Arrival and first day

After over 36 hours of travel time, Emily, Rachel and I finally reached Manzini, Swaziland. Mine and Emily's luggage made it, but unfortunately Rachels didn't :( Other wise, all the travel went smoothly. On our flight from Chicago to London, Emily somehow got bumped up to buisness class (lucky!). As I was walking through first class when boarding I was looking through the seats to find out where she ended up, then to my surprise I locked eyes with Kanye West. No joke. I did one of those awkward double takes after you accidently get caught staring at someone, haha! I wasn't completely sure it was him until one of the other passengers near me brought it up. After we got off the flight I told Emily she was sitting 3 seats behind him and she had no idea! After arriving at the London airport we were shuttled to the correct terminal by bus through what seemed to be a permanent construction zone. It was a very strange airport set up to say the least. We then had to wait 6 hours before boarding out flight to Johannesburg, but they don't annouce the gate number of flights until about 1 hour before boarding, and you'll have to ride the tram to get to the other gates. Like I said, its a weird airport. Nice, but weird. Our flight to Jo-berg was on a Boeing 747 aircraft - which was massive! Even though it was an 11 hour flight, it is probably one of the best I've been on ever. It was (dare I say it) comfortable, good food, and an individual television to watch movies of our choice. Of course I slept most the way, but I was still satisfied with that experience. The next flight we were on a teeny-tiny plane, but only for 45 minutes, which flew by compared to the last flights we had.

Dr Maonei is our coordinator for these rotations and he picked us up at the airport. All the people we have met here so far are very friendly, and funny too! They love to laugh and joke around! One of the first people we were introduced to Zakahle (pronounced like my name with -zuh in front of it) Dr. Maonei gave us the day to rest so we napped for a few hours and then Zakahle walked us down to the mall to get water and a cell phone that the hospital can call us at. We spent less than 50 USD on a phone, sim card and some local calling minutes. We walked around town with him for a while and he would tell us about the town, the language, and all sorts of other things. He shared so much that I wasn't able to remember alot of it! While most speak some english here, their accents make it a little difficult to understand. The native language is SiSwati, so I will share with you bits as we learn it. I know a few now but I'm not sure how to spell it. Zakahle walked us around the hospital a bit too. Our living quarters are pretty nice. Its no 5 star hotel, but we have internet, a little bit of AC and a kitchen. Oh, did I mention its Summer here? Well, the weather is wonderful! A bit humid but not unbearable.

Anyway, it is almost 9pm here so we will be heading to bed soon since we are still exhausted from traveling. And this post is getting long so I'll stop for now. I've got plenty of time to share more about Swaziland. Pardon any typos or grammer mistakes, I don't feel like reading over it right now since i'm still jet-lagged.