I'm Heeeeeere!

I have been in Sierra Leone for exactly 3.5 days now (give or take a little) and am starting to adjust. My trip was largely uneventful...until I got to Sierra Leone. :) The airport in Sierra Leone is built on a peninsula so in order to get to the capital city you have to cross a large inlet of the ocean. I've always taken a ferry in the past, but this time was going to take a water taxi. This is where I had a couple of problems. I arrived with 4 bags which is 2 over what is normally allowed on the plane (I paid extra to bring these bags). Now before you think I'm a huge clothes horse, ONE of those bags were for the people already here. The rest were my shoes. Not really. :) Well, the water taxi people were not happy about my extra bags! They said that I was only allowed to take 2 bags I was like..."wait, nobody told us that. I can't just leave my bags at the airport!" So I tried to bluff and say...well, maybe another water taxi can take me. But he totally called my bluff!! Oops! He told me to give him my ticket and he would refund my money. The problem was that my ticket had been bought by someone else on the other side so I didn't have my ticket and to be honest, I had no idea how to go about getting another water taxi. Rats. Well, he went away for a while and when he came back they started loading my bags on the bus to take us to the departure beach. Phew! I made it.

Well, when we got to the departure beach, we found out that they had oversold the tickets and there were too many of us. (My four bags seemed REALLY large at this point and I felt like I stuck out like a sore thumb for bringing SO MUCH stuff!) Oops again! :) Well, after about an hour and a half of people yelling at each other, another little speed boat arrived and they put every ones luggage on that little boat. Except mine. Mine went on the back of the passenger boat. It wasn't tied down and the slats between the rails were really big so I was a bit nervous that it would fall out. When I asked the porter about it, he said "well, it's never happened before." Alrighty then. But they stayed put and I finally arrived in Freetown (poor Chad and his son had been waiting for me at the arrival place for 3 hours!)

I'm staying with an American family here and the house is really nice! I have my own room and my own bathroom and we run the generator at night for the security lights so I have a fan if I want it. Awesome!! I will post some pictures next time.

I am adjusting bit by bit to being here and each day is getting better. I'll admit that when I first arrived there was a part of me that wanted to turn around and go home. But I am slowly adjusting to my new reality of this being my home (the hardest part of this adjustment being that I won't see my fam every few days). But God has been so faithful and I'm getting really excited to see what the next part of His plan is! Thank you so much for those who have been praying for me! It's such a blessing.