I have arrived!

 Dear United States Family,

I have arrived!

Well day one in Africa and I am already falling love.

But first things first… The plane ride(s)

My journey to Africa started off with a flight cancellation. Not a good way to start but it does mean that I was able to have a birthday lunch with my parents and grandpa before finally leaving.

Then on the plane I went. Instead of flying to Dallas I was rerouted to LA then on to London. My flight to London was long but nothing to exciting to report. I sat next to a cute old British couple who bickered and held hands the whole flight J. I did not get much sleep unfortunately but all in all it was  a good flight. Then I got to hang out in the London airport for 6 hours. I found myself an uncomfortable bench and slept for a few hours. Then I caught my flight to Kenya. I again was surrounded with British people that made the flight rather entertaining. Then in Kenya I had a short layover before getting on my flight to Uganda. Nothing too exciting happened on any of the flights. I didn’t sleep much on any of them but all in all I can’t complain about the 28 hours total on planes.

I went through customs; got my visa, a warm welcome to Uganda, and a blast of humidity I haven’t felt since Tennessee. Then out the doors I went to finally meet someone from my team! Todd and Jessie and Mike were there to pick me up. I was the second volunteer to arrive as others had had flight changes and delays. I will admit I was happy to finally see people I knew… or would soon know ;) We had to hang out in Entebbe for a while to wait for three other volunteers so we went to breakfast ( they ate I didn’t I had just eaten airplane breakfast and was not quite ready to eat again)  the drive was so beautiful and green. Then we went to the hostel they had stayed at and just hung about for a bit until we went to pick up the others. After that we hopped in our van and our hilarious and kind driver Stephen drove us all the way to Mbale. The ride was longer than usual but not too bad and we got back close to 9pm. Driving through Uganda was surreal. I have been planning and thinking about coming to Uganda for months now and to be here I am not sure it has fully set in! Here are a few pictures from the drive sorry there aren’t very many my phone had limited battery power to take pictures on the way.

Then we made it home to our beautiful purple house. I was so relieved to see a bed! J We all quickly showered (so cold but so refreshing) and went to bed and it was heavenly! This morning has been relaxing as we are waiting for Todd to come with the other volunteers that came later.We have already experienced the joys of power outings already! Apparently it goes off close to 8 times a day so who know what times I will be able to update while I am here but I am off to a pretty good start!  **** the power was out ALLLLLLLLL day so in this short time I will not post pics here but I will to facebook****

We are already set to meet with partners (those that Help has worked with in the past) this afternoon. I am grateful that we have had the morning to get situated and over the jet lag a bit before we jump in even if it is just for a few hours!

**Update**

We met with Saleh today in Mbale. Everyone is great and kind and wonderful but Saleh is the best. He owns a café/hostel in town and uses the funds to support the school that he is the principal at. He has worked with Help for a few years and has been instrumental in multiple projects. We are so excited to do some more evaluations of past projects and decide what we will be doing with his help.

We took our first Boda boda ride and it was a disaster in every sense of the word but the best experience. We all tried to stay together but two bodas took off, one stopped at the petrol station, we got separated. But we all found our way back… And I had my first Ugandan man propose to me. Yep, cant say that I was expecting that but all is well that ends well and I promise I will not marry the first Ugandan that proposes to me J Tomorrow we are off the orphanage and some more training.

Enjoy the few pictures on facebook I will post them here later too!

With love from Africa.