WE HAVE ARRIVED!

On Monday, June 8 Carlie and I met up at Dulles Airport. Both of our parents and Adam waved us off as we walked through security. From Dulles we flew on a baby-filled airplane to London. On the flight we were immediately submerged into the English culture as all the flight attendants were British (we lost it when one asked us for our "rubbish"). After arriving in London, it took us an hour to figure out how to leave the airport. However we did eventually find the tube and left to explore London. As it turns out London is not nearly as big as one would assume. It took us merely an hour to visit Buckingham Palace (we saw the guards through the gates), Westminister Abbey, and Big Ben. We also ate some pancakes (after exchanging money to pounds) overlooking the River Thames and the Congress building and spoke to Constabile Chris. We were both exhausted so we headed back to the airport and slept. From London we had an 8-hour flight to Nairobi, Kenya and then from there a 3-hour flight to Lusaka, Zambia. We actually saw Mt. Kilamanjaro from our airplane window. It was really easy getting through customs and security and London and we were immediately greeted by our cab driver, Boisy. He was gracious enough to help us get money changed to Kwacha and then drove us to the bus station. Zambians are extremely helpful and friendly and so we were swarmed by 6-7 bus station workers as soon as we arrived and almost led Carlie away to a different bus. Boisy helped us purchase our tickets and made sure that we were sitting in our seats before he left. He also let us borrow his phone to call Marinette which was great to finally hear her voice. We finally left the bus station and headed to Mongu after an hour of being solicited by all the Zambians roaming around. The bus was full of people (we were the only white people on the bus) and it made several stops along the way (we were never quite sure if we were at Mongu yet). Zambia is a beautiful country to say the least. Unfortunately we didn't see any animals while traveling. The bus ride took about 7 hours and we arrove in Mongu at 10:00pm (it was really dark when we finally got here). Paul met us at the bus station and we drove 10-15 minutes to Mutoya, the mission compound. Marinette fed us some curry beef and rice dinner and Jess showed us our accomadations. We both have a tent to sleep in and we both have cots to sleep on (what a surprise, Hallelujah!). Actually there are 3 goats here that have made their homes on our porches. We were able to sleep horizontally for the first time in 3 days, unfortunately we slept in and were late for our first breakfast date. Today, Thursday, we have been busy meeting the different missionary couples who work here and they have told us all that they do. I think we will be very busy helping with their orphan school and with their children's ministries. People are genuinely friendly and helpful. We also drove in to town to buy our food. This place has far exceeded our expectations and we are excited to see what the next 6 week hold for us. We will hopefully be able to shower for the first time since leaving sometime this afternoon.

Just a note, I didn't experience any motion sickness in all the looong days of traveling. My only sickness has come from being congested and my stomach being upset.

Clarissa, with many details by Carlie