After 3 plane rides and a 11 hour layover in London, Sam and I have finally arrived in Malawi.

Starting at the BRC in Houston

 11 Hours in London

Sam and I had an 11 hour layover  in London and took advantage of that time to see all the major sites in London. We rode the Picadilly line into the city and saw Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, the London Eye, and Platform 9 3/4 at King’s Cross! We did this all in 3 hours and I would say we were quite successful, but exhausted afterwards. Only disappointment was that I did not see Kate Middleton while I was there; however, I did buy a postcard of her. 🙂

 

Blantyre, Malawi!!!

Flying into Malawi was very interesting. The Blantyre airport is a single room, and the airport gets 1 to 2 flights a day at most. While standing in line for customs we could see people loading suitcases onto the baggage carousel. Security was definitely a lot more relaxed than the US. Since Sam and I had to shuttle 11 suitcases out to MK (one of them didn’t make it, and will hopefully make it on the next flight in), we took multiple trips and walked in and out past customs multiple times with no problem at all. Once we got out, MK was there ready to pick us up.

We are so lucky to have MK here to help us out. She drove us to Cure House (where we will be staying for our time here), and took us to the grocery store to get food and other essentials. Cure House is a house for volunteers next to the hospital CURE. Cure is a very unique orthopedic hospital where they have the largest number of surgeons anywhere in Malawi and they provide free orthopedic surgeries to children. Their slogan is “Adults pay a fee, so children can walk free.”

Work starts tomorrow at 6 am

We are not wasting any time here at all. Tomorrow morning at 6 am, we start on a 5 day trip to hospitals around Malawi that have been collecting bCPAP data.