More Travel

After leaving Indy airport, the team and I traveled to Atlanta, GA. That flight lasted around an hour and a half and was pretty nice. I had a window seat and was able to look out at the scenery easily during the ride. The clouds were amazing during that flight, very fluffy and bright. I did not have my camera easily accessible, and therefore, did not get a picture of them. When we got to Atlanta, we had a couple hours to kill before our next flight so we used our time to get some dinner and relax before the next looong part of our journey! Our next flight would be about 15 hours long!!!

And it was long. My strategy for this flight was to try to stay awake as much as possible with the idea being that when we got to Johannesburg, South Africa, I would be exhausted and able to sleep through the night even with the 6 hour time difference. I kept myself occupied watching four of a host of free movies, listening to some good Country music and watching an episode of “What Not to Wear”. The movies were decent and they helped pass a couple hours at a time. It was a little disheartening though after watching my first movie when I looked at the time we had left and it was still 13 hours. So they passed some time but not as much as you would think. They had all three Lord of the Rings movies and those are long so maybe those will be some good ones for on the way home if they still have them available. Their movie selection overall was pretty good and they had several episodes from different TV shows that you could watch too. There were also games and a ton of CDs you could pick from to listen to from all sorts of genres. I did sleep a little on the plane but it was very difficult to get comfortable with three of us in a row and not much space. The first class seats had seats that laid out flat like a bed. I considered sneaking up there to see if there were any available quite a few times!

At last we all arrived in South Africa. When we got off the plane we went out and got a on a shuttle to take us to our hotel. We stayed at the Town Lodge. It was a very nice hotel, and we all got to take nice hot showers, after a long long day of travel!!! :) The rooms had two beds each so we were all split up into pairs. Despite my plan to stay up during the long flight so I would be exhausted and sleep well at the hotel, I did not sleep very well at all. My roommate and I both woke up at 3:15 South Africa time and were wide awake. I had a stuffy nose that was bothering me and keeping me awake. But around 4:00 we both fell asleep and got a good hour and a half of sleep before we had to get up and head back to the airport. For breakfast in Jo-burg we had bacon, eggs and french toast, as well as, fresh fruit, yogurt and muffins. It was wonderful! Then after breakfast we headed to the airport.

We got checked in at the airport and then had a little time to look around at some shops that were in the airport. Then we had a short hour and a half flight to Livingstone. We left at about 11:00 and landed in Zambia at 12:30. The line for customs took a while as there was only one line and many people on our plane. We made it through customs just fine though. Only two people from our group of 18 had their bags searched. Once we made it through customs, Maureen, a Zambian women who works with World Hope International and Debbie, a World Hope International staff member from the United States were there to greet us and take us to Choma. They had a bus that I think normally seats like 24 people or so but we had all of our luggage to fit in the bus as well. So we ended up having to put 5 people in seats that usually held 4. Overall, the ride wasn't too bad. There is one road from Livingstone to Choma and about half of it was paved. The part that was unpaved was just like a gravel dirt road and it was quite the bumpy ride. But we all made it. We stopped about half way to Choma in Zimba and were able to see the mission house there where we will be staying from some nights during our stay in Zambia. We saw the outside of the Zimba hospital where we will have some of our clincals. We also stopped at a small shopping center before leaving Livingstone. We got some water and had a chance to look in a few stores. The local grocery store in Zambia is called Spar, and they have just about anything you would need there. We got to our guest house in Zambia around 7:30 and then were served our first traditional Zambian meal. It consisted of chicken, ground corn meal that they cook called Nshima, green beans, a really good tomato type sauce, and salad. We also ate with our fingers which is the way Zambians eat their meals. I really enjoyed that first meal. We went to bed that night around 12:00 after having some time to check email and call family.

First Zambian meal! Mmmm good!