Arrival!

[this is one of those photos i always take. and the security guards almost always look like theyre gonna shoot you. or arrest you. apparently in the DRC they actually do. you know, as you get off the plane at night, goign into the airport, armed men everywhere.. but filled with the excitement of being in a new country, and wanting to photograph ever moment of it.. yeah.]

as soon as we walked into the (cute, homely) airport in Tana, everyone lit up. And seeing Meagan and Tamlin (who had arrived a few days before us, to get everything ready) made it all very real. We'd spent hours talking about being on this mission, and here we all are, in the airport together! CRAZY! Aw and the first thing they did was hug us all, with their bright smiles.. And gave us each hats to choose from! Chloe spent ages fitting them on, tryin to pick the right one. As soon as I went to get one, Meagan told me that they'd picked one out just for me! Tamlin said they saw it in the market and both said "that's so andrea" and had to get it haha it's the cutest!

oh gosh and WE MET NADIA! She's GREAT! We're having so much fun* With all of us being thrown into the deep end, it being our first mission., we've had awesum times finding our way together! 

(christof and chloe. they both look kinda scary here, i swear theyre nice people hahaha)

-aand this is jo, scarlett's mom. she's the childlife therapist. she has the best job in the world! she plays games with kids. and she's SO BRILLIANT. and hilarious!!!

we took two trolleys by acccident, and just couldn't get them apart...

[TOTALLY shouldve invested in a blackberry! haha now all you BBMers know where you can come* YES i just said BBMers.]

We got our luggage (all of it YAY) and our visas and we were OFF to the hotel... (I have no idea whats going on in this photo! But it's showing us in the busses.. so here haha)

The Road to Tana..

this is the first photo i took. of chloe. who is looking over my shoulder right now. she's saying how amazing i am. (okay okay i may have twisted that a lil...) we were in the jhb airport. minutes after we both realised it had been hours since we left home, and neither of us had been taking photos. then we saw this GIANT tabasco sauce and our cameras were never the same...

what else? chloe went into every stationary shop looking for sillybandz. and EVENTUALLY(after Christof and i had rejected her. "you can go by yourself to this one, meet you at spur" --yes mom, we made sure she'd be safe first. CAMP RULES APPLY.

she found them, and bought so many she couldnt buy food haha (THATS dedication. especially from chloe..)

"there must be twentyfour letters in the pack" -chloe, about her alphabet sillybandz

"you know there are twenty six letters in the alphabet, right?" -andrea

*silence*

aaand we had a wonderful team vibe, anticipating GREAT times with our new family.. OH and they all realised how weird i am when i spent half an hour figuring out what i wanted.. changing my mind a hundred times.. (WHO doesnt have cranberry juice and a kiddies grilled chicken combo?! come on. OBVIOUSLY life gets complicated after the greatest meal ever has been denied.) and then eventually decided to satisfy the craving for a chico the clown. #mostdelicious

At Spur, we also spent some time asking Genevieve a ton of questions, bc she was the only one at our table who'd been to Tana before.

The rest of the journey was good... sat opposite Scar for the onetime journey CT to JHB.. on a tiny tiny plane. I haven't entered a plane from the back before.. that was interesting.. Aaand I met Dawid the Anaethetist. and Christof became our LEGIT BRO. we got lost in the airport. well, not lost. ALL the airport staff gave us incorrect directions. HOW do so many people not know what's going on?! gosh. In the end though, we ended up exactly where we started, and all was fine. "I just couldn't do any of that by myself. I have to travel with a man. -or Chloe." -andrea

We had a really long wait in the airport before our flight to Tana. Spent most of it at Exclusive Books, a group of us set up camp there. #great times

(Oh Tim, the lady on the plane intercom speaks French, you'd love it. -And all the stewardesses are French. Even here in Tana, everyone has that cool French accent!)

LV bag update: It KILLED me. KILLED ME. Bc yes, it is beautiful. But yes, it's me. And ofcourse the rolly thing didnt work. AND ofcourse it was way more full than ideal. "put EVERYTHING youd need into your carryon bc your luggage may not arrive" Anyway. My arm was slightly swollen for a bit, and i have legit scars on my shoulders. But it's alll good.

Kept having these 'Ohmygosh this is real. This. Is. Happening.' moments. So much time knowing it's gonna come, so much theoretical knowledge, so many stories heard. But this is ME. Here. Now. Whaaaat.

