AFRICA!!!

soooo i promised to blog.

so i am. ha ha.

we have been in africa for a total of 4 days. (i believe). our trip over here took a long long LONG time. we left on june 2 and arrived on june 5....here why don't i tell you:

on june 2 i flew out of little rock for dallas. connected in dallas for nyc! got to nyc around 3.30 in the afternoon. while i was waiting for my checked luggage i see Jon Waddell walking up! we get our bags and through a series of unfortunate events catch the shuttle to the comfort inn hotel NOT the comfort inn SUITES hotel. :)

we get there and low and behold we have a reservation but it has not yet been paid for...and to pay for it we need to card that made the reservations...unfortunately that card was back in arkansas with our professor and coordinator mark berryman....we did some searching and jon found out berryman's number! we called him and he preceded to fax the credit card information to the hotel! :)

jon and i waited in the lobby for a little while before ted and kaitlyn showed up! reunited! we ordered take out. GOT OUR ROOMS. then mark and kim showed up!!! we had dinner THEN ted, kait, kim and i caught a cab to go into the city! my uncle don was going to meet us there and give us a tour.

it took us about an hour subway ride BUT we finally got to nyc and walked around seeing the sights for a couple of hours! it was so great to see uncle don and he was such a blessing to me and my friends! he bought us desserts at a classic ny restaurant jimmy's. then he paid for a cab to take us home.

got back to hotel AND kaitlin petty was there!!! jon and mark had gone to pick her up at the airport since her flight got in so late.

sleep came quickly. we woke up at 8 for our flight. zack met us there and we embarked on a 12 hour one to dubai.....basically it felt like june 3 never happened. because we left ny on june 3 at 11 in the morning then 12 hours later arrived in dubai at 8 in the morning on june 4....strange!!! waited a few hours then caught another 5 hour plane to dar es salma in tanzania, africa. waiting in line for customs and for our bags...that was an ordeal in itself fighting crowds and such.....

we walked outside and God bless america or tanzania berryman's friend abraham was waiting outside to take us to a hotel! our next flight was not until the next morning SO we had to stay the night. we drove through traffic. it was crazy. weird. we were in africa.

got to our hotel. mark (our declared leader) worked out our hotel accommodations--we each had our own air conditioned rooms (i'll post pictures later). we ate dinner there. rice, chicken, duck (i didn't have any but apparently it was the best thing ever) veggies and soup. [yeah you probably did not care to know our menu...] ha ha

after dinner we basically all went to bed so we each got a good 11+ hours of sleep! woke up the next morning abraham picked us up and we went to him home for a little bit to meet his wife and daughters. we talked and fellowshiped for a while. it was a great encouragement for all of us and also for abraham.

we had a little trouble getting on our flight. they lost our reservation or something...so mark and abraham talked with the airline and got us back on the flight. we weighed our luggage...had to be under 66 pounds per person! we all made it sooo we walked through security and waited for our flight.

we had to walk outside to get to the plane it was so small...ha ha it was kinda scary i won't lie...but it only took 2 hours to fly to pemba, mozambique! the missionaries chad and allen were waiting at the airport for us! we all got our luggage packed in their cars then we ate at the airport restaurant. interesting....ha ha

hopped in the cars and 3 hours later we were in MONTEPUEZ!!!! FINALLY ha ha ha dropped the boys off at the westerholms and us girls headed over to the howells.

unpacked, cleaned up and went to SLEEP!!!!!!!

so we woke up on the 6th and went to church! four of the interns went with the howells then the other four went with the westerholms.

kaitlin petty, mark, jon and i went with the howells.

church was great. different. 4 hours long. but great :) i will give details later BUT for now it's game night with allen and rachel :)

with love.
caroline