Howzit?

Well, I can hardly believe it but I’m here. I really made it to South Africa. After over 24 hours of travel, I’m finally getting settled in to my home for the next two and a half months. A lot has happened in the last two days. It all started at around a quarter to four Tuesday morning when I woke up remembering that we planned to leave at four, so we rushed to put everything in the car and off we were to LAX. I checked in at the ticket counter and the lady asked me if I had a laptop computer in the suitcase, and I did because I didn’t want to carry it in my backpack. So, she recommended that I put it in my backpack because the airport people are not so gentle with the luggage. I heeded her advice and was glad I did, for when put my suitcase on the scale to see if I had exceeded the fifty pound weight limit a big digital red “49.5 lbs” showed up on the screen. My computer is at least five pounds. So, God was gracious to me in a way that I wasn’t even aware that I needed grace in.
I was a little early, about an hour, for the flight to New York. Which was nice because I had a chance to read and kind of catch my breath. They called my seating section and boarded the plane and I had gotten a window seat, which was nice. The guy next to me though it was nice too, because he was leaning on me with his blanket wrapped around his head snoozing away. He didn’t get up once. As a result, that made for a long five and a half hour flight to New York.
Once in New York I had to find the South African Airlines ticket booth. And they have a cool thing at JFK called the airbus, which is a tram that takes you to the different terminals. So I hopped on that to terminal 4 to search for SAA. We boarded and took off with no problems. I received seat 76G which is the furthest possible seat on the aircraft. I didn’t mind at all because no one was sitting next to me this time. The plane was relatively empty which was really nice. Once in the air they handed out menu’s for food. And on it I saw the menu for the food that was being served from JFK to Dakar. And I didn’t think much of it until I saw where we were going to be landing. Dakar, Senegal. Dakar, Senegal??? There must be a mistake, I’m supposed to be going to Johannesburg! I told myself to calm down and that I did everything right. But wait. Did I really see gate 27b. Maybe I got on 27a and am going to be stuck in Dakar forever. “Oh come on Matt, snap out of it!” I said to myself. Mind you this is all in the air over the Atlantic already. I just kept telling myself that there is nothing that I can do about it now so just enjoy the flight, so I got up and went to the bathroom, and after I was standing where all of the flight attendants stay and where they keep the food, and on all of the containers they were marked “Flight 203 to Dakar” but my flight was “Flight 204 to Johannesburg” I memorized everything about my flight after checking my boarding pass and itinerary just to make sure.
So after calming myself down after that I asked the lady sitting two seats over if I could see her boarding pass stub and she graciously let me borrow it, and what do you know they matched. She told me that this was just a stop and that we don’t get off of the plane. That was such a relief to hear.
Seven hours of worrying about what the people were like in Dakar, and asking myself if I was going to fit in because that’d be where I was living, to say the least I was relieved to take off again en route to Johannesburg. That flight was a blur and I don’t have much to say about the flight from Dakar to JoBurg. So I’m not going to say anything.
Beth picked me up and she showed me my room at one of the Lambano houses. I thought I would be staying at the church but Beth thought it was a little scary to stay there by myself, so we thought it best to be with the kids. Well, no not really, the fear was not a factor with me. but just because it was nicer, and closer to the kids. I want to take pictures of it and I’ll put them up ASAP. And now I’m just adjusting to going to sleep because SA is nine hours ahead of the States. I’ll keep posting things as they happen. I love you all back at home.