South Africa!

I am off to South Africa this afternoon. This trip has been in the works for a while…more in the dream stage than anything. Since leaving Malawi (the first time) Isabelle, Rhona and I knew we were going to get together again. We just didn’t know when or where. They have been able to get together a few times in England and in Luxembourg and I’ve seen each of them separately when they came back to Nkhoma. During one of their weekends together in Europe they decided that the reunion would be in South Africa around March. Of course, it then took some doing with all of our schedules—Rhona’s rounds as a doctor training for a specialty, Isabelle’s work and school schedule, and my being who knows where at the time. We tried to rope a few more people into coming along but we weren’t successful. The plans (well at least all the plane tickets) came together only about a month ago. I leave Haiti on the 15th to fly to NYC to London where I’ll meet up with Rhona and fly down to Cape Town. Isabelle leaves on the 15th so she’ll beat us to SA by a day. We will spend some time in Cape Town meeting with Will (one of the eye surgeons who was in Nkhoma and is now working in England but down for a visit with his family and some friends) and Bertus (he was teaching science in Nkhoma for a couple of months my first time down). I also get the added bonus to see Ken and Colleen (the couple who helped at Ebenezer during my second tour) and Natasha (UN doctor in Nkhoma the second year). Then we will take a roadtrip to Bloemfontein to see the Veitch family…
I am super excited for the trip and hope you are all doing well this March! (my next blog probably won’t happen until April when I’ve returned)