Phew! That was quite the journey!

We left Ottawa on Friday afternoon and we finally arrived here in Malawi late today (we are 10 hours ahead here!)...what a journey it has been so far!

I have to admit the highlight to me so far was was that I got to cross another item off my bucket list!!!  YES!!!

A fellow CCA coach used some of his Air Canada points to upgrade me to 1st Class on the flight from Toronto to London, England and I was lucky enough to get the last seat....WOWEE!!!  You should have seen my high five'ing and jumping for joy in the airport!!!  Thank you so much Scott I couldn't stop grinning the whole time and got such a good sleep in my POD! Thank you, thank you, thank you....what a wonderful start to my journey!

After 4 long flights and close to 30 hours later including a layover in London, we arrived in Malawi and noticed immediately how different it was from Ghana.  It is very lush and green and not as humid as Accra.  However there are huge gas shortages so the line ups for gas are extremely long and take at least a day!!! YES, it takes a whole day here to wait in line for gas!  Remind me not to complain about our gas prices again, at least we have access to gas when we need it!

So it's off to MUSCCO tomorrow (the central credit union for Malawi) to hopefully learn more about out the credit unions (or SACCOS as they are called here) we are visiting....and another full day of travelling for Garth and I as we are off to the Northern Region of Malawi!  Hopefully I am feeling a little better as my Malaria drugs are making me extremely dizzy!

Zikomo Kwambini...which means thank you very much as we learnt today Malawian's always say thank you very much not just thank you...and from what we've experienced so far the Malawian people are just as kind and generous as the wonderful Ghanaian's I met last year......WOW!! I still have to pinch myself at times that I am even here!

Heidi :)

P.S. sorry for the lack of pictures, I'm having internet issues.