Friday, January 05, 2007

Internet Cafes

Internet cafes exist even in the outskirts of Lilongwe, Malawi.

It took us two full days to get here, but Nichole and I finally arrived this afternoon (I think it's Friday). I'm too jet-lagged to write anything completely coherent, but here's some basics:

For the next three weeks, I'll be teaching something to someone. While I'm figuring that out, two lovely interns picked us up from the airport and have been helping us settle, eat, and find internet. Settling took approximately five minutes, as our luggage was lost. That truncated passive voice in the last sentence is meant to disguise my feelings of betrayal by British Air, who promised me (multiple times) that my bags would make it to Africa. We're surviving, though. We had a lovely dinner of mango chicken (it's mango season!), and are getting ready for our orientation tomorrow. Tomorrow afternoon we're visiting a farm that houses about thirty orphans. Everyone's been so warm and welcoming. One Malawian lady hugged me welcome, then held my hand (tight) as she led me to the van. It made me smile.

I'll have sporadic internet access after all, so there may be more updates, but don't hold your breath. If you want to get a hold of me, you can email me.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Actually, your luggage is quite probably in Africa right now. It's just not with you. That betrayal you feel is because you assumed greater accuracy than was actually promised.

Andrew Seely said...

I hope you get the chance to learn more than you get to teach. As I'm sure the experience will be fantastic.

I was almost at the point of wondering if you were going to be a hobo-blogger, but now I understand why the lack of posts.

But I'm sure that you're going to have a good time and enjoy those mangoes for me.

Anonymous said...

Oh light of my life! I feel truely hopeful now that you have internet access. Even if you never get the chance to use it because you are so delightfully busy with beautiful Africa I feel much better knowing that the option to communicate is at least available. It feels aweful to be cut off from you. Translation: I love you, miss you, am radically proud of you and hope all the best for you.

Anonymous said...

oh mary, my little sunshine. hope you are safe. i just watched blood diamond and i'm ready to go to africa...wanna hang out? (; no seriously, i miss you and am praying for you. Hope you recover the luggage. big hug, little hug, big kiss, little kiss.

Jenevieve said...

Oh Gravy, yay for Africa! I was hoping you'd have a long layover in London so I could take the train down to see you, but alas. I hope your luggage makes it more or less soon, and that you have 1 billion amazing stories to tell us!