The First Days

11/11/15

Well, I’m finally here! Malamulo in Makwasa. After spending the last two days either in an airplane or in an airport, it is SO nice to be in my own room with all my luggage accounted for. I couldn’t be more grateful to God for walking me through my travels, it went as smoothly as I could have hoped for! I have my 30-day traveler’s visa (which will hopefully be extended later this month) and my own room in the guest house here which houses a few others who work at the hospital.
Yesterday was a whirlwind of new things for me, from navigating a foreign airport and obtaining a visa and such by myself was a little daunting, but in reality it’s mostly in my head because there are these lovely things called signs and if you read them you’ll usually be able to find your way around, especially if you pay attention to the announcements as well! (Go figure.) The roads here are more rugged than those in Walla Walla (although the WW roads are finally being fixed) but anyways you definitely want to have a car that can handle the huge potholes and ruts and such if you want to live here, but wow I like it here so far! Shar gave me a mini tour of Blantyre while running some errands after picking me up at the airport, and it is all really eye opening! I can see I have a lot to learn here about the language and the people but I'm looking forward to it! There are lots of tea plantations around (among other major export crops) and they are such a bright green that they really stand out against the reddish dirt. It also was pretty interesting riding passenger on the left front seat of the car! This was my first official ride in a car oriented for driving on the left side of the road so I enjoyed the new perspective :) It’s a seemingly small thing but isn’t it the small things that make each culture so rich? Anyways, I had a blast yesterday (the 10th) and I am now working on unpacking and making the room mine.
Of course, it’s only 6:30am-ish here. I woke up around 4am with the rooster, which strangely enough is STILL singing the song of its people! I’ve never spent any great length of time around chickens and roosters before so this will be interesting! I probably wouldn’t have woken up with it except that my internal body clock has no idea what day or time it is, so I was pretty wide awake when I got up. Jetlag... what a joy! Oh well, mornings are a good time to be productive, which is why I’m writing this now. Although, I don’t have internet access yet so who knows when this will actually be posted!
Anyways, everyone that I’ve met here has been really welcoming and kind and I adore the boys I’m going to be teaching! I’m pretty scared for the unknown still but that’s normal and I’ve got good people here and a God that cares so whatever happens will be ok somehow. He even allowed me to only see the huge spider outside my room when I was being given a tour, and thus someone else kindly disposed of it for me. (Thank goodness!)
Well I think I hit on all the main points for now, hopefully I’ll have some interesting stories in the future to put up and hopefully some pictures too! Thanks for checking out my blog and for all the prayers that got me here! I couldn’t be more ready for this new stage in my life!
Until later! 


Later same day:
The rooster is still at it. It’s 3:06pm. I wish I had that kind of vocal stamina! He’s currently sitting right outside my window… new friend? Probably not. It’s my second day and I’ve had fresh papaya, and three other new fruits(one that reminds me of a kiwi berry, one that you bite the top off and squeeze the insides into your mouth, and one yellow one that is really sweet) that I can’t remember the name of, and yesterday I tried fresh lychee for the first time! It’s funny though because here, people often add the ending “ee” to the ends of words, but words that already have that they will sometimes omit that ending, so it isn’t uncommon to hear locals asking if you want to buy a leech. Sounds appetizing right? But in reality they are quite good! I’ve also been warned that since I go by Nikki, I will probably be called Nick sometimes for the same reason. Anyways, that's my life at the moment! Thanks for reading! :)