Barf Bags and Altatooties

Hello from Cape Town!

Well I am happy to say that Carley and I made it here safely last night around 9:45pm (3:45 dallas time)...taking us a full 24 hours to get here. Our first flight was 9 hours to Amsterdam...and that was all honkey dorey until the airplane food didnt settle too well and i found myself throwing up. But on the flight we met this awesome little kid named Annosh, he was three, but he quickly became Carley and I's best friend. We finally landed in Amsterdam and had a 2 hour lay over, and the first thing i did was buy a new tshirt because needless to say my original one was not in the best shape. We were both exhausted because neither of us slept on the flight...but needless to say I passed out on the floor in the airport, and as Carley would say, I looked like a homeless person (im not sure how I feel about that). We then boarded the plane for Cape Town, and the throw up struck again as we were boarding (there was a cute boy next to me in line, but I guess I ruined that one...). We took our seats and found ourselves sitting next to a 17 year old boy, Jodie, who was on the plane with his whole soccer team and they had just been playing in Amsterdam in a tournament. Jodie was the man. I quickly fell asleep on the plane and slept most of the time, until nature would strike on me. We were picked up at the airport and brought back to our beautiful "lodge" where we are staying. Carley and I are sharing a room and we have decided that we are going to have to rearrange...that should be interesting.

This morning we woke up at 7 because we had to go have our orientation and devotional at 8, so needless to say we are a bit jet-lagged. We met the rest of the people who we are living with this morning, and they all seem wonderful. One of the girls went to Hoover High School, so for all of you MTV fans out there that means "Two-a-Days". And then there is Stewart, he is from England, and awesome...turns out we will be working in the same community of Red Hill together. We took an extensive tour of Living Hope this morning and I am already so impressed by what all they do. They have 4 different branches of things they do and really an amazing organization. We also took a brief tour of the clinic...I dont really know what to say other than "wow"...I just dont think that words can really describe it. After that we took a tour through 2 of the communities, Ocean View and Masiphumelele...they are only communities meant for 750 people to live there, but people rent out their land and build shacks all over the properties and so around 3000 people end up living in these places. It was definitely nothing that I had ever seen before and you dont know shacks until you see these places.

This is by far the most beautiful place I have ever been to. There are views from everywhere you look and it is simply breathtaking. The beach is gorgeous and we watched a bunch of people surfing while we were driving around, and if you look closely you will see the shark spotters who are strategically located above the beach to watch the ocean. Today the temperature is about 75 degrees and sunny, so life doesn't get much better than this. I am so beyond excited to finally be here and my heart already truly feels at home.