The Journey and the Arrival

It feels so surreal that I am actually in South Sudan as I type this. After all of the time of preparation, and almost 5 days of travel, I am here. I made it safely and I am very grateful.

Traveling here was an adventure in and of itself. I had a flight out of Jacksonville on Saturday morning, so my parents and I drove there on Friday. When we got to the airport Saturday morning to check in, we found out that my flight to New York had been canceled. There was one a little later out of Savannah that would get me to New York around the same time, so they rebooked me for that one. Luckily, we made it to Savannah with plenty of time and I met Taylor in New York when I got there. The flight from New York to Egypt was extremely long (11 hours in the air, plus a 6 hour time change to Cairo). I was not able to sleep much, but the flight went smoothly.

Next, we had our lovely one-day Cairo adventure! Our tour guide, Laila, picked us up from the airport and took us to our hotel to check in and drop our stuff off. Then we were off to see the Giza pyramids. Laila was great and gave us a ton of information about Cairo on the way. She was telling us about the lack of tourism in Egypt since the revolutions, because many people still do not think that the country is safe to visit. This has been hard on the economy there because it relies so heavily on tourism. When we got to the pyramids, it was evident that tourism was slow because there was not that many people there. That worked out kind of nicely for us though, because it was easy to walk around, explore and take pictures.  Laila knew all of the best places to take pictures so we got a lot of good ones!

After viewing the pyramids we explored an old market place in Cairo. We walked around, went to a Mosque and got serenaded by some local boys. The last thing on the agenda was a dinner cruise down the Nile River. It was so fun! We ate a lot of good food and then they had some entertainment afterwards.

After a brief nights sleep in the hotel, we had our flight from Cairo to Juba. The airport in Juba was very very different than an airport in the US. It was not too hard to navigate though and we got through customs and got our luggage with the help of some friendly locals. After waiting for a couple of hours at the airport (and starting to worry that no one was coming to get us), Sister Bebiana got there to pick us up. We had dinner and stayed the night with the community of Salesian sisters in Juba. Our flight to Wau was the next day and we found out that we could only bring one of our suitcases with us on that plane. After some rearranging, I was able to get everything I would need for now in one suitcase and one of the sisters will bring my other bag the next time she is traveling from Juba to Wau.

When we got to the Juba airport Tuesday morning, we found out that, even though we had tickets, our names were not on the list. Luckily, a sister was flying with us so she helped sort everything out. After a lot of waiting, we ended up getting to go in business class! In business class, they offered us a fine meal of chicken, fish and pasta. Unfortunately it was also 9:30 in the morning so my stomach was not quite ready for all of that! It was a nice flight, though. The airport in Wau was smaller and a lot less hectic than the one in Juba. Sister Marie Antoinette, one of the sisters from my community in Wau, met us at the airport and helped get Taylor and I all squared away with registering in the country. Everything went smoothly and we were on our way to see our new home!

We got the warmest welcome when we arrived at the compound. Our room is absolutely adorable and the sisters made us welcome signs in our rooms as well as their dining room and the Poland volunteers made us welcome signs in our dining room. All of the sisters are amazing and I love them already. It was the perfect day to get here because it was the feast day of the nativity of Mary. We had a birthday celebration for Mary, complete with a cake. We went to mass at the parish (in Arabic!) and then did a procession around town with the Mary statue and prayed the rosary. After the procession, the children performed songs about Mary and it was so precious. There is so much joy in the community.

The sisters gave Taylor and I this week off to rest and get settled and I will start work at the dispensary (the clinic) on Monday. It was nice to have time to set up our room and get more familiar with how things are run. The Poland volunteers, Ania and Marta, have been such a huge help to us. They have answered so many of our questions and showed us a lot about the compound. It’s really great to have the volunteer community of the 4 of us to spend time together and support each other.

Life here is so beautiful-starting every day with mass, participating in such a faithful community, living simply. God is doing big things here and I can’t wait to see what he is able to do in my own heart!

PS They have a dog named Grigio and he is so cute. We are becoming best friends already!

I wanted to post some pictures, but the internet connection just isn't strong enough. Hopefully I can share some later!