Other news: I had my first canned pawpaw experience. And they gave us HUGE cashews. They eat so much eggplant here, its divine. I end with a quote I got from Britt's goodbye letter:

"Remember that nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion"

More to come.

okay so we're sitting in the bar, with jazz in the background (dad it's like exactly what you play during.. all the time. lol) aaand dinner has been pushed back by an hour. and christoff (who IS christiaan! IT'S crazy!) doesnt need the PIT laptop so im gonna try blog atleast the first few days worth of photos and stories.. *drumroll please*

OH this photo is from this INCREDIBLE dam.. lake? haha i dont know.. that we visited in the botanical gardens today. -more on that later :)

Love Beyond Words

i have so much to say, ive got it all ready to get onto a post. but we just got back to the (AMAZING) hotel. have tons of photos i'll blog tomorrow. rightnow though, we're going out for dinner to a place that apparently doesnt have a roof. oh and this girl, im in love with her.. she's just. wow. the cutest :) her name is clara. FINALLY the only three sentences i remember from frenchclass came into use. haha but moer on that later aaah must go must go. anyway, she spent all of todya with me. but i didnt see any of her family and she didnt go through screening. she just kept looking at me. and sitting by me. we don't speak eachother's languages, but we communicated perfectly, joking around about the people around us. she kept posing for photos and wanting to see. and asking chloe for stickers. then when i had to leave she followed me up the stairs and took me to room 209 in the onchology ward. where her whole family is sitting. and smiling at me. we had a ten minute 'i have no idea what youre sayin' laughing moment, and concluded that id come by tomorrow.

i haven't cried yet, i thought i would. there were two moments i almost did, you know when youre just overwhelm withe motion? when we first walked into the hospital there was a sea of faces, hundreds and hundreds of people, who had parted this pathway for us to walk through. they were all smiling and just wow so friendly and welcoming and so grateful for our presence. -we hadn't even set up yet, and there wer 'thankyous' from all over. i was just struck by the welcoming hearts of the people here. -The Carlton Hotel's generosity (more on that later aah sorry im tryna rush here, i just really wanan give you guys an ideea of what im feeling) Also, I'm really truly experiencing the power of a smile. Beyond words, beyond understanding what's going on.. The smiles the team and the patients, the families share.. Priceless moments. Feelings we couldn't describe even if we had a language in common.

I promise I'll blog properly tomorrow! Bye xoxo

Feel it. It is here. (cheesy, but true)

how AMAZING is this ball? im obsessed. it's sparkly and bouncy and superfun! Aaand it's one of my cool toys for the mission. Ialso got these cute teacher stickers..

some of my other favourites are a cool blue skipping rope, Ben10 playing cards, colourful chalk and looong balloons (hope chloe knows how to make actual balloon animals, else we're gonna have hundreds of balloon snales crawlin round haha) oh and i got the cutest notepads from ali ali ali. they have cute lil phrases on them like

"relax and enjoy life. know that whatever you need to know is revealed to you in the perfect time and space"

"the work you are doing within yourself is not a goal, it's a process. -a lifetime process. enjoy the process"

"when good comes into our lives and we deny it by saying 'i dont believe it' we literally push our good away"

i mean, seriously, can u get cuter? -and so profound. thanks ali!!!!

this is one of my favourite photos from the recent DRC mission. (there are hundreds! shouldve posted more.. oh well, madagascar ones will come soon. TOMORROW! aaaah!) it's crazy! aaah im getting butterflies just thinking about it. i CANNOT believe it HERE. aaaah. those of you that know me will know that 'aah' is literally happening. im screaming. and smiling. and jumping up and down like crazy!! aaaaah i cant stop i cant stop. okay *breathe*

what else? im sorta packed. oh wait let me take a photo of my bag quick...

okay seriously. I LOVE TECHNOLOGY. how EPIC is it that i just took this photo, im staring at my bag on the floor infront of me, and now its.. aaah haha maybe im just being a lil dramatic, but we live in such a cool time, guys!

okay yes. that is a LV bag. DONT JUDGE. *i know Scarlett will when she sees me at the airport --and I will ALWAYS be the girl who came on a mission with her LV bag gooosssshhh* BUT you see, being clumsy me, i may or may not have broken the rolly thing of my first bag. and then the alternative just failed on me. so hello, lifesaving-and-coincidentally-stylish bag. the world must just accept you bc youre filled with everything i need. as we learnt at Mission Training in Virginia last year (can't believe it was a year ago.. feels like yesterday..) everything is in my carryon. (incase my checkin luggage doesnt arrive) yes indeed. it's a miracle, everything. the weight fluctuates from 7-9kgs (haha math lit) but either way, it's all good. yes even those extra four pairs of cargo shorts i DEFINITELY dont need but i figure if i gonna rock the cargo short look i might as well do it in a variety of colours and styles (omg i sound like sucha barbie.- im not, i swear) are in there. oh i still have my case though...

ive got a bunch of stuff thatd be nice to have but arent like NEEDS. extra coloured paper... jeans.. a skirt... coloured markers.. an aliceband (ya i literally found that rightnow, i think i wore it last in like.. ninth grade, but hey you never know, i could need it haha.) .. a couple of tanktops and a lightweight warmtop... yeah.. oh other toliteries...ziploc bags..and much space for stuff ill be buying :) YAY BUYING STUFF! that book. SO GREAT. Jack Reacher is amazing, i want to be him. But he's busy investigating some stuff that just... I dont need in my head while I'm on the journey haha.

