Malaweeee finally made it

       After almost four days of travel, we finally made it to Malawi! The flight from Joburg to Lilongwe was real easy compared to the fifteen hour flight (and night spent) in Joburg. At the airport, we were picked up by our group coordinators, Jaren and Karen. Karen's a junior at Colby and had just spent a semester studying in Botswana, and Jaren is graduated from college and is Canadian. The other members of our group arrived with us as well, the first time the program has ever gone 0-6 for arrivals (we were all supposed to arrive Thursday, but didn't make it until Friday). Our group is made of five girls: us two, Catherine from Kentucky, Lauren from Virginia, and Kayla from Connecticut, and one boy- Nick from Canada. We're staying in a house in "area 3" of Lilongwe (the city is made up of a number of areas that are located in a random order...doesn't make much sense). The house is much larger and nicer than both of us had expected. We've spent almost the entire time that we have been here so far doing orientation activities and learning the curriculum. It's a lot of practice activities and working in teaching partners, as well as with the translators that will be coming with us to the schools. It's a lot each day, but it's important that we had orientation to make sure that we're ready to teach the students.

Yesterday we had a few hours off (finally!) and Karen brought us to the Ministry of Hope Crisis Center. It's a nursery where parents can drop their newborn babies to be cared for during the first two years of their lives. What we learned was that the majority of children are never picked up by their parents and end up going to orphanages after their second birthdays. However, we can confidently say that every baby in the crisis center is a happy and healthy baby, and is well cared for by the many women working in the center. As baby-lovers, we had a ball. The kids were so excited to have visitors, and were some of the cutest babies we had ever seen. We even got the chance to feed them. We're really excited to get to go back later in the session, and maybe even take a baby home with us. (Sorry mom, we're only kind of kidding.)

Today we finished up orientation, and went into town for some grocery shopping. Caitlin didn't think she'd buy any food while here, but the diet of oatmeal and peanut butter and jelly sammies supplied by World Camp got old in about one day. So we ventured into the outdoor vegetable market to buy some fruit and a very interesting looking avocado. While at these markets, us azungu are a sight to be seen by the locals. A lot of people know what world camp is so they come over to introduce themselves and meet the new group. It's really cool to know that World Camp has a such a good reputation here and that the people are excited to meet each group of volunteers. Tomorrow is our first day of camp and although we're a bit nervous, it's exciting to finally get to work with the kids. Each night we start getting tired around 7, so the full camps days will do wonders for our sleep.

      We're really enjoying the city and the people and are super excited for our first camp tomorrow.