{Africa. Final Days.}

It's all about a wedding to come. It's all about a God who's a lover. I love it when quality songs get stuck in my head. Ah, and I JUST finished skyping with Kevin love who's in London. On Thursday (of this past week) he decided that he wanted to go somewhere. Next thing you know, I'm driving him to the airport early Friday morning and he arrived in London around 11pm our time! Crazy kid :) Moving on...

May 28th and 29th -- Saying our Goodbyes and Homeward Bound.

Friday morning was a sad one! Our team (6 of us at least) had to say our goodbyes to all of the staff at Somebody Cares. :( Several hugs later, we hopped in the van and headed for the market. We spent 20 mins doing some last minute bargaining and everyone left with wonderful things! I scored 2 handmade drums (kind of like bongos) for $16, before finally heading for the airport!


(The lovely staff! Front row, L-R: Kathryn, Steve and Fatimayta. Mid Row: Ramsay, Mary, Chipi, Keta. Back: Edward, Khama and Julianne)

Once there, we all bid farewell (again) except, of course, for Kelsey, who was privileged enough to stay behind. Saying goodbye to her was especially hard! Oh how I love her. She was absolutely hilarious, and her honesty rivaled that of my dear friend Jasmine! Ah.


(JP tried on Chris' new favorite purchase!)

Moving on, we then boarded the flight to South Africa (side note: I heard back from SIM and am praying about spending a few months with them next summer in SA!!) which was rather eventful. I was convinced that the man sitting next to me had some shady plans. At first, Kelly just thought I was overreacting (being myself) and then by the end of the flight she was like "OMG Kel, he's freaking out!" If you want to know the whole story, just ask me in person! It's a funny one :) Let's just say that the skills I learned during my Psych rotation DEFINITELY came in handy!


(Blurry picture, but this was our team's final supper)

Once in Johannesburg, we had a lovely team dinner, sampled the major sponsoring liquor of the World Cup (it was just like Costco samples!) and had a push up contest (of which I could only complete one... I've been working on it though! woo hoo). The flight from Johannesburg to London Heathrow was completely uneventful and full of wonderful sleep. We then chilled in London for quite a few hours (of which I slept on a bench and walked almost the entire time... oh, and I sampled some really yummy perfume too!) before boarding the eventful flight home.


(Kel and I just before boarding the flight to London... we shared a row and managed to stack our bodies in every human way possible to try and get some horizontal sleep!)

Let's just say that upon boarding, the ac was out on the entire plane (which made it smoldering hot -- luckily they were able to fix it), the entertainment system crashed shortly after take off (which meant no movies, tv or music for 11 hours -- which wasn't that big of a deal), and lastly, the emergency system came on with an announcement (somewhere over New York) that summoned us to our seats, asked us to buckle up and warned us that the oxygen masks were deploying. They then went through the instructions of how to put them on... and THEN the pilot came on and said that in all of his 23 years of experience, he'd never had that blooper happen before. The emergency announcement played 3 more times before we landed in Phoenix. I can honestly say that I was thrilled to be on solid ground.


(Kel just before landing in London -- she'd been upset if she knew I posted this pic ;)

What a trip.


(World Traveler?? I don't think so... more like a Continent Hopper :)