(got a lil carried away with the photo taking..) this is my 'im wearing you tomorrow so i wont pack you' pile. with a yummyyummy almond and cranberry bar, all on my camprock blanket. which i may bring with, we'll see.

OHMYGOSH i havent told u guys where we're staying. have i? i dno? but wow. it's amazing! not just for a mission, in general, wow.

okay it's already tomorrow aka THE DAY. I have been stalking Lisa Adachi's missionblog and advice and aaah (so sad i didnt get to skype with you before i left...) I am bursting with anticipation! I just realised that, as much as I am like.. I dno, I've been waiting for this day for two years. I feel emotionally prepared, I mean ofcourse there'll be tears and I can't even begin to imagine what's gonna hit me.  But I feel ready. And I've realised, it's so much bigger than me. My family and friends have been so great about it all. I kinda... sometimes forget they're in this equation, too. I guess, I take it for granted how much they care. How much I mean to them. SO thank you, all of you. You really do mean the world to me, and I hope I make you feel that way. Please know you're always in my heart. Someone wise once said that "you've made such an impression on people that when they cross the borders of distant countries they take you with them" -And in a couple of hours you'll be in Tana :) I'm going on this trip and I will make you proud, grow in ways beyond expectation, and make a difference that will last a lifetime. Bc that's what I'm called to do. This is where my heart lies. I am completely certain. And completely EXCITED!

two sleeps two sleeps!

it's two sleeps today. AAAH. and im FREAKINGOUT. i have lastminute shopping to do, and posters to complete so i can have them laminated, friends to see before i leave (i wont see most of them for a month from saturday. sigh) and SAT registration to complete. and and and . i think me stressing in my head is making it worse. i just went to the dentist, he was mean. the dentists on the mission will be supernice :) im really really excited to meet everyone. it's a lovely sunny day outside, im going to go listen to chilled music and enjoy it :) -while finishing my posters. ORT therapy here i come!! and hey, don't forget, if you have burns -do not put ice or butter on them! OH i also learnt that in Madagascar it is illegal to buy tortoises and lemurs and orchids. but i can buy upto 2kgs of vanilla. #interestingfacts

okay now im just stalking vanilla. (i LOVE google) and craving vanilla icecream.. mmm. stop procrastinating, andrea. STOP. 

one week to go.

wow i haven't blogged here in ages. im mildly obsessed with my other blog, to the point where one day without reading or posting on it, feels like eternity. i guess it also felt like the mission was so far away.. and suddenly it's SEVEN DAYS AWAY. seven days. WOW. (haha i cant hear the phrase 'seven days' without thinking of scarymovie3 "can you hear me now? can you hear me now..? seven days.." yeah, i watched that movie waaay too many times. 

Anyway. Today. I went to buy shorts of appropriate length. Ended up buying some nice tshirts and gladiators as well, buuut let's not dwell on that point...I also spent this afternoon reviewing all the notes I took during mission training in Virginia and Cape Town... And brushing up on my education info.. I'm specifically focussing on Burn Care and ORT (Oral Rehydration Therapy).. Chloe is doing Nutrition and Dental Health.. I'm SUPER excited to be doing this mission with my cousin. But before I go on about her, let me announce.. *drumroll please* that Andries is no longer our sponsor. The date for his thesis to be handed in was pushed up by a month, so it was gonna be too hectic for him. Our new sponsor is.. NADIA!

(facebook profile picture stalking..)
She called me today and she seems really sweet. She's a lil nervous about getting everything right, but we came to the conclusion that we will make sure we are as ready as we can be, but live in the knowledge that it will only become real when we're there, and that we will be there for eachother completely. (She's sure she'll be spending much time crying) 

Right now, I'm waiting for my amaaazing friend, Lisa Adachi, to come online so we can have a Skypedate about my final preparations. Her incredible mission blog and experiences with her mission to Amman earlier this year have been such an inspiration to me. 

Wellll it's weekend, if you have some time, check out Fran's blog. She's currently blogging while on her mission in Fortaleza, Brazil. Really exciting stuff! Okay I have to go, Skype awaits!!

Happy weekend everyone :) As chessy as it sounds, (because im too excited about skype to find an inspirational qute) BE THE CHANGE you wish to see in the world, in everything you do this weekend. 

Love Always Xoxo