Well what can I say? It's been an action packed 48 hours since we left London on Sunday night, fresh faced and excited. Here's the story of our somewhat epic journey...
Team Malawi were reunited at the Hilton Heathrow Terminal 5 (courtesy of Emma's amazing boss and Hilton York) and enjoyed what could definitely be one of the most luxurious starts to a GOLD project there has ever been. We had a lovely evening meal, a never ending breakfast, a relaxing afternoon in the spa and hydrotherapy pool and plenty of hot water (a commodity we are already sorely missing).
The next morning we headed to Heathrow carrying/dragging our very heavy bags between us. A game of higher or lower amused us whilst checking in our bags (as well as most of the queue behind us). One GOLDie's bag weighed in at just 13kg! This girl packs light, can you guess who?! Passing through security took a while, not pointing any fingers (Laura who managed to lose her passport in the space of a few feet and Emma who had to be frisked and swabbed for explosives...) but we were in the departure gate in no time.
The flight was delayed by 40 minutes but that just gave us extra time for the goodbye calls to our families and some food to keep us going. We have some nervous flyers in the group, particularly Alannah who was shaking like a leaf by the time we got to the gate. We weren't able to get seats next to each other and were spread all over the plane and that hadn't helped the situation. As we tried to switch our seats the Captain was passing by and came and had a chat with Alannah, talking her through the flight and reassuring her. She was truly spoiled from that moment on and the BA staff were fantastic, smuggling her gin and sweets, taking her to see the sunset through the emergency doors and giving her a copy of the flight path signed by all of the crew at the end of the flight. She did so well and we're all really proud of how brave she was.
The flight itself was uneventful but bumpy in places and we landed in Lilongwe 17 hours later after a quick connection (there was running) in Johannesburg. Arrivals in Lilongwe was out first taste of how Malawians queue (they don't) but we got through without any major issues. A lovely driver was at the airport to meet us and drove us to our hostel in Lilongwe, the Golden Peacock Lodge.
We were met by a team of people not long after, some lovely girls from MAGGA and from the Malawi GOLD teams who we will be working with throughout the project. After some introductions, hugging and some singing they left us to recover and it was freezing showers and an early night all round.
Our second day has been spent planning tomorrow's training, buying the resources we'd need and exploring the local area. Tomorrow will be out first day of training and we're all really looking forward to getting stuck in!
That's all from us for now, we have a very early wake up call!
Much love,
Team Malawi
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