Our day(s!) of travel

- by Karin

After a few months of planning, we have finally arrived at our destination.  We thank God for travelling mercies till so far.  My sister, Wilma and I met the two other volunteers, Kendra and Kate at the airport on Thursday morning, and from there we took 3 flights from Toronto to Blantyre.  Our first flight took us to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the airport there was packed with people, mostly Africans.  No kidding, I have never seen such a large amount of people in one building all headed to different places. There were barely seats to sit on, Wilma tried to walk around, Karin and Kendra found a seat and Kate sat on the floor.  A crowd of this was the first place where we could see a cultural difference. As North Americans we are accustomed to order and western etiquette (allowing others to go first) if you want to get to places out here, you need to keep walking, don’t stop for anyone or anything (or you won’t get anywhere), but by our standards that would consider being rude. One observation was an African lady carrying a suitcase on her head, not using any hands.

When the time came, buses took us from the airport terminal out onto the tarmac to load the plane.  From there we flew to Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi, where we received our visas and from there, we flew on to Blantyre. This was an exciting flight for us, even though it lasted only 30 minutes, as the plane we took was very small (a seat capacity of 100 people – 2 seats, 1 seat, 2 seats).  Some of us were a little nervous with this flight and our ears were ringing at the end as the plane made a lot of noise. We were relieved to get all of our suitcases, and nothing was missing!

Outside the airport we were greeted by James, a driver from Timotheos, as well as a few overly helpful Malawian men who took our suitcases without asking if we needed help which was followed by them asking us for tips!

Driving through Blantyre was an eye-opening experience.  We were driving during rush hour and there were so many people walking on the road.  Just as many as there were driving, so I was shocked to hear that accidents rarely happen.  In any case we arrived safely at the compound where one of the Dutch field workers live and we were greeted by the Dutch volunteer group which made for a gezellig evening. By this time, we have been awake for over 30 hours so were happy to see beds prepared for us and id did not take as long to fall asleep.