The Malawi Experience: Day ONE

Day ONE – June 17, 2010
It has definitely been a long journey.

I will start from the beginning. Yesterday, my family and I drove from Connecticut to Washington Dullus International Airport in Virginia. We got very lost and confused, but I made it just in time to catch my flight on Ethiopian Airlines. This flight was about an 18 hour flight with only one pit stop in Rome, but sadly we could not leave the plane. I sat next to a little 3 year old Ethiopian boy and his mother. They were extremely nice and the little boy was so adorable. The funny part is that the stewardess kept mistaking me as the lady’s daughter so anytime they passed out something they kept saying “oh I gave it to your mother.”

I felt like I was on the plane forever, but I sure was happy to finally reach Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. One thing I noticed about the Ethiopian airport was that there were so many military men walking around with big guns everywhere. We had to stay the night at one of the hotels they provided for us, ours was called DreamLiner Hotel. Driving through Ethiopia was interesting. It looked very poor with a whole bunch of outdoor market like shops that were extremely close together, there were dirt roads, stray animals, and a lot of red, green, and yellow lights just like the colors of their flag.

I had an interesting night in Ethiopia. For one I woke up 3 hours earlier than I was supposed to for no reason so I was just wide awake. I heard people partying across the street at this bar which was kind of funny and then I heard a scary dog howling really loud. I also tried to plug up my phone charger, but I was terrified because I thought I was going to get electrocuted so I kind of plugged it in and backed away like a complete fool. I tried to watch a movie to help me fall back asleep, but it didn’t work instead my lap top just died on me and I couldn’t figure out how to put the TV on at all. I had no idea what time it was over there so I eventually got ready and went down to the lobby and the lady told me it was only 4 something so I was 2 hours earlier than I was supposed to be. Needless to say, it was a very long night for me. Eventually, people started to wake up and we had a pretty good breakfast with some really good fresh fruit and of course regular food like sausage, pancakes, eggs, etc. [To Be Continued...]