instructors, tried to use the internet, had my first glass of borehole water (interesting), and went to bed. I think I slept for almost 12 hours.